An Other Community

Curiously the rain sounds steadily upon the roof, though the clouds have broken and the early morning sun shines brightly through the windows.

Stepping outside in my nightshirt and slippers, I brace for the cold, which sure enough stings my nose and reddens my cheeks. Below me I hear the rushing water of the seasonal creek that flows nearby. Most of the year it is dry; now it is a torrent. It had rained all night, two storms over a few days actually, which is a blessing for this parched land. 

What I had perceived as rainfall was the steady release of water drops from the leaves and branches of the decades-old oak that towers over our house. The base of its trunk is level with our flat roof, with the rear of our home being burrowed into the hillside where the tree now grows, a narrow swale and railroad-tie retaining wall separating us.  

“Dripline’ is a descriptive word that designates the circumference of the area beneath a tree’s branches. Half of our small home (a converted barn that was once part of a sprawling 100-acre horse ranch) lies within the dripline of that magnificent tree

The Coast Live Oak (Quercus agrifolia) captures water with its leaves— whether winter storms or summer fog— and gently releases it to the leaf and acorn-littered earth below. Slowly enough to stop pelting rain from rushing down a hillside, effectively enough to borrow ocean moisture during the hot summer months, the tree gifts itself and the land with life-giving water. 

I have read that in addition to calming rainstorms and protecting the understory from pelting rain, these oaks will capture flying embers during a firestorm. They are thought to offer protective value to those residents fortunate enough to live in proximity to the coastal oak woodland community.

I count myself among those fortunate ones.

To be a community means to share things in common. The trees, water, soil, plants, birds, and creatures exist in a community of complex interdependence.

To be humans in community means we too share things in common, including attitudes, interests, and goals. It means we have a common entrance into the world that we jointly build. In a community, we move in and through our world together; we are members of one another. 

The namesake of the coastal live oak woodland community provides entrance to its world.

In its shade you will find blackberry, gooseberry, coffeeberry, elderberry, poison oak, and toyon— all sources of food for birds, deer, raccoons, skunks, weasels, opossums, coyotes, foxes, bears, and wood rats. 

The sunlight that filters through the canopy allows for all sorts of wildflowers in the understory as well. Asters and monkeyflowers, snowberries, hummingbird sage, fuschia, and penstemon, to name a few.

In the sunniest spots you will find grasses— often oats, rye, and sedges. Though introduced from Europe, they serve as a feast for the diminutive California vole (often mistaken for a field mouse), and the voracious pocket gopher— the meal for many predators, including white egrets and a variety of raptors. 

Woodpeckers, wrens, hummingbirds, and titmice all build their nests in the coastal oak. You will hear the Great Horned owl calling from its upper branches.

The striking larvae of the tussock moth feast on the oaks’ leaves, and in turn both caterpillar and moth become a feast for American Robins, Bullock’s Orioles, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Western Bluebirds. Towhees and thrashers scratch at the leaf litter, and you will find nuthatches climbing head first down the branches and trunk, searching for insects in its deeply fissured bark.

The Indigenous Chumash peoples who lived here before us jealously guarded their stands of oaks. These trees provided acorns for food, and hardwood for fuel, making bows, and building small articles of furniture.

Oak bark provided a red dye for hides, and galls were used for medicine. Acorns were traded for other foodstuffs, like chia or hollyleaf cherries.

We can learn much from the Indigenous about the land they are in communion with, if only we were to ask, and listen. With the Chumash removed as caretakers of these lands, the woodpeckers and scrub jays have become the most vocal guardians of the oak trees and their gifts. 

Standing in the damp cold, I smile at this wild place I now call my home. Even as I have broken ties with some of my human communities, I feel embraced by this one. I am “rewilding”— opening myself to meeting this community’s members, learning its language, discovering its fragility, appreciating its strength, and rejoicing in its ability to heal itself.

And heal me. 

What can we learn from non-human communities? How can we care for them, even as they provide care for us?

How might living well with the land— its plants, its creatures, its water and its climate— help us to live well with ourselves, and with one another?

How, indeed.

Image: Blue sky viewed through a green oak tree. © Yvonne Wilber