When my husband Frank and I travel, we walk. Sure, we rent a car and all that but whenever we can, we explore by walking.
Explore-walking is great for a bunch of reasons: our bodies get movement, we interact with people and nature, we can pause for views as long as we want and we always see things that we never ever would have seen if we'd only been driving.
Wouldn’t it have been sad to have missed these guys? We would have if we’d only gone by car.
I mean. Seriously. This thing is the size of a man’s finger.
On our February trip to Martinique, we saw lambs and donkeys, those extravagant caterpillars, and more crazy explosions of flowers than we could count.
One day, we saw dozens and dozens of village weaver birds in a massive ceiba pentandra tree.
See all the brown nests?
The ceiba pentandra tree grows not just on the Northern coast of Martinique but in other tropical places from America and Mexico to Central America, Africa and Asia. It has many common names like kapok or silk-cotton tree but in French it is (very French-ily) called le fromager or the cheese maker because it's said that the wood is as soft as cheese. But the biggest thing to notice about the ceiba pentrandra is that it is, well, big: in fact, the largest species on Martinique and can grow to over 200 ft.
Me and a tree whilst hiking.
We saw les fromagers while hiking and along the roadside.
This one actually stopped us mid-sentence. We both said WHOA.
There was a towering fromager on the road to town. We'd driven under its wide canopy many times and vaguely noticed its size. But the morning we walked under it, it stunned us. Not just because it soared over the road, but even more because it was alive with about a hundred village weaver birds chattering and flying in and out of their upside down nests.
The village weaver birds meticulously craft their hanging nests with strips of palm leaf and grasses and it is common for 80-100 bird pairs to nest in a single tree. The birds are in and out and calling to each other, frankly, making a joyful racket. It seems that they choose to nest all together for the whole safety-in-numbers thing but to be honest, it also seemed like they were just having a great time.
SO MANY BIRDS! SO MANY NESTS! SO MUCH FLYING ABOUT! SO MUCH TALKING!
I’m not just telling you this as an excuse to show you travel pictures. There is wisdom in this colony of village weavers in a fromager tree.
First, slow down. Look around. There are wonders everywhere. If you find yourself rushing and overwhelmed, pause. It may seem counter-intuitive when there is so much to do — but take a breath. See what you might be missing.
Second, there is not just safety in community, though there is that. But there is also connection. And joy. There’s work to be done, sure – palm leaves to weave and food to be collected and baby village weavers to raise – but why not do it together? Why not gather and do the work but also chat each other up and have fun?
Finally, indigenous people considered the ceiba pentandra tree to be sacred. In different cultures, the tree holds various meanings and is the place of a range of ceremonies from harvest to burial. In general, though, the fromager “represents a turning point in the trajectory of our life. We may feel powerless due to circumstances that are beyond our control. Now is the time to reevaluate our life by going inward and controlling how we react in order to move forward.” (Source: Tree Spirit Wisdom) My opinion is that we get to choose what is sacred to us.
Slow down. Look around.
Do what needs doing together.
And also reflect and look inward. Treat community as sacred, even if (especially if) it’s fun.
Also, keep fingers clear of enormous caterpillars.