Have you hugged a tree recently?

The only tree I ever actually hugged was a redwood. I wanted to see how far around it my arms could – or rather, couldn’t – reach.

As for people referred to as “tree huggers”? More power to them. They care, a lot, and I respect that very much.

Do you know anyone who actually has hugged a tree or is “tree hugging” just a sound bite kind of thing that you think people do?

@lillycoyote Well, I know @DrasticDreamer did – but that was just to measure.

I only hug skinny bald trees – sorry but I’m “barkist”

Actually, I think tree hugging was really just an anachronism coined because people tied or chained themselves to trees to try stop them being torn down.
To me, a tree hugger is pretty much someone who loves nature…........maybe I’m generalising it too much though

I’ll just leave this here..

@DrasticDreamer I’ve done the exact same thing.

I also hugged the tree right in front of my house when I was a kid. It was about to be cut down because it was dying. This was a tree that my swing was tied to, that I used to take naps under, that I used to climb, etc. I gave it a goodbye hug and told it I loved it.

@rangerr I watched it, and while they do seem a little crazy – they said it was an old growth tree that had been cut down. So, yeah… That makes them seem a little less crazy in my mind. I can’t stand it when people cut old growth down like it doesn’t mean anything.

The last time I hugged a tree, was Sequoia National Park, one of the Sequoia trees, that was 15 years ago the last time I went.

Not literally, but figuratively. I am a member of the Wilderness Society Tasmania, and I marched in a rally that was opposing a pulp-mill being built in the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania, link
Actually, I often go to Mt. Field National park with my family and hug the giant trees there :)

@Zen_Again I have kissed my house though, which is made out of wood, which is made from trees. :) I live in house that I inherited and is fully paid for, and sometimes when I come home, in from the cold like it is now, I’m so grateful to have a warm, paid for house to come home to that I have actually, a couple of times, kissed the walls upon entering, just out of gratitude. Yeah, I know, I know it’s crazy, I know it’s pretty damn crazy, but does it count as tree hugging?

no

Kind of when I was trying to get the Christmas tree in the house.

I forgot my beautiful tree in the front yard that shaded the whole yard. It was above the sewer system that had to be dug up, 50 years to grow my beautiful tree and 30 minutes to turn it into mulch. I gave it a little talk and pats on her bark and then got ouy of the way!! She is mulched around my roses.

I think I have a crush on Hudson Leik. Seriously.

That said, as much as I may claim to champion the greater good of pine trees, I gotta say man, I ain’t never hugged no tree.

Me being an ass that gets arrested for manifestations through vandalizing MacDick’s restaurants and fucking up chainsaws so that the guy who just wants to pay his rent and feed his kids gets disfigured when he starts it ain’t gonna save nature, and I know that.

no i haven’t, not for quite a while actually ;)

Maybe the term tree hugger originated from those who protested cutting down trees by grabbing onto them. The term now is mostly metaphorical.

When I was much younger, I hugged trees. Haven’t hugged a tree in, I’d guess, 20 years.
Doesn’t mean I care about them any less.

Not only do I hug ‘em… I hump on them!

@rangerr, lol, beat me to the punch

O.K., I’m going to go all Oprah on y’all and confess everything. There actually is at least one tree, a live oak, that I have a huge crush on: LINK, but I haven’t gotten up the nerve to even suggest, to even try hugging it. I think maybe I should just casually ask it out for coffee and see how it goes from there. If nothing happens, well… then it wasn’t meant to be.

I wouldn’t dream of hugging a tree where I live, they are covered with green ants and those little suckers bite and it HURTS!!!

Uh…isn’t that some form of sexual harassment?

i tried it last summer – got covered in bugs…...........

I remember when my 2 kids tried to hug a giant sequoia tree back in 1999 when we toured California. My daughter said, awesome, even if all of my classmates were here right now, we couldn’t hug this tree completely.

I huggled a prickly tree so I felt alot of pointy bits

Sure I hug my trees. You mean you don’t hug yours?

Seriously, I have hugged the trees in our orchard many times since we planted them. They have a consciousness, though it is so slow that it takes a very long hug to sense it. So I generally reserve the tree-hugging for Mabon and Ostara, and I take the whole day and hug every tree on our property (so nobody thinks I have a thing for a specific tree and nobody gets jealous). There’s some 72 pecans, fruit trees, crape myrtles, a chinese pistachio, oaks, pines, hackberries, cottonwood, mulberry, mimosas, catalpa, jujube, wild plum, walnut, and one volunteer species we haven’t been introduced to.

Trees like to be hugged. You can hear them breathing if you find the right spot to hug. It doesn’t hurt. But do not, if you value your skin, hug a shagbark hickory or a dead tree; shagbarks will hurt you, and dead trees often hold live bees, which do not like their tree to be hugged.

I don’t hug trees around here- they’re all pokey. I have hugged a tree before and it actually felt good to hug something so solid. Plus it was just amazing to share physical contact with something that will be around long after I’m just worm food.

I’ve hugged a tree. There’s a big, old tree in the park across the road and it’s good for a stretch to hug it. Who knows? Maybe the tree likes it too.

@SABOTEUR I asked about hugging. Is there something you’d like to share with us?

@Zen_Again: I’ll take the 5th.

With that pic in your av – I’d plead the 5th, 6th and 7th. ~

I sure did! Just before I cut it down. I love nature too. I love how it keeps me warm on cold nights.

Nah, but I kicked one the other day.

@thriftymaid – did you hurt your foot??

@rooeytoo . Yeah, the darn thing’s hard.

Yes I LOVE TREES – i LOVE OAK TREES – WRAP MY ARMS AROUND THEM IF ITS NICE AND WARM DAY AND FEEL THE BARK- OOH THEY ARE GORGEOUS AND APPARENTLY GIVE OUT GOOD ENERGY. SOLID – HORSE CHESTNUTS -SWEET CHESTNUTS AND I HATE IT WHEN THEY ARE CUT DOWN..

Hi @brandysnap and welcome to fluther. Thanks for resurrecting this week-old question, however, all-caps is considered yelling here.

:-)

oh I am sorry :) i wont do it again….

No biggy. :-)

I hug trees…! It kinda feels like they are full of their own spirit/ the spirit of Nature, and they pass that through you as well, because there is a strong part of you that is the same as them. They feel both individual, yet whole with the Earth as well. Sort of thing…

@Sorceren I think I might have a thing for certain trees, but I don’t mean to offend… =P