The Hibaku Trees: Giving Us Peace and Hope in the Second Nuclear Age (Part 1)
by Nancy Tam

The biopic Oppenheimer swept the Oscars this past year and brought to the cinema the Father of the atomic bomb, who is mythologized as the American Prometheus. (In brief, Prometheus stole a lightning bolt from Zeus and secretly gave it to mankind after Zeus had forbid him from doing so. Zeus is outraged when he sees that man has fire, and orders Prometheus to be chained to a rock as a cruel punishment where his liver is eaten away daily by vultures, and his liver grows back each morning, so that he can endure this suffering for eternity.) The world now has fire, and the moral of this myth is that human beings do not know how to responsibly manage fire, and that humankind will use it in dangerous ways, and will eventually put at risk humankind’s very existence as well as the planet Earth, by turning fire into a weapon of mass destruction… this all came to be so, when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan to end World War II.

At the beginning of every August, we have the sorrowful and solemn reminder of the radioactive horrors of the nuclear age and the devastating damages suffered by humankind and the long-term destructive impacts on our environment (air, soil, water, our ecosystems and wildlife habitats, and all our more-than-human relations), and the cumulative negative effects of radioactive exposures/toxic waste on human health outcomes (i.e.: leukemia and cancer) as well as ongoing climate change.

It was thought that these atomic bombs would serve as a deterrent, that this apocalyptic nuclear reality would be the “full stop” to human beings going to war again; dropping the atomic bombs on Japan was supposed to be the war to end all wars… sadly, the human tragedy of war trauma has not ended, it marches onwards. As of January 2024, the Doomsday Clock is only 90 seconds from midnight, the closest humankind has ever been to the imminent threat of nuclear war or a catastrophic climate change calamity which wipes out all of humanity.

What is there to do? We may feel at a loss, helpless and powerless, as the world seems so far away from being able to negotiate a sustainable peaceful way to co-inhabit together on this planet. In my search for solace and for answers, I have discovered Taoist philosophy, the wise wonders of Nature, the powerful beauty of whispering Trees and a sacred healing modality called Homeopathy that was taught to me by my dear mentor, Hoe Mark, as an inner peace movement.

We, as human beings, are akin to living human trees, with a deeply interconnected consciousness, as our root systems form a collective interdependent network of support and communication, to give, offer and share what is needed by any particular tree in the “forest of shared humanity”; a beautiful collaborative and mutual way to sustainably live in a web of harmony, while still honouring our diversity, too. The way to deep and lasting peace is to first of all make peace within ourselves, to not make war with pain, symptoms and illness, to not aim to destroy or attack symptoms, but to see symptoms as messengers of distress, dis-ease and dys-biosis that are all seeking understanding, healing and a re-balancing to create wholeness and wellness. It is a radically different paradigm that has opened the way for me to understand more clearly what the origins of disease are, the effects of suppressing disease processes, and what true healing involves.

Healing an individual cannot be done by focusing on an anatomical body part in isolation from the whole being; ideally, it is a holistic process encompassing the body, mind, heart and spirit as well as our dreams. Healing is a shared journey over time and space, and is connected to the fabric of the universe, with roots going back to our family tree genetics and lived experiences/trauma, our ancestors, to our history, culture, beliefs, ritual and ceremonies, to all of Nature as part of the cosmology of the stars and planets. Healing, as it unfolds, is brilliant, vast and awesome to behold; as simple as gazing at a single star and then, when zooming out, we realize that the shining star we are looking at belongs to a constellation of stars and goes beyond and is connected to other planets, galaxies, dimensions and realms.

To look for inspiration and hope about how we could overcome the modern day existential challenges we face, I look to the trees that survived the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945; they are called the Hibaku-jumoku. There are 62 trees from Hiroshima that survived the atomic bomb. And a group of volunteers called Green Legacy Hiroshima (https://glh.unitar.org.) was created in 2011 to save seeds from these witness trees, with the mission to share these Hibaku seeds with partners around the world, with a message of peace and hope. In a similar way, the Mayors for Peace initiative distributes seeds from Hibaku trees to member cities around the world. In Canada, we have Ginkgo biloba trees as silent witnesses and ambassadors of peace in Oak Bay, BC and Montreal, Quebec (https://www.mayorsforpeace.org.) For more information, please see this online article: Hibaku Trees of Hiroshima (photographs by Hiroi Tsuchida. Text by Peter Del Tredici): A Series of striking photographs presents the trees that survived the atomic bomb blast of August 6, 1945. http://ewa.home.amu.edu.pl/Tradici,%20Hibaku-trees-of-hiroshima.pdf

The next article (Part 2) in this series will look at Canada’s role in providing uranium for the atomic bombs dropped on Japan and some homeopathic remedies with the “survivor signature.”

Nancy Tam (B.Ed., B.F.A., B.S.W.) is a registered social worker specializing in holistic wellness from a Taoist totality perspective. Her therapeutic approach is rooted in the Dreambody channel of process-oriented psychology (POP) and working with your active imagination, dreams (waking and night), mirroring, deep democracy, and personal life myths to cultivate inner and outer peace. Nancy enjoys facilitating workshops about Dreambody POP, Non-Violent Communication and Constellations Homeopathy. For details about her peace activism work via the Positive Peace Umbrella Project being launched early in August, in Treaty Six Territory and the Homeland of the Métis, in Saskatoon, see display ad on page 17 of the 30.2 July/August issue of the WHOLifE Journal.