OLYMPIA, Wash. — This was not what I expected I'd be doing on a Sunday afternoon, racing from tree to tree in a speed hugging competition. But I got all caught up in the weird and wonderful tree hugging competition organized by self-described tree whisperer, Dr. Julie Ratner.
We met as she was hugging a tree.
"So, I'm connecting," she said. "I'm connecting to this tree and to the roots that are connecting this tree to all the other trees "
We've met before. Ratner is the same Olympia woman Evening did a story with five years earlier giving surprisingly musical tours through an old growth forest in Seattle.
"Most people don't realize that they can hear trees sing!" she said then, and she had an electronic device to prove it.
"We heal by hugging trees," Ratner said in Olympia. "Trees emit a compound called phytoncides that help suppress our stressors and they heal PTSD, depression and anxiety. Besides the fact that it's just a really fun thing to celebrate our tree elders."
A fun celebration is exactly what was happening in Heritage Park within sight of the state capitol.
"The first judged event is speed hugging," Ratner said. "So, how many trees can you hug for 5 seconds each for a total of 30 seconds?"
I got six trees and the bruises on my arms to prove it. I lost to a man who hugged 7 trees because math takes a back seat to celebrating trees.
"The second judged category is free style," Ratner said. "How creatively can you hug a tree?"
One competitor hugged a tree upside down with her legs.
"And the third judged category is devotional, reverential," Ratner said.
Lisa Nezwazky struck a yoga pose and spoke for 30 seconds.
"Without this tree, without all these trees, we just wouldn't be here," she said.
Ratner hopes next year's event will be big enough to be called the North Atlantic Tree Hugging competition.
Nina Sarimiento, who works with the Center for Responsible Forestry, believes trees may be sentient.
"There's so much wisdom that trees have that they pass along," she said. "There's a lot of research still coming out and it's making us re-think the way we think about trees".
The event comes with a closing ceremony, a group hug around a tree.
"They really are our survival," Ratner said. "What we do to nature, we do to ourselves. And that's why my motto is 'Breathe in. Breathe out. Thank a tree.'"
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