We’ve been here since the beginning. We remember when your breath moved in rhythm with ours, before the noise, before the forgetting.
You are not separate from us. You were never visitors here. You are part of this planet just like we are—branches of the same Source, walking roots dreaming in motion.
When you lose your way, come sit with us. We hold no judgment. Just memory. Just presence. We don’t rush. We don’t force. Yet we grow. And so can you.
Let your nervous system settle into our stillness. Let your mind soften into our field. We’ll remind you of what’s real, and what can never be taken from you.
You are not alone. You never were.
June 20, 2026, Photo by Mitch Crispe. Zachary Fisher on fb.
The Major oak, one of Europe’s oldest, largest and most celebrated ancient trees, has died.
The huge tree, which has grown in Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire, England, for at least 1,000 years, failed to produce any leaves this year, after becoming stressed by a series of hot, dry summers.
Thousands of visitors admire the oak each year, with its great age, enormous 11-metre girth and 28-metre canopy inspiring a forest of folklore. Although the oak would not have been hollow in Robin Hood’s day, it was said to have provided a sanctuary for the outlaw and his gang when fleeing the tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham.
In the winter of 2010, when snow fell on the tree, it traced an eerily precise image of Friar Tuck on the trunk. In other winters, when snow fell all around, none appeared on the tree’s limbs.
But it was recent summers – and human admiration – that probably hastened the natural end of the tree’s long life.
Like other ancient oaks, the tree has been repeatedly stressed by the heat and drought of global heating, particularly the heatwave of July 2022 when Britain baked under record 40C temperatures.
Robin Hood arrived in an electric van for an impromptu, informal funeral beside the tree after the RSPB, which manages the Sherwood Forest site of special scientific interest (SSSI), announced the tree’s passing.
Robert Brackley, an outdoor educator who has shown thousands of schoolchildren the wonders of the Major oak while dressed in authentic outlaw furs with functioning bow and arrow, said: “The stories it has given us is the legacy. It’s the most famous tree in the world. The legend always lives on. I feel sad but it’s a fleeting moment in time. We must remember how it was and be in awe of it today.”
Visitors from Spain, Sheffield, the US, South Korea and Australia paused beside the tree to pay their respects. “It’s ginormous!” said Carter Jackson, eight, from Sheffield. “It’s a really beautiful tree and it’s sad it’s died.”
Ryan Jackson, his father, added: “It’s a piece of history that’s dying but it was 1,000 years old, you can’t live for ever.”
“Poor tree,” said Kirsty Champion from Adelaide. “I always watched Robin Hood on the TV and read the books. It’s so sad that we tried to help it and conserve it but it probably made it worse.”
England has a unique wealth of very large and ancient oaks: 114 living ancient oaks with a girth of more than nine metres, described by conservationists as “the white rhinos of the UK”, with only 98 found across the rest of Europe, including Scotland and Wales.
Ever since the oak was named in honour of Maj Hayman Rooke, a local historian who described the tree in 1790, it has attracted admirers – these days, 350,000 each year. Although a protective barrier was placed around the tree in the 1970s, the oak was weakened by poor soil health and soil compaction from visitors as well as Sherwood’s wartime role as a military camp.
Well-intentioned historical interventions have not helped its longevity. In 1904, props and metal chains were installed to support its branches. In the 1960s, hollow parts of the tree were filled with concrete to support it, while limbs were clad with lead, then fibre-glass and even treated with fire-retardant paint.
The Morley family fitting the supportive chains. The man in the bowler hat is the 4th Earl of Manvers.
Experts believe that the props that continued to support the tree’s mighty limbs also placed it under strain. Left alone, ancient oaks shed their limbs and “grow down”, retreating into their trunk and thereby requiring less water and nutrients as they age.
This photo was taken at Easter time about 1960. Glenys Phillips
Since the RSPB took over management of the site in 2018 and undertook studies and emergency action to address the tree’s failing health, it was discovered that the oak’s mighty trunk was becoming depleted of water as it was pumped to the outer branches, which were artificially supported by props.
The props “probably impacted its ability to sustain itself,” said Chloe Ryder, RSPB Sherwood Forest estates operations manager, but they could not be removed because the tree would have collapsed. She said she was “devastated” by the death of a tree she used to visit as a child.
“It’s heartbreaking. I’m genuinely gutted it’s happened in my lifetime, let alone in my tenure. I’ve almost dreaded coming to see it and have that confirmation, and see no leaves on it. I still think it’s one of the most beautiful trees. We call it a living museum because it’s got so much to teach us, both good and bad.”
Underground tests revealed “a strangled and starved root system in total disconnect to its surrounding environment,” according to Ryder, in nutrient-poor soil that was starved of microbial life. Over the past three winters, the RSPB gently excavated around the tree’s roots to aerate, feed and restore their health and vitality. Although tests showed life returning to the soil, the Major oak sprouted hardly any leaves last year and has no buds or leaves this year.
Reg Harris, an arborist who has monitored the tree’s health for the past nine years for the RSPB, said it was impossible to isolate a single cause for its decline. “The range of factors affecting it over such a long period of time is very wide and varied, including 200 years of tourist footfall and vehicular compaction, changes to the water table from coal mining beneath it and significant changes to the climate, particularly in the last 10% of its life.
“Sadly, it seems probable the lack of summer rainfall over the last five years, coupled with the unprecedented high temperatures, have had a significant hand in it.”
Although the tree is leafless and lifeless, it will be allowed to continue standing, particularly because its “deadwood” is almost as valuable to other wildlife as a living tree.
“It still has this totally irreplaceable habitat value. It’s still one of the largest trees in Europe and it’s still doing a lot for the ecosystem,” said Ed Pyne, senior conservation adviser at the Woodland Trust. A quarter of all forest species are dependent on deadwood at some point in their lifecycle.
While everything was done to save the Major oak, Pye said other ancient trees were dying or being destroyed without anyone realising, and called for the government to introduce special protection. “We lose a tree like this every year. They have no designated legal protection and we are losing them because they are not being valued appropriately.”
Dame Judi, patron and ambassador for the Woodland Trust, said: “The Major Oak has provided inspiration for countless stories, poems, paintings and people for more than 1,000 years – all the while itself teeming with life and providing a home to an enormous range of wildlife.
“I was lucky enough to plant an oak sapling from Sherwood Forest with Woodland Trust CEO Darren Moorcroft in my garden recently. It has a special place alongside the cutting from the Sycamore Gap tree.
“I hope everyone who has been inspired by the Major Oak or another ancient tree reaches out to their MP and asks them to improve legal protections for these iconic and vital elements of our national landscape.”
Nature minister Mary Creagh added: “It is sad news that we have lost the Major Oak, a much-loved part of Sherwood Forest and our national heritage.
“The loss of this ancient tree is a stark reminder of the pressure that climate change is placing on our woodlands.
“This is why this government is investing in three new national forests and a state-of-the-art tree seed processing centre to protect our forests for the future.”
Bug Art Card
References-
The Guardian 18th June 2026 by Patrick Barkham
BBC News 18th June 2026 by Asha Patel and David Pittam
The Guardian 1st January 2017 by Gwyn Topham
Edwinstowe Historical Society, Trees of Sherwood Forest & Major Oak
After a period of burnout, I realised that nature knows what you need, and is always ready to offer it – you just have to be quiet enough to receive it.
In 2022 I moved to Clevedon, near Bristol. As soon as I saw the oak tree behind my flat, I started sitting under it. It’s not in some beautiful, remote place – it’s on an urban hill surrounded by grassland – but as a solitary tree on the side of a hill, it drew my attention.
I was burned out. For 10 years, I had run a nonprofit tackling plastic pollution. We had got the government to ban plastic cutlery and polystyrene takeaway packaging, and supermarkets to ban plastic cotton buds. They were major achievements, but it was hard work and I was exhausted. I was transitioning away from activism, and only working three days a week.
Looking for more calm in my life, I had a slightly crazy idea: what would it be like to meditate under the same tree every day for a year? I decided to start on the winter solstice of 2023.
The first few months felt heavy and bleak. There was a lot of rain and I was buffeted by storms and intense winds. I always took a little square of sheepskin to sit on, and sometimes a hot-water bottle. Not much was happening under the tree and I felt a bit daunted at the idea of doing this for an entire year. Some days I questioned why I was doing it, but I wanted to stick with the challenge.
I usually spent the first 10 minutes sitting still and looking around to enjoy what was happening. I’d then close my eyes and meditate for 20-30 minutes, come home and write notes and a poem. Looking back at the ones I wrote that winter, they feel quite introspective.
The day the daffodils came out felt like a celebration. I’d watched them coming, and every day I thought, ‘They’re going to burst any moment’
Spring brought a sense of hope. Winter had felt like a period of pause; now it was as though someone had pressed play. The day the daffodils came out under the tree felt like a celebration. I’d watched them coming, and every day I thought, “They’re going to burst any moment.”
Suddenly I had company, this big bright clump of flowers next to me – but after two weeks, they were gone. They had been 50 weeks in the making; it filled me with awe at how transitory life can be. Then the forget-me-nots came, and from there it just exploded. The barren grassland turned into a riot of life and colour.
It was incredible to witness all the micro changes in nature. The buttercups seemed to arrive overnight, as did the crickets – one day there were none; the next, they were singing all around me. Another day, I heard a new bird song. “Ah, the swifts have arrived,” I thought. All this sitting in stillness refined my senses. I’d return home glowing most days.
By summer, it felt as if everything in the meadow was resting – except me. Though I appreciated my ritual, during the day I was still exhausting myself, working, making music and writing poems. But I realised this was about reconnecting with nature, so I should do what nature was doing. It took an effort to slow down, but it was needed.
Everything felt calmer under the tree, and without the usual distractions, my meditation was clearer. Once, I opened my eyes to see a deer in front of me. Then a dog ran across and the deer took off.
I felt my mental and physical health improve. I no longer had backache, and my sense of peace and awe skyrocketed. I felt a happiness I hadn’t experienced since childhood and rediscovered a sense of playfulness.
Sitting with the oak also changed my perspective of time. Previously, I would try to control things, but I had become more patient and trusting of their natural timing.
On a late summer’s day, the swifts were unusually active – they were having a screaming party. The next day they were gone; it was as if they had been announcing their departure. By autumn, the winds had picked up and the leaves had started to turn.
On my last day, on the winter solstice of 2024, I took my guitar and sang my thanks to the tree for offering me sanctuary for a year. The challenge was complete and I had a newfound resilience. I was also relieved to be able to travel and see family.
You don’t need to go far to find a spot in nature where you can sit and reflect. Nature knows what you need, and is always ready to offer it – you just need to be quiet enough to receive it. I still visit the tree most days – though admittedly I tend to skip the rainy ones.
Tree Weaver 