Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.

Emily Carr, the painter, seeker, and lover of the wild forests of the Pacific Northwest, once wrote with tender reverence: “Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.” In this utterance, she reveals not merely an observation of nature, but a deep communion with it. To Carr, the trees were not silent pillars of wood, but living companions, filled with joy, movement, and song. Their tossing in the wind was not struggle, but dance; their swaying was not burden, but freedom. In their happy noises, she heard a language older than man, a hymn of harmony between earth and sky.

The origin of this thought lies in Carr’s life and art. She wandered among the cedar and fir, listening with the heart of a mystic and the eye of an artist. Where others saw timber, she saw souls. Where others heard only wind, she heard laughter and music. Her paintings, wild with color and motion, tried to capture the very spirit of these trees, as though she wished to show the world that nature was alive, rejoicing, and speaking to those who would listen. The happy noises were to her a reminder that life, in its truest form, is not sorrowful, but exuberant.

The ancients, too, heard the voices of the trees. The Greeks spoke of dryads—spirits dwelling within trunks and roots, singing through the leaves. The Norse believed in Yggdrasil, the world-tree whose branches held up the heavens and whose roots reached into the underworld. In many traditions, trees were not mute, but messengers of the divine. Carr’s words are a continuation of this lineage, declaring in her own way that the trees are not passive, but participants in creation’s joy.

History shows us how men have turned to trees for wisdom. When Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, sought enlightenment, it was beneath the Bodhi tree that truth descended upon him. The swaying leaves sheltered him, and the rustling may well have been heard as happy noises—the song of nature welcoming his awakening. Likewise, countless poets and wanderers have found in the sound of wind through branches a comfort deeper than words. These stories remind us that the voice of the forest is not silence, but music for the soul.

The meaning of Carr’s words is both gentle and profound. She teaches us that joy is not reserved for humankind; it permeates the natural world. The trees, though rooted and still, rejoice when the wind passes through them, surrendering to movement rather than resisting it. They do not curse the storm; they embrace it and turn it into song. In this, they show us a way of being: to find happiness not in resisting life’s winds, but in swaying with them, dancing even when shaken, and making music out of what might seem struggle.

The lesson for us is clear: listen more deeply to the world around you. When you walk among trees, do not treat them as lifeless matter, but as living teachers. Hear their happy noises as a reminder that life can be lived with lightness, that joy is possible even in the midst of trial. Learn from their dance that flexibility brings peace, and from their rootedness that joy comes from balance—standing firm in the earth, yet moving freely in the wind.

Practically, this means taking time to be still in nature, to hear and to feel rather than to analyze and conquer. Walk in forests, let the sound of trees tossing in the wind quiet your anxieties, and carry that music back into daily life. When challenges come, remember the trees: bend, do not break; sway, do not resist. Let life’s winds become your partner in a dance, and let your own spirit make happy noises, no matter how strong the storm.

Thus Emily Carr’s words endure not merely as the musings of an artist, but as wisdom for all generations: “Trees love to toss and sway; they make such happy noises.” May we learn to hear that music, and in hearing, find the courage to live with the same joy, the same surrender, and the same quiet strength as the forest itself.