Essay – The tree that no one sees growing

DS23001 | DS23002 - 200 × 240 cm - Mixed media on acoustic absorbing canvas - © 2023 Dyon Scheijen | ART & ACT

There is a tree.

For years.

Perhaps even for decades.

People walk past it.

Day in, day out.

Without standing still.

Because a tree…

is just a tree.

But what we do not see,

is what happens underground.

Roots finding their way

through hard layers, along resistance,

in search of nourishment, water, and stability.

Invisible.

And yet, it is there

the real growth.

I recognize myself in that tree.

My path in audiology.

The physics years in Aachen.

The silence in which I immersed myself in tinnitus,

back then still without a clear route, without a fixed place.

The people who saw something

before it became visible.

And meanwhile…

something was growing there.

Not loud.

Not striking.

But unmistakable.

As with every tree

The seasons also arrived.

There were summers -

moments of blossoming, of energy, of visibility.

But also winters.

Times when everything seemed to fall silent.

In which leaves fell off.

In which it became cold.

And maybe even…

the question arose:

Is anything still growing?

But nature shows us something

what we so often forget in our own lives:

Silence is not stagnation.

Emptiness is no end.

Loss is often preparation.

Because beneath the surface

the growth always continues.

And then, almost unnoticed,

spring is coming.

First a button.

Then one more.

And suddenly you see it:

Life that returns.

Not because it is suddenly there,

but because it had always been there -

just not visible yet.

Perhaps that is what we so often miss.

Not only in nature.

But also into each other.

We see people as they are today.

But we rarely see:

where they went through

what grows beneath the surface

which winters they have endured

In my work, I see that every day.

People who get stuck on sound.

In tinnitus.

In what no longer goes away.

But under that experience

It is always slightly different.

A person

who is trying to stay standing.

Perhaps that is where hearing truly begins.

Not only with sound.

But with attention.

Regarding the ability to see

what is not yet visible.

I have not only described this process.

I painted it too.

Not like a tree you recognize immediately,

but as a landscape of growth.

Layers of earth.

Traces of time.

Movement that wants to go up,

but always remains connected to below.

In my work, you see no leaves.

No branches.

But you do feel them.

The way you often don't see growth,

but does experience.

Maybe you already saw it, right at the beginning.

Not as a tree.

But as a feeling.

And maybe…

Are you also such a tree?

In a season that is not always visible to the outside world.

But in which, deep inside,

something is changing.

So if you walk past a tree today…

Stop for a moment.

Not only with what you see.

But with what you do not see.

And maybe…

Do you recognize anything?

Of yourself.

Or from someone else.

Because growth is rarely visible in the moment.

But always present

for those who learn to look.