In Provence, there are essential and emblematic trees.
Of course, the holm oak, the oak or the kermes oak are trees that cover all our massifs when the Aleppo pine does not take the place after all these fires...
The cork oak is also a regional historical feature that has kept a region like the Var alive for decades. It is very important for us lovers of the crib because it helps us with the decorations.
The almond tree is another tree that signals the end of winter with its flowers arriving in February.
The olive tree is of course our wealth and how can you make a nativity scene without an olive tree.
But there is a tree which is essential among the essentials, a tree which must absolutely be found in all nurseries, it is the cypress.
The cypresses are always green, that intense green which expresses permanent life. He is the link between the earth where his feet are anchored and the sky where his head launches to meet the lords of the skies.
It is this link between earth and heaven where it raises souls and that is why it is found in Catholic cemeteries. But that's also why we also find them in isolated cypresses in the fields, at the time when Protestants were not allowed to be buried in cemeteries reserved only for Catholics, so they were buried by their own. in the open field with a cypress as a landmark, a tree that can be seen from afar, a tree that takes up little space, but also a tree that by soaring towards the sky leads the soul of the dead to paradise.
The cypress symbolizes eternal life, this is one of the explanations for its presence in cemeteries. But also, an explanation that goes back to mythology, Cyparissus, a hunter, friend of Apollo, accidentally killed his doe. Mad with grief, he transformed himself into a cypress, to stay with his remains.
The cypresses are Provençal because like them, they talk to each other when the wind brings their heads together for long conversations as long as the Mistral lasts, as virulent as the Mistral is, cypresses which remain straight like the Provençaux, which remain straight like the red blades on a golden background of the Provençal flag and it is also in this sense that this Provençal flag is different from that of the Catalans, straight like our cypresses.
The cypress was also used for inns along the roads, in all the most remote corners, or in small villages or hamlets. Depending on the functions of these places of reception, there were one or two or three cypress trees planted in front of the buildings. These cypresses represented drinking, eating and sleeping. And the number of cypresses was the skills of these inns.