Where your are looking at language, I'm looking at Consciousness and what a person is Conscious of. There is life in trees, an energy, a vitality and uniqueness of being that can be and is experienced as an action by many.
But here again, it depends upon one's reality and where they reach into Consciousness in their reality. In the example I gave previously, the Indigenous people very much do experiences Trees and all of Nature as a Verb. So for example, as they walk, they see themselves traveling through Nature as one with Nature, and with Nature is understood as an action. It's a different reality than our way of the West which is mechanical oriented in it's view of Nature.
Honestly, I understand that it makes no sense to you. We in the West have been trained to see Nature as mechanical. That's a fairly new phenomenon for the Human species actually.
It's different than what your describing. We don't worship the tree. We see God in all things including trees. That's level of seeing the Divine in Nature is what makes all of Nature sacred. I like how Rabbi Heschel put it: "The grandeur of Nature is only the beginning. Beyond the grandeur is God," because it reveals "the presence of God".
Sacredness sets up a different level of Loving than just caring about something.
I understand. We're coming from two different realities, with differing Consciousness of Nature
I see two aspects of the mind: the intuitive which grasps the whole but does not distinguish he parts, and the rational which distinguishes the parts but cannot grasp the whole. In my world trees have Souls and are part of the whole. With the whole as an activity of God.
I'm pretty partial to the idea that reason without intuition is empty and sterile.
