We miss so much of what is there when we walk a pathway, a line through woodland. But the more effort we make to look, the more time we spend there, the more there is to see. Yet what we see remains an abstraction, a small subset of what is there. Accepting this, woodland becomes surreal, a strange mixture of facts and fiction where both are important to our sense of connection.
As a child, stories of talking trees appealed to me: dryads, Tolkien’s Ents, Rackham’s woodland illustrations and the proliferation of nymphs and deities without numbers worldwide. As an adult, I still find the science of how trees talk to each other as surreal as the dryads and nymphs. Recent research is blurring this boundary even further. As Suzanne Simard writes in Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest (2022)
“The trees revealed startling secrets… they are in a web of interdependence, linked by a system of underground channels, where they perceive connect and relate with an ancient intricacy and wisdom that can no longer be denied. I conducted hundreds of experiments, with one discovery leading to the next. Through this quest, I uncovered the lessons of tree-to-tree communication, of the relationships that create a forest society. The evidence was at first highly controversial, but the science is now known to be rigorous, peer-reviewed, and widely published. It is no fairy tale, no flight of fancy, no magical unicorn, and no fiction in a Hollywood movie.”
We are at a point where we need to think about the lines and networks that link us to trees, to woodland, to nature. A moment in time where we need to be consciously aware of how profound and life-critical these lines of connection are. The foundations of such understanding are well rooted in our common history and excitingly present in contemporary science.
It is not a binary issue, it is not nature versus technology. One of the things a woodland teaches us is that diversity, complexity and connectivity are powerful forces.
As Simard says “We have the power to shift course. It’s our disconnectedness—and lost understanding of the amazing capacities of nature—that’s driving a lot of our despair, and plants in particular are objects of our abuse. Understanding their sentient qualities will deepen our empathy and love for trees, plants, and forests and find innovative solutions. Turning to the intelligence of nature itself is the key. It’s up to each one of us.”
What is it that stops us from taking action? Storytelling can ignite something science alone cannot, when we study nature we need imagination. This is a reminder to listen to the trees and to remember how little we know of the complexities of the natural world.
So, next time you take the track less travelled through the woodland, stop and listen to the stories that the dancing trees are whispering.
References
Suzanne Simard – Finding the Mother Tree: Uncovering the Wisdom and Intelligence of the Forest (2022)
TED Talk – How Trees Talk to Each Other – Suzanne Simard