Love, Life and Living Coded in the Trees

 

Lord Byron: “There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.”

The tree in your yard is as alive as your friends, family and more. There are more prominent complexities in nature than the man-made systems. Read the seminal work of self-explaining nature and you will scientifically understand why a tree is as alive as human beings.

It's not some esoteric, mystical talk. You will learn how life is as good, valued and important at all levels in nature. It will bust your misconceptions that creation is human centric. Read the open pages of nature to know your real place in the scheme of natural things. Come on, brace up yourself and your next visit to the forest will give you unimaginable perspectives. You will feel more of a human being. Well, it's strictly for your benefit only.

Warren Buffett: “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

Well, if you plant a tree, with the concomitant resolution to help it grow and become a big tree, before starting on a journey into the forest, it will be an icing on the cake. A very nice inauguration I tell you, a pious deed like breaking a coconut to start your prayer and rituals.

We are safe in our civilization because nature decided to have trees before we arrived on the scene. We are simply a little drama under the nature’s shade. Accept it. Feel the gratitude. And go plant a tree. You owe it to Mother Nature. We have our own carbon quota that we let out with every breath exhaled and the pollutants born of household utilities, cars, refrigerators and air-conditioning. Now set up your plant of oxygen. Plant a tree. It avoids us from being utterly shameless.  

Martin Luther: “For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider, every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold and silver.”

To make it more logical for you, I recommend 'The Hidden Life of Trees' by Peter Wohlleben. The eminent forester delineates his profound love of forests and woods. On the basis of his personal experiences in pristine forests, he throws light on the remarkable processes of life, death and regeneration among trees and their communities. Astounding scientific mechanisms go with intellectual precision behind many wonders that we simply take for granted as almost unintelligible, unconscious random occurrences.

The book is full of groundbreaking observations. Can you imagine that almost similar to human families, the parental trees stay around their children? The moments are full of communication among themselves. The older trees support the young saplings as they grow. The bigger trees share nutrients with the weaker and younger trees in the community. There is a natural push for creating an ecosystem to lessen the force of weather extremes like temperature and precipitation. Because of these channels of cooperation, the trees in a community support each other to beat the challenges against their survival. On the other hand, lonely trees, just like orphans, find it very difficult in the game of survival. Could you read the undercurrents of love, affection and care in all this?

Researchers have found Mycelium (Mycorrhizae), an underground network of symbiotic fungi attached to plant roots. These fungal threads are the means of nutrient exchange. It helps the young saplings as well as very old stumps that won’t survive without this community support. This fungal web of mutual care, share and support has been termed as Wood Wide Web. Still need more proof of the essentiality of love and sharing as the basis of existence?

There are tiny miracles unfolding in nature around. Take for example African Acacia. When an animal starts nibbling at its leaves, the tree lets out a chemical. Its scent travels through the air to reach the neighboring trees. It triggers a short-lived toxin in them as a response. So when the animal reaches this tree, it finds it uninteresting to eat when it sniffs at its leaves. And then the things become normal after some time. No grudges, no animosity, no personal agenda. Things simply are.

In certain trees, under attack by the leaf-eating insects, the leaves after tasting the predator’s saliva produce a chemical. It catches the attention of bigger predators that swoop down and attack the leaf-eaters. There is no malice, no excess of endeavors, just a balanced, all-inclusive game without any egoistic exclusivity.

It’s not a mute world over there. Electrical impulses travel across leaves and roots at a speed of 1/3 inch per second. This is the rate of communication in nature. Slow in comparison to our rampaging speed though, but sustainable as per the laws of love, care, harmony and peace.

Isn’t it a wonderful system out there with its basic constituents of love, care and share? The latter are the fundamentals on which the mundane game of survival takes place.