“If the presence of humanity poses a question, a tree might be its answer.”
— Barbara Kingsolver
Primal Perception
What do trees think about all day long?
I saw an unusual movie in the summer of 1979 that certainly changed my way of thinking: The Secret Life of Plants. This fascinating film by Walon Green was based on a book of the same name, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. Its premise was that all of creation functions on a basic, profound connection between all living things. This film intends to demonstrate that plants are sentient beings, intricately involved in the numinous matrix. The book’s presentation was vigorously attacked by contemporary botanists as “pseudoscience,” but like most vital discoveries in life, the lessons are more important than the facts. The authors’ viewpoint resonated deeply with me, as I had spent the past five years living rustically in the beautiful redwoods of San Geronimo Valley. Redwoods are exceptionally communal trees, which typically grow in colonies or groves from a single root structure. In fact, all their root fibers extend between groves, merging with an interconnected fungal web that permeates the entire redwood forest. This is not hard to appreciate if you’ve spent any time in their sensitive silence. The Secret Life of Plants opened my eyes to this more-than-human reality, and confirmed that not only are plants connected in a physical and biological sense, but they communicate in a sort of instantaneous “primary perception” that transcends time and space. This “non-time-consuming communication” as it has been called, extends throughout the plant kingdom on our planet, and reaches out through the universe to the farthest stars.
The documentary-style film posited that plants can read our thoughts, and respond to our emotional states. The book goes into even greater detail about how the plant kingdom has astonishing sensory powers that go much further in this regard than humans. Plants have existed for millions of years longer than any of the animals. Their cells were the first living things on earth. They have had billions of years to develop their awareness, compared with the relatively brief time in which we have acquired our puny five senses. Without plants on this isolated, spinning hunk of rock, life as we know it simply could not survive. In the green, wild places on our planet, the primordial energy of billions of years of physical evolution is delicately arrayed in the subtle consciousness of plants; especially large, old trees. We can tap in to this energy with a part of our nervous system that operates beyond the five senses, which we often refer to as our “sixth sense.” For as long as recorded history – and probably for thousands of years before that – mankind has attributed a mystical energy to the deep, wild forests where elves, fairies, and other fantastic creatures are said to dwell. I believe our “myths” are an attempt to preserve our awareness of a collective, primal reality – which ironically has been obscured by the increasingly self-generated complexities of a society that strives to understand that reality. The forest habitats are the forgotten blueprints of our souls, and we destroy them to build our dwellings.
“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all.
But to the eyes of one with imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
— William Blake
The trees that grow around Big and Little Bear Lake in the Trinity Wilderness, and for miles around in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, are remarkable examples of a keenly conscious primary perception. As one hikes through the forests or glades, one feels a gentle receptivity and welcoming energy from the trees, and their counter-reactions when you appreciate them sincerely. An observant person projecting joy and gratitude in these alpine communities finds that their gifts are being reciprocated and multiplied exponentially by billions of benevolent organisms. This scintillating feeling of interconnectedness is beyond communication and beyond time, and I believe it is a glimpse into the very mind of God; or whatever one wants to call the unifying force of unconditional love that binds together the ordered, physical universe and the ethereal spiritual realms.
Go there and see. Walk right up to the reality of these superlative beings that have existed for centuries, and touch them. Let their branches caress while walking by, and to an amenable mind the feeling is like being fundamentally appreciated by a great and powerful affection. All along the sheltered dales of the Bear Lakes trail, and at the lakes themselves, there are spectacular trophy specimens of White, Ponderosa, and Jeffrey pines that radiate an accommodating tenderness when approached with sensitivity. Noble Fir, Incense Cedar, and Mountain Hemlock echo this munificence. Interestingly, this region of Northern California is one of the most diverse evergreen forests in North America, due to the confluence of the hot, Mediterranean climate to the south, and the cold, wet regions of the north. The conifer specimens here are robust and healthy. Along this very trail is said to be one of the largest Ponderosa pine trees in California, as calculated in “board feet” of lumber. This insulting unit of measurement is an affront to the selfless sensitivity and love that is manifested by this magnificent being. Nearby are twin columns of exceptionally thick Ponderosa pine, surrounded by neat little cone-shaped slopes of jigsaw puzzle bark that have sloughed off over the centuries. Standing in between these towering constructs of life produces an overpowering sense of well-being from their radiant harmony. One may be surprised to feel atonement and forgiveness; a gentle reminder that results in a renewed resolution of kindness and goodwill to all living things. The lonesome feeling of breaking away from this at-one-ment, reluctantly, to continue up the trail is like leaving a dear mother, or forsaking a nourishing source of comfort and solace.
“Consider the life of trees.
Aside from the axe, what trees acquire from man is inconsiderable.
What man may acquire from trees is immeasurable.
From their mute forms there flows a poise, in silence, a lovely sound and motion in response to wind.
What peace comes to those who are aware of the voice and bearing of trees!
Trees do not scream for attention,
A tree, a rock, has no pretense, only a real growth out of itself in close communion with the universal spirit.
A tree retains a deep serenity.
It establishes in the earth not only its root systems but also those roots of its beauty and its unknown consciousness.
Sometimes one may sense a glisten of that consciousness, and with such perspective, feel that man is not necessarily the highest form of life.”
— Cedric Wright
Trees are the primary interface between the planet and the solar system. They are the largest, highest-reaching antennae in the natural world, capturing the incoming messengers of luminosity from the sun. Not just that, but they transform this light into energy, using it to build a structure that reaches deep down inside the earth, and out to the stars. From fixed, receptive positions, they constantly exchange molecules with their surroundings and broadcast them to the stars. Simultaneously, they disassemble Sol’s photon children into components that become part of the planet. Trees, and all lesser plants, are living mechanisms of synergy, without which the planet would be dry and barren.
What do such magnificent beings think about when there are no humans around? The Secret Life of Plants explains how rigorously controlled experiments in primary perception demonstrate that plants remain aware of human feelings even when they are separated by time and space. Much has been said about “supersymmetry” since it was discovered that subatomic particles communicate across the boundless realms of matter, regardless of distance. The book also demonstrates how plants are exchanging information with other beings – even to the reaches of outer space. What messages do the trees send to each other, and perhaps to other perceptive forms of life throughout the universe, about the human thoughts they perceive? Even the skeleton trees that appear to be dead above ground are still part of the community. Their roots continue contributing to the network of the living long after the green leaves or needles have retired. When you are a guest in an old growth forest, do you calculate board feet or do you commune with love, congeniality, and gratitude? Our species has wrought terrible, unthinking destruction on the green nervous system of our little relay station in the cosmos, and yet the patient, forbearing trees remain acquiescent and friendly. They give willingly of their ample resources so we can evolve as a species, and we repay them mostly with the senseless backlash of our avarice. What fathomless leaps of evolution await, when we discover how to reciprocate their forbearance and unconditional affection?
Of course, California is also home to the largest visible beings on the planet: The Giant Sequoias. There aren’t any of those left up at the Bear Lakes, but I’ll bet there were many at some point in the distant past. I have visited the cathedral groves of the Sierras that inspired John Muir, and they are indeed magnificent. Regrettably, the blight of human arrogance and overuse is upon them, and I prefer wilder stands of great trees. Smaller sequoias can still be seen in a semi-wild state at Shadow of the Giants Trail, near Yosemite’s southern gate. One is amazed to consider that they have been growing as a community for nearly 3,000 years, and European Americans have only known about them for about 175 years as I write this (about 6% of their existence). When these trees were just saplings, most of the humans on the planet were still huddled in disorganized tribes. How old can they grow? We don’t have the perspective to know. Nobody alive today will be able to answer that question, and they certainly would grow older without us around.
I remember discovering this grove shortly after reading The Secrets of the Soil (again by Tompkins and Bird), from which I learned about the powerful alchemy that takes place in the thin, biologically rich layer of our planet-cell’s organic membrane. Surely, the richness of the alluvial soil in this canyon near Nelder Grove must be phenomenally virile. The sleek, copper-colored columns of arboreal giants thrust upwards with noble vigor and vitality. They appear to be masterpieces displayed in a natural museum, spread out along the corridor of a spring-fed creek that nurtures the canyon, where all the plants are extremely large and healthy. A footpath meanders through them like a cleansing vein of redemption for the human soul, carrying away the accumulated toxins of delusion. All around you, life is bursting forth from the ground in a peculiar exuberance of creation that is being cultivated to saturate your senses, and your eyes are inebriated. The Giant Sequoias are so very present.
“If it takes five thousand years for a mere sequoia to reach its full growth (and no one has yet
seen one die a natural death) what can be the total age of the tree of life?”
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The Japanese Ministry of Health promotes a practice known as shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing” in English – this involves walking in the forest reverently, to exchange helpful molecules and improve the health of both humans and trees in a symbiotic relationship. Most people know that trees use carbon dioxide, and give off oxygen. In Japan, they have found that trees actually give off other, more important molecules that help to boost your immune system and fight disease. It’s as if the trees have a vested interest in us remaining alive to contribute carbon dioxide (and hopefully a lot of love) to the forest. Eventually, we will return all our borrowed molecules anyway, and contribute to the sustenance of the forest, whether we care about it or not. But when walking reverently in the forest, for a brief time we can become a vector of the eternal benevolence.
The most memorable years of my youth were spent actually living inside a redwood grove. The old summer shack that we inhabited year-round was so dilapidated, it was slowly returning back to the surrounding forest from which it was made. The trees had plenty of time to heal unsightly blemishes like the little cabin in Lagunitas we called the “Rusty Bucket Ranch.” Or sometimes we jokingly referred to our little moist crack in the world as “Soggynitas,” because it stayed wet for most of the year. Redwood trees are gluttons for water, and masters of physics. Thousands of gallons of water are being elevated over 200 feet into the air by capillary action within their massive trunks, and pushed out to millions of needles. Consider how much water is in each tree, and how much it must weigh. If you weren’t stoned during physics class in high school like I was, you may be able to calculate the energy that is required to lift a ton of water 200 feet off the ground. Any serious analysis of the biophysics of trees produces a sense of respect and awe for their mysterious power. What if the great and patient energy deployed by trees was suddenly redirected outwardly to protect them from a threat? After all, this is a strategy often used in the plant kingdom; sometimes to astonishingly effective results.
Trees aren’t stupid; they know that humans have the ability to extinguish them from the earth. Every living being knows its enemies. Trees communicate above the ground by airborne pheromones, and beneath the soil along intricate webs of symbiotic fungus. They realize, in their own way and time, that we are much more malicious than insect pests, and impossible to repel because we can kill them so quickly. Their first strategy is complementary: they make a “peace offering” of their molecules to cure us of our diseases. “Just let us grow,” they whisper, “and we will help you grow, too.” Eventually, they may resort to more forceful means. Plants have been managing noxious pests for hundreds of millions of years. Something nearly wipes them out, and the survivors learn and try to adapt to the threat. This is the engine of evolution in action: the drive to avoid death and propagate. How desperate are the trees to adapt to a novel, human pestilence on the planet that is rapidly destroying them? What does a 3,000-year-old Giant Sequoia think of this new and dangerous threat to its survival? How does the pathogen of “us” fit into its genetic memory? Humans were still incoherent tribes over most of the world when the greatest trees were just seedlings. These sentient beings have surely noticed we are rapidly wiping them out, but in their way of measuring time, the danger has only just been noticed. Let us pray they do not adjust with equal alacrity to ensure their survival! Even the tiniest, simplest plant can change photons from the sun into energy, and are the masters of alchemy on this planet. What if they all started emitting toxins, or stopped producing oxygen?
As a relatively new species, we are just the unruly gypsies in the palace, and the King will be coming home soon to throw us out. During the course of human development over the past 30,000 years, trees have witnessed an alarming change in our demeanor. We started as a largely nomadic, symbiotic forest dwelling species that contributed in a positive way to the ecology. We have evolved to be a jealous consumer and dangerously destructive force in the biosphere; and the rate of demise is accelerating rapidly. This must be a very disturbing trend for plants to comprehend. For example, in Northern California, the original humans practiced a form of husbandry for the forest by clearing away dead fuel and underbrush to decrease the danger of catastrophic wildfires. They took care of the forest, and it took care of them. Since arriving on the scene a mere 3 generations ago, all that the white tribe has done is to take from this forest, and ever-increasingly destroy it for profit. How distressing a betrayal this must be for symbiotic beings that for eons have shared with us the creative, nurturing interdependence of the natural world! The great, old growth forests will return when our species either acts boldly with new wisdom, or dies out ignominiously. If the latter, after five hundred or five thousand years, the intricate “wood wide web” will certainly repair itself and adapt to the changing conditions; as it has for eons. But unless we learn to stop destroying the primal forms of life on this planet, we shall not be around to witness their rebirth and ultimate glory.
Tragically, we obliterate what is vital to our survival merely to entertain ourselves with an artificial construct of “money” and “wealth.” In other words, we are consuming the only home we have, and replacing its realness with a false edifice that is doomed to failure as we drastically undermine the foundation on which it is built. What a bunch of idiots! Pascal said, “The root of all evil is man’s inability to sit alone, in a room.” I would change this to: “The root of all evil is man’s inability to sit alone, in a forest, without cutting it down.” I appeal to anyone who is reading this to get out in the forest as soon as possible, and as much as you can. Remove yourself far away from any signs of human presence. Experience the reality of being a very small thread in a very ancient and growing tapestry of life. Our time in physical form is the only opportunity we get to appreciate this fact, and what we do with the knowledge will either perfect our own evolution, or end it.
“When I am among the trees,
especially the willows and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.
I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly, and bow often.
Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, “Stay a while.”
The light flows from their branches.
And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,
“and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled
with light, and to shine.”
— Mary Oliver