Last night I went to a benefit party to benefit a group called Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project, which is a non-profit which is pretty much singlehandedly run by a woman named Karen Colter; an amazing lady who probably saves more forest in this state then anyone else. She does this by keeping a close eye on lumber sales and as soon as a lumber company does anything they aren't suppose to do, she takes the issue to court. I think I'm in love! I may help her this summer. Besides thinking about that, I've been thinking more about what I learned from the redwoods, and from my trip in general. The redwoods themselves had very little to say to me; I did think they where holy and amazing beings; before sleeping in the hollow in the base of one, I took a good twenty minutes sitting at the entrance to the hollow, talking with the tree, asking for its' permission to sleep inside of it, shaking at the wonder of the largest, oldest tree I'd ever seen.
Sometimes I get very clear messages from trees; some trees have even been angry with me (well one tree, and that was at a rainbow gathering, so that is understandable,) but the redwoods, perhaps because they are so old, because their energy is so calm, or whatever, where very hard to pick up on. But I did learn something about stability from them, and the beauty of a lifetime partner and living with the same pack all of your life; many of them have grown together over the years; one tree will grow an extenion of itself into the bark and heartwood of a tree that is close to it; this looked to me like 3,000 years of extremely slow sex. I stood under the "unity" of two such trees and watched sap dripping from their "sex organs" and thought about all the things these two had lived through together; forest fires, droughts, loggers, drunk campers, high hippies, maybe even Return of the Jedi being filmed next to them. I talked to the two of them; I flushed, realizing I was talking with trees who where making long-lasting love; I asked them about the nutrients they shared, whether their unity helps them grow more new growth, whether it is easier for them to survive together. They seemed to want privacy, so I walked away.
Trees communicate through their roots I've read. Trees in a forest send electrical impulses to the tree nearest them, whose roots most likely intertwine with the neiboring trees. Some folks believe trees send messages to each other through these impulses; poetry perhaps, maybe even songs and love letters. I told the redwoods I knew that they know, due to these communications they have with other trees, the horrific state of the world. They can sense extra carbon in the air perhaps; do they muse about this with their root-mates? As the mating ones feed sap to each other, do they also send impulses of love? I think they do. I certainly felt as thought I'd stumbled into the lush bedroom of erotic tree-love, watching sap drip from that inch-thick bark.
Love ya,
Carrot
