You’ve probably seen pictures of human nerves – a central neuron with axons and dendrites radiating out from it like the roots of a tree. (If not, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron)
The neuron is the trunk, the central core, that contains the cell’s nucleus. The axons and dendrites are the extended arms that connect with other nerve cells to transmit information.
The resemblance to tree roots may be more than coincidence. UBC-Okanagan forest ecology professor Suzanne Simard has proven conclusively that trees communicate with each other through their roots.
Dig into the soil of any forest, and you’ll find a network of tree roots, overlapping, inter-weaving. You probably won’t see the second component of communication, the invisible filaments of fungi.
Simard’s research demonstrates, beyond dispute, that trees send messages, and food, to each other through their roots, with those fungal filaments bridging the gaps in much the same way that synapses work in the human brain.
The similarities to human behavior grow stronger, the more you learn about these trees.
Forests have “mother trees,” that supply nourishment to seedlings. Trees warn each other about diseases and predators, enabling defences. In Africa, acacia trees warn their neighbours about the arrival of browsing giraffes, so that their neighbours can pump extra tannin out to the end of their branches, making the leaves more bitter.
Further, trees are not racist. They do not support only their own species. Firs will help birches grow; oaks will help cottonwoods.
Simard’s study limited itself to trees. But since all land-based plants have roots in soil, I see no reason to assume that shrubs, bushes, and even grasses do not also communicate with each other.
Gardeners have long known that some plants encourage each other. Peas cooperate with carrots, but apparently not with onions. Beans get along well with corn, but not with tomatoes.
Consciousness
Simard’s work almost suggests that fertile soil is a vast but slow-moving brain.
Maybe we humans are not the earth’s only conscious beings. Forests make the earth itself conscious.
But perhaps less conscious than it once was. Once upon a time, forests covered 80 per cent of the earth’s surface. About 12,000 years ago, humans began clearing forests for agriculture. We replaced the diversity of old-growth forests with monoculture crops – acres of corn, beans, beets, blueberries. We plowed the land bare every year; we killed off the synapses of fungi.
The industrial revolution, starting about 300 years ago, speeded up the process. Machines enabled mechanical harvesting that ripped out every living tree. When we replanted – if we replanted – we grew single fast-growing species, for efficiency, thus eliminating the interspecies communication of a natural forest.
Barely 30 per cent of the earth’s surface is now forested. And we continue to reduce forests by about 10 million trees every year.
Yes. Every year.
There’s plenty of controversy over how much human activity has affected climate change. (Personally, I’m convinced that humans are the prime cause.) But there can be no doubt at all about human depletion of natural forests.
If a forest floor resembles a brain, as Suzanne Simard’s research suggests, we have surgically removed about five-eighths of the planet’s brain.
In effect, we have given the earth a massive lobotomy.
*****************************************
Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
*****************************************
YOUR TURN
Last week’s column tried to look at life through the analogy of a flow chart.
Robert Caughell wrote, “I took a ‘data processing’ course in the early 1970s in high school. We learned about flow charts to program in Fortran. Life is a series of random/ever changing If, Then and Else Statements depending on what occurs. Some people can handle/cope with change better than others.”
William Ball wondered, “So what would a flow chart God look like? Our choices and actions; God's choices and actions. A dizzying combination, I think. While I am a Presbyterian I'm a ‘limited’ Calvinist -- that is, while I affirm God's sovereignty, I cannot say that God forces events and choices on people. There is too much suffering in the world to view God in that way. With the 500th anniversary of Luther et al, where might this take a flow chart perception of God? Process theology?
“As for your morning walk and meeting your neighbor, while I don't picture God as moving pieces on a chess-board, I can imagine God's presence in the moment -- and then simply say ‘Thanks’.”
“Yeah, I'd buy that,” wrote Isabel Gibson. “That there is no God arranging our moments, but that we can give expression to God if we're open to the moment.”
Rachel Prichard had a similar view: “I do not think God planned for you to forget your alarm but I do believe that because you are a faithful follower of God's purpose for you here on earth (i.e., to love your neighbours), you listened to his prompt to convey his love to another human being at that moment. God can only work through us on earth and most of us are only able to influence a very small number of people at a time.
“Jean Vanier said ‘We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.’ And Mother Teresa said ‘Go home and love your family.’ So we continue to pray for the people in Rohingya, Delhi, and Beijing, encourage and support our government to take steps to improve their plight, but continue to hug friends we meet on our journeys.”
Laurna Tallman offered this perspective: “It's not about God organizing everything, although I find that believable with lots of caveats (I could make a flow chart). It's about making choices, for whatever reasons, that put us where we can be ‘instruments of His peace.’ That does not preclude God's doing something about those other huge matters. God is lots of good things.
“Glad you missed the breakfast. Hugs matter a lot.”
Tom Watson added his own metaphor: “You present me with an entirely new understanding of flow charts. I had heretofore thought of a flow chart as describing ‘what is’ rather than options for ‘what could possibly be.’ The first is, of course, quite predictable, whereas the second forces not only the making of choices but also the necessity of living with ambiguity. Ambiguity is tough. Predictability is far more comfortable.
“Someone once suggested there are two types of people: Destination people and Journey people. Say the two types get into canoes and head down a river. The Destination people come to a certain point and say, ‘Just ahead is a bend in the river and who knows what danger might lurk there? This spot is safe and secure. So here we stop.’ The Journey people aren't content with that; they always long to see what's beyond that next bend.
“I guess that Destination people wouldn't be comfortable with your flow chart approach to living; it's more for the Journey folks.”
Bob Stoddard pointed out a flaw in my analogy: Your commentary on the infinite options of flow charts was interesting for short term situations; but the ‘what if’s’ of flow charts lead to obscurity or nothingness in the long run. One can speculate about ‘what if’ the planet Earth did not produce life as we know it? At a more recent time scale, we could focus on the plight of Rohingya refuges in Bangladesh. What if you were one of those refugees, then married a local woman, and finally moved to Finland? Would there be a long line of flow chart decisions that would eventually result in your comforting your neighbor whose dog became terminally ill?
“To summarize: it is interesting to speculate on short-term ‘what if’s’… Short-term flow charts are fun; but I find the long-term ones ( as illustrated above) quite uninteresting because of their infinite options.
Bob Rollwagen was still thinking about a previous column, on seeing life in the rear-view mirror: “I personally love analogies. In my mind, they are one of the most illustrative ways of using language.
“A car on a road is like the human body, it can go forward, backward and turn. However, it is best at going forward. The road also has various options ahead or behind, many of which are known and fixed. The rain was clouding your way. This is life. Knowledge, hindsight, and current circumstance [all] help us set the speed of travel and impacts decisions as we move forward through the cloud.
“Having an understanding of what God’s road is does not require a visual context. It seems that many people in current times believe that the self-driving car is the answer and that this understanding is not needed. The car will be able to see through the cloud using technology. I guess the real question is -- Who is driving?”
*******************************************
PSALM PARAPHRASES
Psalm 78:1-7 seem to me to deal with the telling of stories. In prehistoric times, I imagine, wisdom was passed down as women gathered around the campfire.
1 Come, children, sit beside me. Listen while I tell you a story.
2 I will teach you the old wives' tales, the wisdom of many generations,
3 distilled into deceptively simple sayings.
We women have not roamed the world as solitary hunters;
ours is the hearth and the home, nurturing the lives of our loved ones.
4 In endless talk of nothing much,
we learn from each other's trials and troubles.
We pass our collective wisdom along as aphorisms:
A stitch in time... A rolling stone...
Sleeping dogs... Glass houses...
Each maxim gleams with its own facet of truth, sifted from the sands of time.
5 Through our story telling, God guides us.
Individual insights melt into communal memory.
6 That is how we pass our hard-won wisdom on to generations not yet conceived.
Someday, children, you too will tell your grandchildren,
7 So that they too can know that they belong to the people of God,
so that they too be a light to the nations,
a path pointing the way toward God,
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary (except this one, which is new), you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
*******************************************
TECHNICAL STUFF
If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message or subject line) to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@lists.quixotic.ca.
I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca
I’m leaving out some of the links to other blogs and pages, to see if those links have caused the recent blockages, preventing some of your from receiving the columns at all, and preventing others from sending responses. We’ll see.
********************************************
PROMOTION STUFF
To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.
Ralph Milton ’s latest project is called “Sing Hallelujah” -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca
Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)
Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>
I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom
Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom to get onto her mailing list.
Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet