[Slideshow: “Desert Overstory,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) It represents something of an homage to Richard Powers’s novel, The Overstory, from which I quote below. Taken together, the two images ask: what are trees trying to tell us? and does the message change with context? can we help them to say it, by changing the context?]
Circumstances* require me for my Friday post to return, temporarily, to the call-and-response format of some years ago: a couple of recent whiskey river clips, followed by something(s) I’ve come across which — for me — chime in synchrony with what I’ve pulled from over there. So, let’s begin — from whiskey river:
On the Strength of All Conviction and the Stamina of Love
Sometimes I think
we could have gone on.
All of us. Trying. Forever.But they didn’t fill
the desert with pyramids.
They just built some. Some.They’re not still out there,
building them now. Everyone,
everywhere, gets up, and goes home.Yet we must not
Diabolize time. Right?
We must not curse the passage of time.
(Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Next Ancient World [source])
…and:
What a strange demented feeling it gives me when I realize that I have spent whole days before this inkstone, with nothing better to do, jotting down at random whatever nonsensical thoughts have entered my head.
(Yoshida Kenko, Essays in Idleness: The Tsurezuregusa of Kenk? [source])
And now, not from whiskey river:
Powerful molecules in bark, pith, and leaves whose effects have yet to be discovered. One family of distress hormones used by her trees—jasmonate—supplies the punch to all those feminine perfumes that play on mystery and intrigue. Sniff me, love me, I’m in trouble. And they are in trouble, all these trees. All the forests of the world, even the quaintly named set-aside lands. More trouble than she has the heart to tell readers of her little book. Trouble, like the atmosphere, flows everywhere, in currents beyond the power of humans to predict or control…
Trees know when we’re close by. The chemistry of their roots and the perfumes their leaves pump out change when we’re near… When you feel good after a walk in the woods, it may be that certain species are bribing you. So many wonder drugs have come from trees, and we haven’t yet scratched the surface of the offerings. Trees have long been trying to reach us. But they speak on frequencies too low for people to hear.
(Richard Powers [source 1; source 2])
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* Don’t worry, nothing wrong. Just a very active couple of days. At the moment, in fact, I’m “stuck” in our room on the 27th floor of a very nice hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. Did someone say strange and demented?!?
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