Trees and roots and wiggly worms

I was reading in the NY Times Book Review or maybe it was in the science section about a German writer and former Forest Ranger.  In his years as a Forest Ranger he discovered that the trees communicate with one another.  There is an enormous underground network by which the trees talk.  I love this idea.  It makes me laugh, but not funny ha-ha but funny yeah, I understand.  I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Yesterday I was hiking in the woods with my friend Sue and as I walked along I imagined that the roots of the trees beneath my feet were communing much in the same way that Sue and I were talking up above.  For an instant I felt that wonderful sense of connection, connection to everything and everyone.  I could almost feel my synapses stretched like  fine gauge wire across great distances, around the world, through the earth, down the road and in the forest—everything connected.  What joy it gave me.

Today, I had a bad headache (from all that stretching), and snuggled up on the couch with some ibuprofen and a podcast “On Being” with David Steindl-Rast talking with Krista Tippett.  They were talking about mysticism, gratitude, and spirituality. Mysticism is allowing yourself to be grasped by something.

Right smack dab in the middle of that talk, David talked about mysticism not being about isolation but being in a community,  a community across time and space.  The “I” and the “You”.  I thought about trees again.  Birch trees and pine trees, Sequoia and Hemlock,  Madrona and Aspen.

I know I’m not doing a very good job of describing this talk but it was so fucking profound. I will listen to it again. He talked about gratitude, gratefulness and thanksgiving.

I thought about the wonderful glorious trees and how grateful I am and I give thanks for the fact that I live on this big beautiful earth surrounded by beings, sentient and otherwise. I thought of beings that talk with their roots.

There is more to this world than meets the ear.