How Trees Talk to Each Other

Context:
When thinking long-term about how to respond to the environmental crisis, we need to move away from tinkering with the details of our lives to a wholesale re-imagining of who we are and how to live a vital human life that is easily sustainable. Often when considering what we can do to lower our carbon footprint, we turn to tinkering with the details of our lives: take a 4 minute shower to lower water usage; increase our recycling efforts; invest in alternative energies; and so on.
But what if we were to thoroughly re-imagine who we are in relation to nature, and how to live a full, vital human life, realizing our potentials and talents, without consuming and despoiling the world in which we live? That would involve everything from what we seek for entertainment to how we think about who we are vis-a-vis a cedar tree or digger pine, who we are vis-a-vis a moose or a turtle or an osprey. The Biblical description places us apart and superior to nature for we are the only creatures made in God’s image. And God makes us the keepers or stewards of nature, giving all of it over to us for our use. This puts us in the place of domination and exploitation which are attitudes towards the natural world that have got us to where we are.
What if we could embrace views in harmony with some Native American perceptions of themselves in relation to the natural world. For example, to say that everything in creation manifests a unique kind of intelligence, and has a life or existence with purpose, is to place human being on a similar plane to all other beings. We have intelligence and live lives of purpose and direction. But in the Native American poem Birdfoot’s Grampa we discover a Native view that small toads also embody intelligence and purpose. As the traditional Grampa says of the toads, They have places to go to, too. Grampa is saying that we can’t justify running over the toads in our cars because we have important places to go, and meaningful things to do. Grampa insists that the toads do have the qualities of intelligence and purpose, just like we do, and so we must show more care for their lives. We are not superior, more important, smarter, those are the beliefs and attitudes that have got us in trouble.
Do we misread the natural world when we attribute intelligence and purpose to the existence of things? What would it mean to honestly affirm that we exist as one being among many on a sacred hoop of creation, not superior toothers and not more important, just different? Could we begin to ask not, what do I learn about a toad when I dissect it and look at its inner parts?, but what can I learn from the way a toad lives and what a toad does to live?
Can we recognize that we are one group of citizens in a democracy of beings all of whom are vital to our society, and all of whom have interests, values, and concerns to be represented and woven into the fabric of our society?
What To Do For Extra Credit:
1. Watch the YouTube video, How Trees Talk to Each Other / Suzanne Simard
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2yBgIAxYs). Do not ask if you can substitute a different video.
2. Identify 3 of Suzanne Simard’s main points about the interrelatedness and interdependence of trees in forests and briefly explain each of these points.
3. When she says that trees communicate, that trees have intelligence, and that they pass on wisdom to future generations, what exactly does she mean?
4. How does all this relate to the environmental crisis?
– Word limit: 300 words. Do not write more than this.

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