Overstory and my story

Sara Wright

After•Word: “Born Again”
Richard Powers’ The Overstory

“Let me sing to you about how people turn into other things.” (Ovid) quoted in The Overstory

Years ago I placed my brother’s ashes in a shallow depression that I had dug near a granite fern and moss-covered boulder. The brook flowed just a few feet away and at the last minute I scattered some filaments over the shallow waters, returning them to the sea. A week later I planted a hazelnut tree nearby. A fossilized spiral ammonite marks my brother’s grave.

Thanks to the underground highway created out of millions of tree/plant roots, the extensive net of fungal hyphae, and this communal system’s miraculous ability to exchange nutrients, my brother lives on as part of this forest. The gracefully spreading hazel and all the other trees (spruce, maple, balsam, hemlock, ash) scattered around this hallowed woodland grove have been nourished by the bones of one I loved.

Yet only recently have I been possessed by revelation.

I want to be buried under one of these trees so I can become one, too. I spent my childhood living in a tree, was sheltered, fed, and loved by them as a young forlorn mother, and chose them as my closest companions (except for dogs and bears) when I built my small camp in the woods, and later my log cabin. By mid-life the deep intimacy between us had flowered into articulation. What was happening to the trees was happening to me. Trees paved the road to eco-feminism.

I long to become a tree whose context is community, whose focus is on the whole, who lives on in a sacred form that is 400 million years strong.

Everything about trees is about living in relationship to other beings. Trees shelter, feed, protect, create life out of death, and ask for nothing in return. Well, not exactly nothing. Of course, I am grateful to trees for each breath I take, but mostly I love them because they exist. And over the course of my life trees have taught me that they love to be loved. A life without trees is not one I would choose to live.

When I first began reading The Overstory I felt an instant visceral connection to the writing because I had never come across a novel that linked trees to humans the way this one did, placing the brief span of the human species against the 400-million-year history of trees. The Overstory is a kind of meta-narrative of old-growth forests, in all their wonder and diversity. Several overlapping and interlocking human understories unfold against this backdrop; trees are the foreground for others. Some of the characters of The Overstory dedicate their lives to the seemingly impossible job of saving trees from extinction.

Patricia Westerford is a scientist whose love for trees has directed her entire professional life. When Patricia first posits that the bio-chemical behavior of trees makes sense only when we see them as complex living organisms—that the entire forest is a living organism that cooperates above and below ground—other scientists ridicule her. She withdraws from public attention; eventually her research is vindicated. Patricia also makes a decision to gather the seeds of trees to store in a protected environment in order to safeguard them for the future. Her supportive husband poses a question Patricia cannot answer: Who will be around to plant those seeds?

Olivia has no life purpose until she is electrocuted and when she comes back from the dead she begins to hear voices, and more importantly, begins to listen to them. The trees need our help; humans need help. As a fierce tree advocate, “Maidenhair” goes to live in a redwood, generating love and devotion from her four compatriots, love that sustains them after her horrific death. The book demonstrates that all life is interdependent and that what we do to the trees we are doing to ourselves. The characters begin to understand that in order to reverse the trajectory that we are on, humans must begin to see trees as sentient beings inextricably tied to us.

Almost daily I touch sturdy tree trunks that have provided me with support and deep abiding joy, comfort during times of distress. Sometimes during the warmer months I listen to tree trunks making an almost imperceptible gurgling sound. I think of all the rootlets—luminescent hyphae interpenetrating, nourishing, sending impulses, singing under ground. The compounds that trees breathe out at night lower my stress level. My heart beats more slowly in response, in resonance with this night rhythm. I experience unimaginable aching beauty when trees are leafing out, birthing spiky top knots, coming into bloom while scenting the air with a perfume so sweet that it transports me into another realm. I lean into blessed tree shade during intolerable heat. Trees speak in tongues that I can feel or sense and sometimes utter a word or two in my own language. Is it any surprise that I am perpetually flooded with awe and wonder when it comes to trees?

Tree conversation never ceases above or below. Just now because it is winter the tree’s sap, its sugary/mineral rich blood, barely trickles, though it still acts as nature’s antifreeze. The living tissue just below the bark, precious cambium, is lined with water so pure it doesn’t crystallize. Trees lean into the dark grateful to rest quietly as frost or snow covers bare branches or bends evergreen boughs to the ground. In the spring’s warming sun, sap chants as it rises, flowing upward (defying gravity in the process) to the highest branches, the most delicate twigs, the sharpest tips of needles, causing the latter to bristle with new green growth. Flowers and leaves appear on deciduous trees. Pale yellow, orange, or dusky brown pollen thickens the air with scent and purpose.

With adequate water trees will flourish all summer long, photosynthesizing—producing bountiful amounts of oxygen as they breathe in poisonous carbon dioxide. They transpire, offering clouds of steam, releasing precious moisture, compounds, and minerals into the air until autumn, when their lifeblood begins its annual descent. Journeying back to their Source, withering leaves and needles begin to drift earthward (some needles, others scatter in early spring). Cascading leaves flutter to the ground, peppering the precious earth with the stuff of dying, twigs, uneaten fruits, seeds, and nuts, producing a layer of detritus soon to become nourishment for next year’s growth.

Seeds take root almost invisibly, seeking Earth’s warmth, minerals and other nutrients and most important—relationships with others; kinship begins beneath the surface of the soil.

Ah, to become a tree…

I will sleep and dream away the winter, bow respectfully as I wince in raging winds. Early spring brings my willow catkins into flower: blossoms that feed my much beloved and starving black bears. Deer and moose nibble my first twigs and buds. In the heat of the late spring sun I become tumescent, swelling buds that will produce flowers of every conceivable shape and color, those complex structures that will eventually bear fruit or seeds. Translucent lime-green leaves appear and deepen into emerald. My scent is so sweet that bees seek me out and I thrive under their buzz and hum. As summer begins, my leaves will shower the earth in luminous dappled light shielding tender wildflowers from a sun too bright, too fierce. With the first clap of thunder I turn my thirsty leaves and stretch out my needles towards the life-bringing rains. Birds who sought out the shelter of my branches to bear their young feed their hungry progeny. Woodpeckers hammer holes in some of my trunks for insects, creating new homes for others in the process. Flying squirrels and owls seek my protection from summer’s harsh brightness, the kind that outlasts the night. Wild bees burrow under my bark or under my feet. Myriad insects like cicadas find homes in my canopies and sing cacophonous songs of praise at dusk. Wailing winds cease as I listen to myriad voices; the forest speaks.

For me “becoming tree” means that something of who I am lives on, a “not I” who continues her work: feeding animals and birds, planting and nurturing more trees and plants—those same creatures and plants (and hopefully others) that have sustained me throughout my life.

As long as trees continue to exist they will teach us that in every end there is a new beginning.

Voices : Part 1

The Work of Monica Gagliano

 

I have just finished “Thus Spoke the Plant” by Dr. Monica Gagliano. In her pioneering book on bio-acoustics (sound) Gagliano demonstrates for the first time that plants emit sounds that are heard by their neighbors who then respond to their environment in ways that are beneficial to the plants. Another way of saying this is to state that plants and trees have a voice.

 

Her research officially started in In Bristol England (2011) with maize. In the laboratory corn began speaking for the first time emitting loud and chirpy vegetal clicks. The instant I read these words in Gagliano’s book I remembered what Scientist Barbara Mc Clintock wrote about her ground breaking genetic work with Indian corn in the 1930’s. Mc Clintock discovered that chromosomes exchanged material during cell division (jumping genes). When the scientist revealed that the plants taught her – they spoke to her – she was ridiculed for it. But eventually this extraordinary woman won the Nobel Prize for Physiology in the 1980’s anyway!

 

More recently (2014), Gagliano demonstrated through rigorous experiments that plants communicate with neighboring plants using sound even in a highly controlled laboratory situation where plants are totally isolated from each other. Plants also possess a memory; they can remember what they learn and adapt their behavior accordingly.

 

In one fascinating experiment with pea plants Gagliano asks whether plants can use sound to find a water source, and discovered that indeed seedlings could locate water not just through the moisture level in the soil but by listening to the sound of water even when it was some distance away.

 

Naturally, Gagliano’s work is controversial for two reasons. First, our scientific establishment is so well rooted in the rigid mechanistic paradigm that it either refuses to read the evidence presented or simply dismisses the work as nonsense even when experiments can be replicated (this is what happened to Gagliano). This frightening bias prevents innovative scientists from risking their careers by asking the kinds of questions that might allow us to understand more about the non – human species with whom we share the planet during these ever darkening times.

 

The second problem involves the language that is used to describe plant processes. Mechanistic scientists bristle when words like voicing, learning, listening, or remembering are used to describe what they consider to be purely mechanistic plant processes. Just recently I let a physicist read another article I had written in which I referred to nature as “S/he”. His heated, and to me, knee jerk response: “there is no such thing – nature has no gender” is not only incorrect; for example: Juniper trees are either male or female, and many plants possess transgender elements, but this kind of thinking slams the door on using language that might imply that nature possesses human – like elements with a sickening thud.

 

My question to the scientific establishment at large is: Why are mechanistic scientists so afraid of attributing possible sentience to non – human species who have been around for 450 million years like plants have?

The Overstory

The power, mystery and wonder of the Greening at my home in Maine.

The Overstory

When I first begin reading The Overstory I felt an instant visceral connection to the writing because I had never come across a novel that linked trees to humans the way this book did, placing the brief span of a human life against the life of trees; overall the species have been around for 400 million years.

 

The Overstory is a kind of meta-narrative of old-growth forests, in all their wonder and diversity. Several overlapping and interlocking human understories are told by the characters while trees provide the background for some and the foreground for others. The book demonstrates through both ways that all life is interdependent and that what we do to the trees we are doing to ourselves. Some of the characters of The Overstory dedicate their lives to grappling with the seemingly impossible job of saving trees from extinction.

Patricia Westerford is a scientist whose love for trees has directed her entire professional life. She believes that trees are social beings. She became a scientist that dedicated her life to studying forests after having been taught by her father to ask questions about how and why trees grow. Her steadfast love and awe of trees/underground connections animates this woman who combines scientific knowledge with her deep love of forests. She makes a radical statement: Join enough living things together, through the air and underground, and you wind up with something that has intention. The entire forest is a living organism that cooperates above and below ground. When Patricia first posits that the bio – chemical behavior of trees makes sense only when we see them as complex living organisms she is told by other scientists that she is crazy. She withdraws from public attention to pursue her research until eventually it is supported by the work of other scientists. Patricia also makes a decision to gather the seeds of trees to store in a protected environment in order to safeguard them for the future. Her supportive and loving husband poses a question Patricia cannot answer: Who will be around to plant those seeds?

Olivia has no life purpose until she is electrocuted and when she comes back from the dead she begins to hear voices, and more importantly, begins to listen to them. The trees need our help; humans need help. As a fierce tree advocate “Maidenhair” goes to live in a Redwood, generating love and devotion from her four compatriots, love that sustains them after her horrific death.

Adam the psychologist asks the question: How do people manage to avoid seeing the obvious (environmental destruction for example). He believes that humans are not wired to see background changes that occur when they are distracted by the moment. His advocacy and civil disobedience land him in in jail for 140 years.

Mimi is introduced to a Mulberry tree as a child by her father who cares for this tree throughout his life. This man also endears himself to the discerning reader by apologizing to a bear! When the mulberry starts to fail, her father takes his own life, understanding that his life and the mulberry tree are intimately related. This act fosters Mimi’s advocacy as an adult.

Nick paints the four trees that have been planted by his parents for each sibling when he is five years old, and when one child dies as an adolescent he too recognizes the powerful relationship between humans and trees. This childhood experience influences his decision to become an activist.

Ray, a one – time lawyer realizes before his death that the earth’s lungs will be ripped out by humans who will let this happen.

Another character queries do trees have rights?

Each person speaks to the necessity of saving trees because no oxygen breathing species can survive without them. In order to reverse the trajectory that we are on the characters begin to understand that humans have to begin to see trees as sentient beings that are inextricably tied to us. Only then will we prioritize their survival; we are all connected as Indigenous peoples have been saying all long.

“The Forest is a threatened creature”.

Because I have lived my entire life in the context of trees also becoming a fierce advocate for them I suppose it is not surprising that I should choose to be born again as a tree, one that supports the continuation of life rather than destroying it.

 

 

“In Search of Pure Lust”

In this remarkable memoir one woman’s life is set in the collective context of the women’s movement as a whole, and through Lise’s eyes we get to see the “both and” quality of her struggle to understand what went wrong not only in her personal relationships with women, but between the powerful women who inspired the women’s movement in the first place. We can only heal this wound personally and collectively if we are willing to self – reflect, ask difficult and painful questions, and are willing to take responsibility for our own actions, something that the author is willing to do. By addressing our own mother-daughter betrayals, choosing to respect one another’s differences regardless of sexual orientation, color, race, religion etc. we can finally unite with one purpose – to save ourselves and the planet…

What Lise proposes – namely that Lesbian Visionary Thinking opened the door to women re –imagining women as powerful agents in their own lives even as they became women who acted upon these visions is, I believe, truth. Lesbian visionaries envisaged a woman centered culture and created one. Many of us realize today that without a feminist standpoint, the ravages of patriarchy are going to destroy us all. We have much to learn from reading this story.

I should probably mention that I am not a lesbian. I am, however, a woman who loves other women – a woman who has struggled with the same questions about relationship and betrayal throughout her life and one who believes that every woman needs to read this book because if we are going to shift this deadly patriarchal paradigm into an eqalitarian matriarchal one women must lead the way. And to do that we have to begin to heal what is broken in ourselves.

The publication of this book is also uncannily timely because we are at such a critical crossroad – Women from all walks of life are waking up to the fact that during the last election 52 percent of American women voted for a power –driven, mentally ill, misogynist.

We must interrupt this cycle of women choosing crazy, abusive men over politically astute women who could be in the position to change the world.

Lise’s personal story is a compelling one. Ruthlessly honest, she struggles with a complex web of personal relationships. This book also helps others like me who came to feminism late – as a middle aged woman – experience what it must have been like to have women’s reading circles, bookstores, places where women gathered with joyful abandon to share ideas and re –imagine the world. The depth and breadth of Lise’s honesty leaves the reader without doubts about this woman’s personal integrity. The book is also a page – turner. I finished this deeply moving memoir which ended on a positive note feeling bereft – I didn’t want it to end.

Finally, in my opinion In Search of Pure Lust is Everywoman’s Story whether she chooses to accept it or not.