The research of Suzanne Simard, Ph.D., professor of forest ecology in the University of British Columbia’s faculty of forestry and author of Finding The Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, tells us that trees form a robust, complex, interlocking network. They communicate through these networks.
Her dogged research has uncovered something otherworldly. She says “[It’s] like intercepting a covert conversation over
the airwaves that could change the course of history.” She portrays her discovery of the forest’s network research as “Strings and woodwinds, brass and percussion, exploding as one… Flooding my ears, the movement allegro and intense, concordant, magical. I was enraptured, focused, immersed, in the breeze sifting through the crown. My little birches and firs and cedars seemed to lift me clear up. I was part of something much greater than myself.” As the book jacket points out, “She reveals the complicated, interdependent circle of life; through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.”
I can hardly contain myself when I meet so many luminaries who travel these networks of kinship and cooperation. It’s my fervent hope that collectively and immediately humans reach a tipping point in forming such harmonious collaborations of mutual support. This is why I do the work I do in hosting and producing the New Dimensions radio series.
I’m waiting to connect with Dr. Simard to, hopefully, have a one-on-one deep dialogue about her journey and the hope she brings to us in saving the forests which form the life-breath of the planet. I assure you, I’ll be dogged in my pursuit of an interview with her and with other wisdom leaders to bring to all our loyal listeners.
-Justine
