Last summer I heard an interview on NPR with Peter Wohlleben, the author of The Hidden Life of Trees. I was intrigued to hear him speak with great reverence and knowledge about the ways that trees cooperate, working together in intricate networks and communities. Turns out that trees communicate, support each other, and enter into symbiotic relationships with other organisms and species in much more complex ways than most of us realize or understand. After hearing this interview on the radio, I knew that I wanted to learn more but it took me quite some time to get around to finding the book at my local library.

Now that I’ve read the book I look at the forest, and really all trees, quite differently. I think about the way that trees might be communicating with each other. How they are sending out chemical signals to the other trees around them to warn of insect invasions. How they send information through electrical pulses through the intricate network of fungi connecting their roots under the ground. How they work together to share nutrients with ancient stumps, keeping some trees alive when they no longer have their own leaves or means of photosynthesis.

Trees, it turns out, may do many of the same activities that we attribute to animals and humans - think, feel, communicate, breathe, raise their young… There is scientific evidence suggesting that they do. Although the pace at which they do these things is much, much slower than humans or animals. Which makes sense, since their lifespans are typically quite a bit longer.

And, just like for humans or animals, isolation and loneliness can be devastating and debilitating for trees. Some species are equipped for venturing out into new territory as pioneers, but most need the support of other trees around them to live a full and healthy life.

Wohlleben’s background is in forestry and he is particularly interested in how these new insights can help humans do a better job working with the natural world, and forests and trees more specifically. On page 242 he writes: “Not to put too fine a point on it, we use living things killed for our purposes. Does that make our behavior reprehensible? Not necessarily. After all, we are also part of Nature, and we are made in such a way that we can survive only with the help of organic substances from other species. We share this necessity with all other animals. The real question is whether we help ourselves only to what we need from the forest ecosystem, and - analogous to our treatment of animals - whether we spare the trees unnecessary suffering when we do this.”

Since I set the intention of focusing on CONNECTION this year, I was particularly interested to think about this book from that perspective. And now that we are intentionally isolating ourselves for the safety of our communities, it is so powerful to think about all the ways in which we are interdependent. How we need the support and fellowship of other people to thrive, and how the health, strength, and resilience of each of us can affect all of us.

Let me know if you have read this book, or if you are interested in reading it. I found it somewhat difficult to get through, maybe because it was translated from the original German, or maybe because the author is more of a naturalist than a writer. But the information inside the book was eye-opening and definitely shifted my perspective on the world around us.