WHY ROOTS? WHY TREES?
Trees communicate with each other in sophisticated ways: by making sounds, releasing scents, employing trillions of beneficial fungi at their root tips, and sharing nutrients and water with hungry, thirsty, and sick trees. Mature trees nourish, shade, support, and even discipline the growth of saplings. Peers direct the growth of branches to share life-giving light with neighbors.
According to the forester Peter Wohlleben, the author of The Hidden Life of Trees, trees of the same and different species do all this (and more) to support each other. A lone tree is vulnerable. But nestled in a collaborative stand, trees not only thrive, but live for hundreds of years.
Humans, too, would be unprotected and exposed if we lived alone. So we gather in groups, to stay cool or cozy in harsh weather; to grow, gather, prepare, and share food; to raise and educate children; to tend the sick and the elderly; and to celebrate and worship.
Like the trees in a stand of birches, we need one other. In many ways, our collaboration is advanced—with schools, hospitals, libraries, airplanes, and email, we communicate with and care for one other.
But the comforts of technology (plumbing, electricity, transit) and ubiquitous digital devices have led us to neglect vital human needs and habits. Many of us talk, text, email, or otherwise broadcast day and night, but how well do we communicate?
How often, how deeply, and how truthfully, do we commune? When, and with whom?
Storytelling is a collaborative practice humans have been honing since prehistory. Like our forebears, we will gather in a circle to share stories. Like a stand of oaks, we will benefit from speaking and from listening. As in the forest, rewards will emerge with time. A young tree does not immediately attract beneficial mycelia to its roots; it cannot yet signal to its neighbors an attack of insects; but mature, collaborating trees can keep gnarled, leafless stumps of sister trees alive for hundreds of years by pumping food to the roots of the stumps.
Let the circle take its course. As in the forest, intelligence and nutrients will circulate. They will travel on your words, and they will travel during your silences, as you lose yourself listening. When you emerge from a circle of humans imitating a circle of trees, you will feel nourished and alive.