redwoods – Nourish-n-Cherish

🌲 A Nemophilist’s Booklist🌲

One quite understands Albert in his quest for quiet. The poor fellow leaves his noisy house, goes to the beach, but people follow him everywhere. He has pups to keep an eye on, friends who want him to help build a sandcastle, but all Albert wants to do that day is read quietly. Finally, he does get all his furry and non-furry friends to join him in his reading, and he gets his quiet read after all.

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The preceding week the son captured the feeling perfectly when he said, “Wow! It is only Tuesday! I thought it was Thursday.”

As the week wore on, I thought wistfully of that half marathon run through the forest a couple of weeks ago. Was it only a few weeks ago? Why hadn’t I walked the whole way – enjoying the new shoots of ferns, the ring of trees, the fresh green leaves against the older darker leaves? Still, it was easy to remember the forest, and immersion in a forest seemed like a wonderful option. I said as much to the son and he rolled his eyes, but agreed that it would be a wonderful idea.

So when the week-end finally rolled around: we did the next best thing: went to the library and picked up a few children’s books that could get us a peek into their leafy pages.

There truly is nothing that can come close to actually being in the forest.

Enjoying the breeze – that unique sense of air molecules that just passed the canopy above flutter past you

Admiring the community – that feeling the interconnectedness of the ecosystem that holds the forest together, the mycelia, fungi, birds, squirrels, insects

Being in the presence of creation – that feeling of awe that only the artistry of creation can bring

All of that is part of the old magic of the forests.

Some authors manage to capture a tiny part of these aspects through their illustrations, words, and phrases.

A Whiff of Pine and a Hint of Skunk -by Deborah Ruddell, Illustrated by Joan Rankin
Redwoods – by Jason Chin
In the woods – by David Elliott ; illustrated by Rob Dunlavey
The perfect tree – by Chloe Bonfield

The last book, The Perfect Tree was really a perfect book if one wanted to lose oneself in beautiful thoughts of trees. How does one find a perfect tree? The woodpecker thinks the perfect tree is his own, while the squirrel finds his own tree filled with his secret stash of berries and nuts is the perfect one. A soft smile spread across my face as I flipped through the pages.

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To spend time in a forest is to spend time with your soul. To see the blues, greens, yellows and browns merge together in that trick of light (Komerabi : the phenomenon of sunlight through filtering through the leaves above) is to experience luminescence.

木漏れ日: tree (木), shine through (漏れ), and sun (日): Komerabi

A Redwood Run

It has been a few years since we attempted a destination run. The type where we run for the scenery, the physical gravitas of one’s surroundings, and the joy of camaraderie among one’s fellow runners. As we ran through the redwood forests, I thought to myself how marvelous it was to run and run like a true child of the Earth without urban buildings, construction noise, and piles of concrete. Even the gray road through the forest felt poetic and somehow attuned to its surroundings. (Well, maybe the double yellow lines were a bit jarring, but the gray road didn’t feel quite so intrusive)

After a chaotic start to the half-marathon, it took some time for us to settle into the run. The traffic jams were horrendous – the husband’s implacable optimism about making it to the start line on time was a bit misplaced, especially when we could see other runners leap out of their cars and run to the start line (adding a good mile to their already long runs). Our group of runners were split between two cars and by the time the bibs were collected and we started the race, it was a good 20 minutes past the race start. To make matters worse, the officials were adding to the confusion yelling to all in the vicinity that they would be removing the starter mats that record time. We were thoroughly frazzled as we ran across – not at all sure it had recorded our run, but we ran anyway.

The son ran a 10K, while the husband and I ran the half-marathon. The son having age and weight on his side flew on, while we huffed and puffed behind him trying to keep up. This resulted in a shin injury for the husband (which, he told me later, almost had him wondering whether he should do a 10K instead. Coming from the sun-is-shining husband, this must’ve been a serious enough injury) However, some stretches and slow miles later, he seemed to be in a better shape.

As we ran on and on, deeper into the forest, there was tranquillity there. A meditative pulse to running through trees that started life when humanity was still contemplating the merits of civilized living. Physical gravitas takes on a new meaning in the redwood forests. Young shoots and ferns, the young greens against the textured markers hues of the older trees, the sunlight poring through the branches high above. I thought of the books on redwood trees – Richard Power’s Overstory – the best one I could think off: powerful in its imagery and cathartic to think about just then.

“This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”

– Richard Powers, The Overstory

Between the 7th and 8th mile, I thought I’d missed the mile marker somehow. It seemed interminably long. My leg seemed to have just given up, and I found myself looking up into the tall redwoods begging for strength. To drink from the infinity that seemed to stretch among those majestic trunks. It helped. The depths of the forest tends to speak to the depths of the soul, and I prodded on, careful not to tell the husband about the injury like saying it out loud would somehow make the injury worse. I stretched, grimaced, and plodded on. Each mile excruciatingly long.

I thought of the gray road cutting the mycelium web underground that sustained these trees for millennia and felt a strange stab of remorse : would the web have found a way to continue underneath the gravel to sustain the trees on either side? I’d have to check.

Cosmos episode for: The Search for Intelligent Life on Earth : narrated by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, written by Ann Druyan & Carl Sagan

But yet again, the forest helped.

Whenever the body felt drained and the pain in the right leg flared up, it felt grounding to remind myself that running this course was one of the best things to happen. For the redwoods were calm, the mists rolling in mystical, and the pattering of fellow runner’s feet grounding. There was a strange other worldliness to running through the redwood forests. Pain (possibly ITB) the only reminder that this was not a dream.

I cannot tell you how marvelous it felt to run the last mile and arrive at the finish line – famished yes, but we had managed to finish! Between our injuries, and a clatter of a start, a horse-wallop of a run, we had finally finished. The son was there cheering us on and all was well.

Having a wonderful set of friends on the journey is always helpful, and though we were scattered throughout the race, and didn’t see much of each other – the glimpses and cheers we did get was hugely inspiring.

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Back from the Brink – 2

The first conscious thought that gray morning was that we would be amidst giants. The truest, wisest, most resilient of all. We had planned a hike in the coastal redwoods of California near Muir Woods for the husband’s birthday. As we entered Cathedral Grove (a better name I cannot think of, for spirituality shines through the branches of the tall old trees), I pointed to a sign that said , “Be seen not heard!”.

“Yes….that is for you!” Said we all pointing to one another.

“Quiet Coyote!” We agreed and off we went, quieter than our usual selves. There is a natural sanctity, a lasting feeling of peace, and a humbling of self in these groves.

Many of the trees in Muir Woods are over half a millennia old. These trees had put down roots long before the Spanish conquistadors came to the United States, or the Gold Rush had started. California would not be the same after these events. Silicon Valley was centuries away, when these marvelous giants had started reaching up up and above towards the skies. But here, inside the redwood forests, none of that seems relevant.

After several feet of hiking up, we were able to gasp for breath, inhaling the lovely scent of the woods, and conversation started up again. A few miles into the hike, there were fewer people, and the children opened up. Talk turned to Beautiful Earth, a popular classic in the nourish-n-cherish household. The son told us about the disappearing monarch butterflies. I remember visiting Butterfly Grove a few years ago. It was easy to mistake the butterflies for leaves. There were thousands of them plastered together on the branches, hanging everywhere, looking beautiful. Millions of them made the journey every year up and and down the coast, and they made a beautiful sight. Who doesn’t stop to admire a flitting butterfly? This year, less than 2000 monarch butterflies were counted. The species is dying. A world without butterflies sent a shiver down my spine.

What have we done to this planet if butterflies are no longer in our midst?

The daughter piped in, “You know monarch butterflies are corner species – meaning they indicate the state of the ecosystem in general. For instance, if monarchs go away, then birds find out that painted ladies aren’t problematic either and soon we start losing species that look like them as well.” Apparently, the monarch butterflies are toxic to birds and they leave them alone. Seeing a little evolutionary wormhole there, other species like the painted lady butterflies evolved with the same color scheme, but they aren’t poisonous to birds. How long before birds figure this out?

“But how did this happen?” In the decade since we went to see the butterfly grove, how did 99% of the species manage to be destroyed?

“Milkweed!” This ubiquitous plant that thrived along roadsides, freeways and everywhere is fast disappearing due to increased use of fertilizers. Toxic to other animals, the milkweed is apparently a major source of nectar for the monarch butterflies. Could we bring these butterflies back from the brink? It seemed like a miracle would be required.

A world without butterflies is not one I wish for our grandchildren. I shuddered in the grove, and sent a little prayer up towards the towering redwoods. What will these trees witness in another 500 years? They are already enduring more frequent wildfires, and though, redwoods generally hold up very well against wildfires, the frequency with which they have been occurring in the past few years is not comforting.

Back home, my eyelids holding the short-term memory of the redwoods in them, I closed them, instantly transported to a world in their midst. Forest bathing. Those of us who still have the magic of trees in us are blessed indeed. Those of us who stop to see flitting butterflies need to pray that future generations have the magic of butterflies around them.

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

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