Good morning.
Today's morning insight is about how we can use trees as examples of grounding,
Rooting,
Growing and connecting.
My name is Inge and it is my mission to bring you science-based insights on everything between psychology,
Yoga and meditation that I find essential to living a curious,
Healthy and connected life.
Today we will discuss how trees live and grow together and what we can learn from them.
Let's start with a striking similarity between you and a tree.
Your brain cells,
Called neurons,
Receive input from other cells through their dendrites.
The term dendrite stems from the Greek word for tree,
Dendron.
And just like tree branches and tree roots,
Dendrites branch out and they even have leaf-like structures on them,
Called spines.
While this similarity between trees and brain cells was first discovered in 1889,
More recently scientists unraveled other interesting similarities between trees and humans.
Trees are far more alert,
Social and smart than we once thought.
The dominant idea used to be that trees would battle for sky space,
Air and light through survival of the fittest.
But scientists are starting to uncover that communities of trees have their own interconnected nervous systems that facilitate tree communication,
Memory and learning and that trees are using these systems for cooperation rather than competition.
Trees living in forests tend to live longer than isolated trees living in urban environments because they use the power of the group to survive.
Trees of the same species live as communities and they will often form alliances with trees of other species.
Forest trees have evolved to live in cooperative interdependent relationships maintained by communication and the collective intelligence.
These soaring giants full of spring collars often draw the eye upward to their outspreading crowns,
But their real action is taking place underground in the places where we forget to look.
Through large networks of roots,
Fungi and bacteria,
Trees are able to share nutrients,
Able to distinguish family members from strangers and able to launch a joint defense against threats to their ecosystem.
They can warn their neighbors about invasive plagues or send out stress signals after forest disturbances such as deforestation.
As author Peter Voleben,
Writer of the book The Hidden Life of Trees describes,
Once I came across a gigantic stump in this forest,
Four or five feet across.
The tree was felled 400 or 500 years ago,
But scraping away the surface with my penknife,
I found something astonishing.
The stump was still green.
The surrounding trees were keeping the tree alive by pumping sugar to it through their network.
When trees do this,
They remind me of elephants,
He says.
They are reluctant to abandon their dead,
Especially when it's a big,
Old,
Revered matriarch.
Scientists are rediscovering an ancient Eastern wisdom,
Namely that all beings,
Rather than existing in isolation,
Exist in relation to other beings.
When Buddha gained enlightenment,
It was when he realized that interconnectedness is the true nature of all beings.
We're not only connected to other people,
We're also connected to the air through our breathing,
To the universe through light,
To the soil through touch and nutrition,
And to our surroundings through vision and hearing.
Just like trees,
We are connected to our kin,
But just like trees,
We're also connected to fungi,
Air,
Soil,
Sound,
And trees.
Trees generate oxygen while we generate carbon dioxide.
Trees use carbon dioxide to generate energy,
While we use oxygen as our power.
The Buddha said,
Since this exists,
That exists,
And since this doesn't exist,
That doesn't exist.
That is created because this is created.
So if this disappears,
That disappears.
We are all interconnected beings.
While we focus so much of our current online connections on looking out over the play of beautiful light of other branches,
Crowns,
Leaves,
Blinded by the height and color of our fellow trees,
The real connection,
The real action,
Happens underground.
That is what we can learn from trees,
Instead of looking up to a root down,
To connect to those around you that will fuel your roots deep down in the mud.
Down in your roots is where learning happens and where you build the foundations to grow.
Those trees that share your roots are the trees who will share the light and the air with you as well,
And they will do everything in their power to help you grow.
Thank you for listening to this morning inside.
If you enjoyed listening,
You may also enjoy the morning meditation grounding,
Which will help you to visualize yourself as a tree.
Have a lovely rest of your day.
