Cycle Day 23

8/30 - lately, all I think about is the forest

My brain is floating somewhere in space today. It’s cycle day 23 and I’m noticing a significant downturn. I’m slow, I have a hard time stringing two coherent thoughts together, and my body just does not want to be fully present today. So, this should be fun…

Lately, all I think about is the forest.

I think about how in pre-Christian Germanic/Celtic/Nordic mythology (the Edda), the first two humans descended from trees. The trees’ names are Ask and Embla and they are our (mythological) ancestors.

I think about how in that same mythology, the last two humans survive Ragnarök (the end of all worlds) by hiding out in a forest.

And I think about how we often talk about the “tree of worlds” when we mean to describe Yggdrasil, but is it really actually a tree?! We don’t really seem to know what kind of tree it is.

I think about how trees only grow stronger in windy places, getting shaped and strengthened by the air that moves us all.

I think about how trees are our original time keepers, only telling us their true age once they’re cut down.

I think about how the Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, a tree said to have been alive for 1,000 years, died earlier this year.

I think about how my breath comes from my tree ancestors, how the trees’ crowns of leaves so closely resemble our own lungs, how our exhaled CO2 is the substance that trees convert into their water and food, with the neat little byproduct of more clean air for us to inhale…

I think about that NASA animation that shows how the world’s forests seem to be breathing in sync.

I think about how trees communicate with one another, through the mycelium and their root systems, sharing information, resources, and care.

I think about how my inner heart territory is always, always, always a forest or a sacred grove. How no matter where in the world I am, if I am in a forest, my heart swells. How it’s almost impossible to spend any time in a forest and not want to breathe more deeply.

I think about how we humans can see more shades of green than any other color on our visible spectrum.

I think about moss and ferns and pine needles and acorns and chestnuts and rocks…
I think about ravens and squirrels and wood peckers and ants and wild bees…

I think about medicinal herbs and other healing plant allies and how they often grow best and become most potent in wild forests.

I think about how white scientists still get to appropriate Indigenous wisdom and science as their own discoveries all the fucking time. Like in the case of the “wood wide web.”

I think about how there are some forests in the world that are considered to be a single organism, not a collection of individual trees, but one single organism. Because apparently they are all clones of one another, with each tree dying after around 100 to 150 years, as in the case of the Pando Forest in Utah, USA. The kicker? They all share one massive root system that is said to be 9,000 to 14,000 years old.

I think about how someone made a worldwide map that shows the mycorrhizal fungal network density. What? How cool is it that we can map that.

I think about how fungal spores are responsible for making rain clouds stick together (meaning, the individual water molecules would otherwise not cling together to form clouds as effectively, if it weren’t for fungal spores in the air).

And I also think about how that rain re-inforces fungi growth, which increases the amount of released spores in the air…

I think about how rain is the best water to water any plant with, because our tap water is just “too clean.”

I think about how sitting underneath the same tree everyday can noticeably help down regulate our nervous system.

I think about how walking and talking with trees regularly has helped me solve more problems, see more third perspectives, and have better ideas than any other “modality” and certainly than LLM chatbots… I tell the trees about my stuff, give them my big questions, and let them “fix it…” It can be days or weeks later, on one of my daily walks in the forest, and I will suddenly “have” a new idea, a new way of orienting to something, a solution.

I think about how I feel the most connected to my ancestors and dead when I’m in the deep part of an old-growth forest. How I can hear their laughter, their advice or even warnings.

I think about how all of that combined makes me wonder how anyone could have ever thought us to be individual beings, doing life alone, each running along their pre-programmed way. How we are so obviously constantly interconnected to the smallest bacteria and fungal spores, the largest cloud formations and weather patterns, our past and future selves, these wonderful trees and herbs and moss, and our ancestors… All in one place (everywhere).

I think about how even something so simple as a daily walk in the woods is not accessible to everyone…

I think about god. When I think about the forests, I cannot help but wonder how anyone, ever, would believe that god is not a forest… Or more accurately, that the forests and the mycelium are not all there is to god, all there needs to be. I think about why we ever needed anything else/more? (Because I truly cringe at the word “god,” I genuinely have a problem with it…probably because of what it has been abused for and how it has been shaped into a weapon of judgment and genocide… But that’s for another day.) What ever made us go looking for this external entity, that doesn’t even resemble the true biological life givers on earth, that doesn’t even act in the same reciprocal and cyclical ways as our forests do, that doesn’t even provide without judgement? What benefit did we ever get from forsaking all of that original land-based wisdom?

That’s all I have for today. See you tomorrow.

Xx, Natalie