Menu
WRU JOURNAL
Volume 1, Issue 1
Menu
WRU JOURNAL
Volume 1, Issue 2
Songs of Trees- Stories From Nature’s Greatest Connectors
“For the Homeric Greeks, kleos, fame, was made of song. Vibrations in air contained the measure and memory of a person’s life. To listen was therefore to learn what endures.
I turned my ear to trees, seeking ecological kleos. I found no heroes, no individuals around whom history pivots. Instead, living memories of trees manifest in their songs, tell of life’s community, a net of relations. We humans belong within this conversation, as blood kin and incarnate members. To listen is therefore to hear our voices and those of our family.”
Each chapter of this book attends to the song of a particular tree: the physicality of sound, the stories that brought sound into being, and our own bodily, emotional, and intellectual responses. Much of this song dwells under the acoustic surface.To listen is therefore to touch a stethoscope to the skin of a landscape, to hear what stirs below.
–DAVID GEORGE HASKELL (Pulitzer Prize finalist for “The Forest Unseen”)
Olivia Daane (OD): “You have your ears and biologist’s stethoscope tuned to nature’s knowledge; to that which binds us together as a universal organism. What’s most important now?”
David Haskell(DH): “Now we are in a time of crisis-driven change and brokenness in our relationship with the community of life. We are being called on to do better.We need to act as individuals and collectively unite to solve problems. Crisis in our ethical relationship to each other and our world beyond the human. People are really feeling that right now. People who are less privileged have been feeling this acutely for a long time.”
OD: “I believe systems are inherently wired to heal. What are some of our best ways to connect and feel the collective thrum? How do we become more multi-dimensional in our approach to progress?”
DH: “It’s not that technology is inherently good or bad. It’s how tech affects justice within human community: equality, inequality, opportunities for other species. One toxic thing in American environmentalism is that nature is somewhere else and one must escape the city to find wellness in nature. So, if we trash the city and protect the wilderness, that’s ok? But I think humans belong here as much as any other being. The city is the manifestation of the mind of a natural being, the homo-sapien. If we care about human well being and justice, what would it be to give every being the experience of beauty? Part of that is to feel like one belongs and is connected to the more than human world. A tree can be the one portal of green on a city block. Suddenly I am transported out of myself and into the realm of another species.
During the Covid time, my connection to plants in my kitchen really increased. Some other being picked my tea leaves. I felt connected to the plant and the soil and to other people. Was this tea grown in a way that honored the earth and fair trade? Ecological connectedness is here even in this time of isolation. Offer thanks for every meal. It’s a wonderful practice. I owe the world some gratitude and good work.”
OD: “What’s on your playlist?”
DH: “The music I’m making. I’m learning the basics of violin. Listening to birdsongs of birds of the West. Lots of animal sounds on the internet.”
OD: “What’s on your bedside?”
DH: “New Poets of Naked Nations” – edited by Urdrich. “The Long Long Life of Trees”- Stafford. “Mama’s Last Hug.” – France Duval. “Emergence Magazine on my study on the aromas of trees, “11 Ways to Smell a Tree.”
David is a teacher who wishes he could be an activist. He knows, “no one person can do this alone. Forests thrive not because of any one hero but because of tens of thousands of organisms linked together in this productive, fruitful network, and at its best— that is what human society is too, I think.”
Join us for a conversation with Zach Bush in our next issue as he discusses how to keep healthy from the inside out and the ground up.
Get ready to really maximize your summer garden and your energy- go to meals.richroll.com and use code RRHEALTH at checkout for a one time discount on his incredible meal planner and grocery delivery that makes using those veggies as easy as (plant-based) pie.
