I am a city girl, an urban princess who has been in love all her life with what we call country. My first country was Lake Carmel, N.Y. As country went, compared with Brooklyn, it was pretty bucolic. Then there was only water to wash dishes from a cistern, potable water from a spring or from a neighbor’s pump. Heat came from an enormous pot belly stove in the living room or from the kerosene-fired cook stove on the back porch.
Woods came within 20 feet from the back door of the tiny bungalow, and you couldn’t call them a forest because, at one time, the area had been clear-cut for whatever you clear-cut a virgin forest for. Behind the woods and across the unpaved lane was a stream at the foot of the hill that arose behind the house. There was also a garden where my grandmother grew her summer vegetables and a lake to fish in.
It was a marvelous fairytale of country life.
But I truly didn’t know what born and bred country folk knew.
How old was I when my love of biology let me in on the secrets? Older than you think.
Last year, it was revealed that trees communicated with one another, not in the way we think of communicating, even though we do communicate with others in similar ways … sometimes. Trees communicate chemically. They can warn of danger from infestations – insect, fungi, bacterial, viral or parasitic. They can produce chemicals to ward off infestations, some of which are dangerous to people, and some advantageous. They share this ability with the rest of what we have called the plant kingdom.
But it is even more than that. Deep within the soil, engaged with the root systems of plants, is a group of fungi called mycorrhizae. This group of fungi expand the ability of roots to absorb water and nutrients from the soil and, in return, the plant through its roots provides the mycorrhizae with sugars. And here is something even more awesome, the fungi provide a way for trees of the same species and their “allies” to send messages. In some cases, when there are young trees too shaded to photosynthesize for growth, the fungi transfer sugars to keep the younger trees alive.
The tree and other plants communicate with pheromones. In Africa, when an animal starts eating the leaves of the Acadia, that tree will send out signals of ethylene gas warning other Acadias. They in turn will pump tannins into their leaves that will deter other animals from eating them.
There is more:
I was reminded of these facts the other morning as I drove to work. Two deer lay on the side of the road, their eyes no longer seeing. I cried. Yes, I cried for those lives. And there are those of you who will tell me that the deer population is getting out of hand. I know that, but I also know that other species have emotions, feelings about their existence. While we may be chastised for anthropomorphizing non humans, we forget that each creature’s species is part of a creation that, like the plants and the micorrhizae, have purpose and many, like deer and grouse and cats and dogs and llamas, etc. have the physical and chemical where-with-all to do that job, part of which is to maintain themselves, finding their own species-specific joy. Non humans have purpose and relationships to others, including humans.
When my beloved companion animals were with me, I knew that there was a connection beyond just a warm bed and food. My sadness or pain were not ignored. They knew and responded.
It is no less reasonable to believe that all creation, as our ancient forbearers understood, works together to maintain what science calls a steady state. Take away one and the whole changes.
Ancient man believed that all the world was connected, a sacred connectedness, and that our living in it required the acknowledgement of that sacredness. To take the life of an animal or cut down a tree was to recognize the value of that life among its own and for the purpose that life was taken. There was an acknowledgement of respect for all that makes up the earth.
There was a time when all of life shimmered with power, when humans were an integral part of the whole. Today we have separated ourselves from the reality of the world in which we live. We have forgotten what we once knew. We forgot that all life is a prayer.
Maybe to be country means to understand that.
