We walk among Ancients
Maybe it is the change of seasons & quiet approach of Winter Solstice, or just COVID fatigue. I don’t know for certain why, but I’ve been thinking about and taking comfort in forests lately.
Patti and I went on a magical walk through the Hansville Greenway last Friday. It felt like a communion with two forests: the damp, green, mushroomy forest we saw with our eyes and a ghost forest we felt with our imaginations. This stretch of the peninsula was once blessed with a grove of enormous old growth Western Red Cedars. As you walk from the park to Hawk’s Pond you will see the cut stumps standing apart like silent sentinels, reminding you of what this place once was. Close your eyes and that older forest will appear.
As I mentioned in last week’s note, I spent the previous Monday wandering along the Little River. Like the Greenway, we have changed this place, but old growth still exists. Then this Monday I wandered to the Lower South Fork of the Skokomish, where you can still find some of the most impressive old growth Douglas Fir and Cedar forest I’ve yet found in the Olympics. Real forest with open spacing, not just a few trees.
On the drive to the trailhead, I listened to a podcast episode from The Daily (a NYT production) titled “The Social Life of Trees.” It was a reading of a long article in the NYT Sunday Magazine and was wonderful. It tells the life story of Dr, Suzanne Simard. Dr. Simard has spent her career studying how trees form communities, whisper to each other and share resources. In this fascinating story you will learn how forests “talk,” what Darwin missed and why clear cutting is bad forest management.
Of course, we spend enough time in forests to know how magical they are. Karen recommended The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben to me years ago. We understand completely that there are no individuals. There aren’t even separate species. Everthing in the forest IS the forest.
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