Many years ago, while a Postulant at Holy Family, I was invited by Pete Cook to drive to a Dahlonega tree farm for “a few maple seedlings.” Pete knew the owner, who gave us a good price for a particular hybrid maple he admired. Over the next several weeks we planted the trees that now line our parking area, so lovingly cared for by our indomitable grounds crew. Now those trees are turning many lovely shades of red, orange, and yellow. Autumn arrives slowly here in the Southern Appalachians, and I delight in the subtle changes in the woods this time of year. A walk on the trails reveals lovely vistas, but the earth beneath our feet is revelatory as well. An ancient oak, split in half by recent storms, now presents a window on the world of deep fungal connections we seldom see. The forest is indeed alive, and as it turns out, we are more fully alive in the forest:
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/wellness/take-two-hours-pine-forest-and-call-me-morning/
Once we begin to pay attention in relation to this, as in so many things, our perspectives can change. As the poet Robert Frost said,
“We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.”
And Carl Jung reminds us that our cathedrals and the Nave of our own lovely Holy Family, are not the only sacred spaces: “Nature is not matter only. She is also spirit.”
In recent weeks we have begun gathering on the first Wednesday of the month for a healing service in the chapel at noon. We assemble quietly for the Eucharist and the gifts offered there, yes, but to me, relationships are the main reason we gather. I have been so moved by the connections we are creating, both through the liturgy and as we break bread together after the service, with stories, laughter, and even our sacred silences. I am so very grateful for this Holy Family community. And I am grateful that some of those in attendance, unable to be present on Sunday, are able to join us.
Nature, too, understands the mutuality of shared, sacred space, and how communication occurs at levels often unseen. The author Robert Macfarlane writes that the world beneath our feet is also filled with wonder:
The term ‘mycorrhiza’ is made from the Greek words for ‘fungus’ and ‘root’. It is itself a collaboration or entanglement; and as such a reminder of how language has its own sunken system of roots and hyphae, through which meaning is shared and traded. The relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and the plants they connect is ancient – around 450 million years old – and largely one of mutualism. In the case of the tree–fungi mutualism, the fungi siphon off carbon that has been produced in the form of glucose by the trees during photosynthesis, by means of chlorophyll that the fungi do not possess. In turn, the trees obtain nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen that the fungi have acquired from the soil through which they grow, by means of enzymes that the trees lack il through which they grow, by means of enzymes that the trees lack.”
Several years ago, my cohort of graduate school friends read The Overstory, by Richard Powers. A deeper awareness of the life of trees is among the gifts we found in this remarkable novel:
“We found that trees could communicate, over the air and through their roots. Common sense hooted us down. We found that trees take care of each other. Collective science dismissed the idea. Outsiders discovered how seeds remember the seasons of their childhood and set buds accordingly. Outsiders discovered that trees sense the presence of other nearby life. That a tree learns to save water. That trees feed their young and synchronize their masts and bank resources and warn kin and send out signals to wasps to come and save them from attacks. “Here’s a little outsider information, and you can wait for it to be confirmed. A forest knows things. They wire themselves up underground. There are brains down there, ones our own brains aren’t shaped to see. Root plasticity, solving problems and making decisions. Fungal synapses. What else do you want to call it? Link enough trees together, and a forest grows aware.”
~Richard Powers, The Overstory
Recently I arrived at church early on Sunday morning to sit in silence before services began. I was aware of the deep layers of experience we share each morning, both in the liturgy and in the relationships shared each week. Like the trees in Powers’ novel, there is a mystery at profound levels in the coming together to worship, share grace and hospitality, and go back out into the world to love and serve the Lord, respecting the dignity of every human being. Indeed, even the smallest gestures we share having participated in the Eucharist and rejoicing in the power of the Spirit allow us to flourish, even as we inspire others to go and do likewise.
“Trees know when we are close by. The chemistry of their roots and the perfumes of their leaves pump out change when we’re near…when you feel good after a walk in the woods, it may be that certain species are bribing you…What we care for, we will grow to resemble. And what we resemble will hold us, when we are us no longer.” ― Richard Powers, The Overstory
