The Social Lives of Trees

[Steppingfeet]

I listened to a great Fresh Air episode on NPR (Dave Davies was subbing in for Terri Gross).

Description: Ecologist Suzanne Simard says trees are "social creatures" that communicate with each other in remarkable ways — including warning each other of danger and sharing nutrients at critical times. Her book is 'Finding the Mother Tree.'

I picked up some amazing new understandings about the way that trees and other plants "talk" to one and literally support each other. For instance:

• The mycorrhizal fungi in the soil act as a network between the trees. Some fungi are specific to a certain species, other fungi can transfer information, nutrients, and chemical signals between multiple species.
  
• One example was cited of a mutualism between Birch and Douglass Fir trees. If the canopy of the Birch tree shades the Douglas Fir (thereby reducing the Douglas's sun intake), the Birch will literally transfer carbon to support the Douglas Fir through the fungal network. The more it shades, the more carbon is transferred.
  
• Tomato plants injured with a pathogen can communicate their health status to other tomato plants to help them increase their defenses against the pathogen.
  
• These researches call old trees in the forest "mother trees." The mother trees act as nodes or hubs in the network, helping to nurture new generations of seedlings in our network. (I love this notion.)
  
• This mycorrhizal fungi acts as a biological neural network that functions in some (many?) respects similarly to our own brains. Apparently when it's mapped it displays the same similarity
  

Fascinating stuff if interested! It reminds me of the way James Cameron artistically depicted an alive and sentient Pandora in Avatar.


https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/991986724...s-of-trees

[Steppingfeet]

This also highlights why clear-cutting forests and mono-cropping a single species to harvest commercial lumber is an ecologically unsound practice.

[Sacred Fool]

 
Stop me if I've said this before, but last year I was up on the Holy Mountain walking way off the trails by some old Red Fir trees and I swear one of them put this thought in my head.  "It must be very difficult to take a human incarnation."  I was too surprised to sit down and chat in the moment.  I just kept wondering (1) How crazy am I really?  And (2) How crazy-difficult our modern life must seem to them where all they need is provided easily for them.

There's a Q'uo quote someplace that says that the difference between the consciousness of birds and trees compared to ours is that we 3D denizens have imagination.  Well, it takes a bit of imagination to think about human versus herbaceous incarnations.  Maybe that particular one was on its way to 3D?

Maybe I should have warned it, "No, don't do it!"  But perhaps it'll wander on that way to a planet with a friendlier 3D environment?

Ra: I am Ra. This query is more complex than most. We shall begin. The incarnation pattern of the beginning third-density mind/body/spirit complex begins in darkness, for you may think or consider of your density as one of, as you may say, a sleep and a forgetting. This is the only plane of forgetting. It is necessary for the third-density entity to forget so that the mechanisms of confusion or free will may operate upon the newly individuated consciousness complex.

Thus, the beginning entity is one in all innocence oriented towards animalistic behavior using other-selves only as extensions of self for the preservation of the all-self. The entity becomes slowly aware that it has needs, shall we say, that are not animalistic; that is, that are useless for survival. These needs include: the need for companionship, the need for laughter, the need for beauty, the need to know the universe about it. These are the beginning needs.

Given the info Steppingfeet cited, I wonder if 3D creatures coming up from plants are a lot more civilized in their earlier incarnations compared to those which come up the animal route?

  

[Steppingfeet]

I wonder if 3D creatures coming up from plants are a lot more civilized in their earlier incarnations compared to those which come up the animal route?

SF, I believe that Ra would corroborate your supposition:

[/url]

38.8 Questioner: I was wondering if that particular social memory complex from the Sirius star evolved from trees?

Ra: I am Ra. This approaches correctness. Those second-density vegetation forms which graduated into third density upon this planet bearing the name of Dog were close to the tree as you know it.

38.9 Questioner: I was also wondering then if, since action of a bellicose nature is impossible as far as I understand for vegetation, would not they have the advantage as they move into third density from second as to not carrying a racial memory of a bellicose nature and therefore develop a more harmonious society and accelerate their evolution in this nature? Is this true?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. However, to become balanced and begin to polarize properly it is then necessary to investigate movements of all kinds, especially bellicosity.

38.10 Questioner: I am assuming, then, that their investigations of bellicosity were primarily the type that they extracted from Hickson’s memory rather than warfare among themselves? Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. Entities of this heritage would find it nearly impossible to fight. Indeed, their studies of movements of all kinds is their form of meditation due to the fact that their activity is upon the level of what you would call meditation and thus must be balanced, just as your entities need constant moments of meditation to balance your activities.

That's incredible. "Nearly impossible to fight." Whereas our motley third-density group finds it nearly impossible in many cases not to fight. It seems that the Creator is interested in both the fighting and non-fighting third-density varieties.

However... the following Q&A explores the influence that one's second-density heritage has upon the choices and attitudes in the third density in a way that seems to somewhat contradict the quotes above. It does this through exploring the biases around mating:

[url=https://www.lawofone.info/s/99]99.10 Questioner: [...] May I ask if the Logos of this system planned for the mating process [...] by some type of DNA imprinting as has been studied by our science? In many second-density creatures seem to have some sort of imprinting that creates a lifetime mating relationship and I was wondering if this was designed by the Logos for that particular mechanism and if it was also carried into third density?

Ra: I am Ra. There are some of your second-density fauna which have instinctually imprinted monogamous mating processes. The third-density physical vehicle which is the basic incarnational tool of manifestation upon your planet arose from entities thusly imprinted, all the aforesaid being designed by the Logos.

The free will of third-density entities is far stronger than the rather mild carryover from second-density DNA encoding and it is not part of the conscious nature of many of your mind/body/spirit complexes to be monogamous due to the exercise of free will.

However, as has been noted there are many signposts in the deep mind indicating to the alert adept the more efficient use of catalyst. As we have said, the Logos of your peoples has a bias towards kindness.

My takeaway from this is that the second-density imprinting is easily overridden. While Ra speaks here specifically in terms of DNA, and of evolution from fauna, not flora, nevertheless it would still seem that such second-density experience would imprint upon the base layers of the mind itself, much as it seemed to do with those trees who evolved into people in the Sirius system.


But whereas the tree-people were very much a product of their past, finding it impossible even to fight, the exercise of free will on this planet (?) can completely obviate the biases of their past evolution. I don't fully understand this.

To your story, I've heard of others receiving/sending communication to trees. Personally I would love for a tree to talk to me as distinctly as you perceived it. I'd be spending time with those mother trees to receive their wisdom. Though naturally there are plenty of other ways to learn from trees and all alive things in the creation (which includes everything that science presently says is not alive).

[Sacred Fool]

But whereas the tree-people were very much a product of their past, finding it impossible even to fight, the exercise of free will on this planet (?) can completely obviate the biases of their past evolution. I don't fully understand this.

For what it's worth, I would zoom out.  First, moving from one density to the next is going to open up a world of new choices as well as many new categories of choices.  So, the country bumpkin just coming in from 2D is going to face a bewildering array of ways of doing things, and it will be no great surprise when they begin to explore new cuisines, new mating patterns, new kinds of pop music, pornography and illicit drugs.  Are we not all things?  (Yeah, it's a big old mess, but don't blame me.  This one is not my fault.)

   

[Steppingfeet]

But whereas the tree-people were very much a product of their past, finding it impossible even to fight, the exercise of free will on this planet (?) can completely obviate the biases of their past evolution. I don't fully understand this.

For what it's worth, I would zoom out.  First, moving from one density to the next is going to open up a world of new choices as well as many new categories of choices.  So, the country bumpkin just coming in from 2D is going to face a bewildering array of ways of doing things, and it will be no great surprise when they begin to explore new cuisines, new mating patterns, new kinds of pop music, pornography and illicit drugs.  Are we not all things?  (Yeah, it's a big old mess, but don't blame me.  This one is not my fault.)

I agree completely that said country (or urban) bumpkin fresh in from 2D will "face a bewildering array of ways of doing things." (Ra describes catalyst for the early third-density entity as falling into patterns that are "random." As the entity biases its consciousness toward one polarity or another, those patterns will be more intelligently designed in accordance with our free will to facilitate our chosen polarity - In other words, increasingly less random.)

But I think what you're saying misses the point I was driving at. You seem to be saying that the new 3D entity has the total freedom to explore (or be confused by) the wide array of choices. Yet, Ra speaks of the entities that evolved from trees as not having that full menu of choices available to them, or at least not being able to explore through their own actions that full menu. Instead, the former tree entities are limited or constrained by their past: they seem practically incapable of experiencing and expressing bellicosity; so much so that they need to mine the memory of a poor third-density fellow just to get the taste of it.

[Sacred Fool]

But I think what you're saying misses the point I was driving at.

Sorry about that, 'feet.  I guess I see the impressions born of 2D experience as various factors among many others (i.e., not strongly deterministic) upon entry into 3D.  But I could be wrong about that--it's just so hard to really know.  Perhaps various unknown ancient peace loving cultures who left us no lasting monuments (there were thousands of such just in N & S America, for example) were descendant of vegetal varieties?  Maybe Quaker and Shaker types?  I wouldn't be surprised if there were cases like that.

Gosh, this talk makes me want to go outside and sit in the woods right now.  But the damned coyotes are sooooooo noisy and disruptive.....

  

[Steppingfeet]

Sorry about that, 'feet.  I guess I see the impressions born of 2D experience as various factors among many others (i.e., not strongly deterministic) upon entry into 3D.  But I could be wrong about that--it's just so hard to really know.  Perhaps various unknown ancient peace loving cultures who left us no lasting monuments (there were thousands of such just in N & S America, for example) were descendant of vegetal varieties?  Maybe Quaker and Shaker types?  I wouldn't be surprised if there were cases like that.

Ancestry.com would be a lot more interesting if it traced our history all the way back to broccoli.

Gosh, this talk makes me want to go outside and sit in the woods right now.  But the damned coyotes are sooooooo noisy and disruptive.....

We have them around here too. It's so weird that they all yelp and howl as a pack only in short, discrete bursts, then it's gone as quickly as it came, and the night is quiet again with crickets, owls, frogs, and so forth. Not a melodious sound, they make.

[Sacred Fool]

We have them around here too. It's so weird that they all yelp and howl as a pack only in short, discrete bursts, then it's gone as quickly as it came, and the night is quiet again with crickets, owls, frogs, and so forth. Not a melodious sound, they make.

Somehow we've driven this thread off the rails in very short order.  Kinda funny.

   

[Steppingfeet]

Somehow we've driven this thread off the rails in very short order.  Kinda funny.  

I was just a passenger in the car you were driving... : )

You brought up an interesting associated question regarding the influence that second-density programming exerts on third-density consciousness. I think that is not central to the OP but it would fall within its scope.

I'd be interested to know if you or any others have information about or experience with the native intelligence and capacities of trees or any second-density being. Particularly that which exceeds what the sciences presume are the limitations of our second-density brethren.

[Patrick]

Stop me if I've said this before, but last year I was up on the Holy Mountain walking way off the trails by some old Red Fir trees and I swear one of them put this thought in my head.  "It must be very difficult to take a human incarnation." ...

You did say that before, but it never gets old, so never fear to repeat it!

[Diana]

I knew about the root systems and communications of plants and trees, but not this point particularly:

These researches call old trees in the forest "mother trees." The mother trees act as nodes or hubs in the network, helping to nurture new generations of seedlings in our network. (I love this notion.)

I too love this. 2D creatures are so much more than humans allow in general. But when one is a child, one seems to know these things though not in an intellectual way. I always felt safe and welcomed when I was sitting in the maple tree or apple tress in my yard.

Stop me if I've said this before, but last year I was up on the Holy Mountain walking way off the trails by some old Red Fir trees and I swear one of them put this thought in my head.  "It must be very difficult to take a human incarnation."  I was too surprised to sit down and chat in the moment.  I just kept wondering (1) How crazy am I really?  And (2) How crazy-difficult our modern life must seem to them where all they need is provided easily for them.

I love this.

When I was 15, I wrote a poem about a tree being my mother. That poem got me nominated to be the editor of the next year's poetry mag. Anyway, trees have always been special to me, like they are protectors, and of course, they are when you think of all the creatures they provide homes for, the shade they provide, the food even. In some Native American cultures, when you cut down a tree you cut down a community.

[flofrog]

Just reading that wonderful thread.
So funny because I, too, one day while walking in a forest I had this thought, oh my goodness you poor things if you decide to cross over and become humans how will you do this far from your kingdom here.

[Steppingfeet]

...when one is a child, one seems to know these things though not in an intellectual way. I always felt safe and welcomed when I was sitting in the maple tree or apple tress in my yard.

Carla had this sort of awareness as well as a child. I've heard other stories with these sensitivities. My own senses were way too unawakened to receive these intuitions.

We have a beautiful, unique, and huge mulberry tree in our back yard. From end to end on the plane parallel with the ground, its branches span around 80ft. It has such a quality of character, a distinctness or selfhood. I've watched that tree blow in the wind, be covered in snow (its giant branches are lovely highlighted in white), grow its leaves and fill our yard with a bountiful canopy of shade, lose its leaves in the fall, be visited by squirrels and birds and deer, and otherwise crown our space with her presence. And then i consider how enormous its own root system must be, mirroring to a degree the crown above. And about May/June it spends a few weeks gifting us an infinite amount of delicious mulberries. I would love to blend consciousness with it.

After having listened to that podcast I can't help but wonder if it is a mother tree in the local network.

[unity100]

But whereas the tree-people were very much a product of their past, finding it impossible even to fight, the exercise of free will on this planet (?) can completely obviate the biases of their past evolution. I don't fully understand this.

Biological/physical evolution and genetic coding go only so far - accompanying are the society that is constructed by these evolving entities, its tendencies, traits, behavior patterns, and especially the resulting racial (eventually societal) mind.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...after-all/

Just like how we are genetically coded and on top of that evolved our racial/societal mind to be cooperative and helpful, but how today we live in a negative, competition and selfishness oriented societal construct, and this causing psychological disorders and all kinds of incompatibilities for us. This kind of self-centered, individualistic societal format is just ~250 years old, since invention of Capitalism. And apparently social/racial mind cannot be changed that fast.

Genetic programming may be overridden, Ra says. But racial/social mind seems more difficult to change. Because, its literally 'the mind' of this experience nexus, how the entire society sees existence, interprets it and how it behaves through it. Forcing such a change is as difficult as seeing the world through a wrongly prescribed glasses.

To such entities which evolved such cooperatively as described in your earlier post, the very act of such destructive behaviors would be destructive to themselves - Destroy part of the forest network? But that would reduce their own security and well being - they are dependent on the network directly. So much that such perception would be ingrained in their mind complex, automatically finding this a revulsive act which cannot even be interpreted.

...

On a sidenote, Ra notes that these entities' activities heavily (almost exclusively) involve meditation. This means that they would be in a closer contact with those around them. And even with those who are afar.

Personally I would love for a tree to talk to me as distinctly as you perceived it.

Practicing listening to more silence may help.

[Diana]

We have a beautiful, unique, and huge mulberry tree in our back yard. From end to end on the plane parallel with the ground, its branches span around 80ft. It has such a quality of character, a distinctness or selfhood. I've watched that tree blow in the wind, be covered in snow (its giant branches are lovely highlighted in white), grow its leaves and fill our yard with a bountiful canopy of shade, lose its leaves in the fall, be visited by squirrels and birds and deer, and otherwise crown our space with her presence. And then i consider how enormous its own root system must be, mirroring to a degree the crown above. And about May/June it spends a few weeks gifting us an infinite amount of delicious mulberries. I would love to blend consciousness with it.

After having listened to that podcast I can't help but wonder if it is a mother tree in the local network.

Beautiful.

It may not be a "mother tree" in the sense the podcast talked about, but to me, all trees are mothers, as they house and protect so may creatures, and give life to other creatures with their leaves and fruits; and this says nothing of their presence, of which you speak. I think you do blend consciousness with your mulberry tree—it's just that you may be expecting words, when it is feeling that is shared.

[flofrog]

Fascinating stuff if interested! It reminds me of the way James Cameron artistically depicted an alive and sentient Pandora in Avatar.


https://www.npr.org/2021/04/29/991986724...s-of-trees

it's extraordinary how Cameron really touched millions with Avatar and the sense of sacredness from the trees.

[Eddie]

I too love this. 2D creatures are so much more than humans allow in general. But when one is a child, one seems to know these things though not in an intellectual way. I always felt safe and welcomed when I was sitting in the maple tree or apple tress in my yard.

Some of my best memories from childhood are exactly these.  We had two apple trees in our back yard.  They were standard-sized trees, just right for a 6-year old kid to climb, and I used to climb in the trees and eat apples.  I spent a lot of time in those trees.  We also had a silver maple that I liked to climb, and I could use it to get up on our roof, which I did frequently (to the annoyance of my mother).  Those trees were my friends.

The apple trees were a MacIntosh and a Stayman Winesap.  To this day, those are two of my favorite varieties of apple.  I sometimes think that I became a home orchardist because of my early love of those trees (one of which is still alive, although sadly untended and bedraggled).

I don't have any photos of the various apple trees I've raised, but here's one of me standing in one of my peach trees.

[Steppingfeet]

Ha! A couple days ago I received notification of a video for "How Trees Secretly Talk to Eachother"!

(I receive notifications from KarmaTube.org and Kindspring.org, though I seldom get to watch them.)

At just 1 min 47 sec, it gives a short, animated synopsis of what I was writing about in the OP. Really well done narration and animation.

Though it raises some new questions about tree "bellicosity." It describes how Black Walnut uses the fungal network to prevent competitors growing nearby. Interestingly we have a large black walnut. I had been told by our local county extension agent that black walnuts have this behavior, but I've been lucky to be able to grow some holly trees nearby.

Though shared through karmatube, here's the original video on Vimeo.

[flofrog]

Steppingfeet,
Would you have close by a second Walnut tree ? it happens that apparently when there is one there is two, one is male and one is female. And... its fungal is not toxic to all plants, some trees actually will like it and will thrive next to it.. lol

[Steppingfeet]

Biological/physical evolution and genetic coding go only so far - accompanying are the society that is constructed by these evolving entities, its tendencies, traits, behavior patterns, and especially the resulting racial (eventually societal) mind.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...after-all/

Just like how we are genetically coded and on top of that evolved our racial/societal mind to be cooperative and helpful, but how today we live in a negative, competition and selfishness oriented societal construct, and this causing psychological disorders and all kinds of incompatibilities for us. This kind of self-centered, individualistic societal format is just ~250 years old, since invention of Capitalism. And apparently social/racial mind cannot be changed that fast.

Genetic programming may be overridden, Ra says. But racial/social mind seems more difficult to change. Because, its literally 'the mind' of this experience nexus, how the entire society sees existence, interprets it and how it behaves through it. Forcing such a change is as difficult as seeing the world through a wrongly prescribed glasses.

I too saw the two different inputs influencing outcome in those two equations:

1) The group mind of trees-cum-people makes bellicosity nigh impossible.
2) The genetic inheritance of our third-density group offers only a mild bias that is easily overridden.

I guess my question regards the relationship between these two properties: mind and dna.

To my layman's understanding, DNA ought to be a manifestation of the configuration of the group mind. For instance, a group mind accustomed to inefficient use of catalyst might then yield strands of DNA predisposed to various illnesses for the incarnate third-density individual.

(Side pondering on this topic but also one potential example: So far as I am aware, individualism took its strongest hold in european societies. Those societies also have the greatest diversity of hair color, so far as I am aware. I've wondered if there was a cause/effect or reciprocal relationship.)

Point being: the dna that that carries a mating bias, as Ra described, why wouldn't that same bias be present in the group mind itself? Same as the bias for the trees.

To such entities which evolved such cooperatively as described in your earlier post, the very act of such destructive behaviors would be destructive to themselves - Destroy part of the forest network? But that would reduce their own security and well being - they are dependent on the network directly. So much that such perception would be ingrained in their mind complex, automatically finding this a revulsive act which cannot even be interpreted.

If they were all of one species of tree, that would make a lot of sense. From within their species, they would have faced no enemy, no antagonism, nothing against which to defend or engage in battle to overcome.

Also, they would have spent eons being still, at least relative to their more mobile second-density brethren; and as you indicate, in a meditation.

And unlike our primate predecessors capable of crudely manipulating their environment through the opposable thumb (which predisposed us toward the making of weaponry), they would have lived in a much greater acceptance/surrender to the rhythms and movements of nature.

Steppingfeet: Personally I would love for a tree to talk to me as distinctly as you perceived it.

Practicing listening to more silence may help.

Ah, that's your exact quote. I have more to say about that later.

Interesting article btw.

"But even the most compelling televised collisions between selfishness and cooperation provide nothing but anecdotal evidence."

I love a well-formulated sentence. And also their following point: "And even the most eloquent philosophical arguments mean noting without empirical data."

In our veiled environment, there is ever the quest to uncover and understand our design. Who are we by "nature" and what does that say about who/what we really are? (In theistic terms I think this would be like asking "What was the Maker's intent? What are we supposed to be?)

I liked that those studies revealed that, when acting quickly, thus acting intuitively, we choose the greater good as a rule of thumb. As if to say this is more reflective of who we really are.


I wonder if this intuitive goodness reflects our particular sub-Logos's bias towards kindness, and it is that which becomes suppressed and confused through a societal matrix built in strong degree toward the maximizing of self-interest.

Also liked this concise look at the differences between the intuitive/rational faculties:

"This focus on first instincts stems from the dual process framework of decision-making, which explains decisions (and behavior) in terms of two mechanisms: intuition and reflection. Intuition is often automatic and effortless, leading to actions that occur without insight into the reasons behind them. Reflection, on the other hand, is all about conscious thought—identifying possible behaviors, weighing the costs and benefits of likely outcomes, and rationally deciding on a course of action."

[Steppingfeet]

Steppingfeet,
Would you have close by a second Walnut tree ?  it happens that apparently when there is one there is two, one is male and one is female.  And... its fungal is not toxic to all plants, some trees actually will  like it and will thrive next to it.. lol

Really? Well, it produces walnuts each year, so if fertilization is needed, there must be a mate nearby! But it's not in our yard. Maybe he/she is hiding in our neighbors. : )

I planted holly (nellie stevens holly, specifically) because holly does well in part sun, and the canopy of the walnut tree soaks up all the nearby light. I hope that the walnut shares generously with our holly.

[flofrog]

For sure there is a mate somewhere

I think the little holly will thrive. If you find little spanish bluebells they love walnuts..