“A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it.”

This International Day of Forests should be an average day, when you can hug some trees, plant saplings, breathe in forest air or just go about your life filled with gratitude for FORESTS, for the oxygen, food, fiber, water, medicine, shelter and protection they provide, and have provided during human evolution, and because they are the living space of 80% of all terrestrial biodiversity.

Deforestation on the other hand plays a critical role in climate change and results in almost 20% of the world’s carbon emissions and speeds up global warming. Minus the benefits listed above.

As our ego-selves are gradually, and in growing numbers, transitioning into eco-selves, industrialized humans are stepping onto the path of re-nature-alization. We’re actually grasping the meaning of being One, with all living beings, and living-breathing Earth itself, and the universe beyond. We manifest from the same life source, materializing in a myriad of shapes and dimensions. When you feel alive, it is when you feel the life of all that exists inhale and exhale through and with you. Otherwise, it’s automated zombie-land or spiritless robotics.

So, as more and more of us become aware of how all-encompassing the oneness we are a part of actually is, the ‘growing of the self’ must become synonymous with ‘greening of the self’. Simply put, if we hurt ourselves (the trees the waters the animals the earth), we suffer.

There is an unimaginably intimate connection between us all.

As there is among trees.

What researchers refer to as the “wood wide web” is actually the neurological network of nature, comprised of thin threads of fungus, mycelium, growing outwards underground from the partner plants, connecting to each other, allowing plants to communicate, bestow nutrition, interact. (Here’s a great article to find out more: Do Trees Talk to each Other? )

And while this mycelium behaves similarly to and resembles the neuron of the human brain, a neuron, on the other hand, is strikingly similar to the structure of the universe, as recreated by astrophysicists using a computer simulation.

“As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul. That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracle of the One Thing.”
– The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus

As above, so below. The above-world, the underworld, connected by the World Tree. Or the Hindus’ Banyan and the Peepal, the Germanic Yule or the Bodhi tree, the Tree of Knowledge or the Norse Yggdrasil. Sacred trees. Sacred connectedness.

We must remember or relearn our ‘nature-born’ instincts. Instincts that act to protect the “miracle of the One Thing”, something that comes naturally to earthians who have not become so detached from nature, from themselves. Like the Amazonian Yawalapiti tribesmen in “The World of Avatar” documentary by Serge Giraud, who in reaction to seeing images of the Western world and a lavishly designed French formal garden say:

“It’s not good what you do to your plants. You are hurting them by cutting them this way. We believe plants have a spirit. It is wrong to treat them like this. Cutting a tree is to make it suffer. When we uproot trees for our cassava plantations, we are sad. The plants that you cut and trim, if you did not water them, they would likely die.”

Have we become like these plants we trim into unnatural shape and form? Co-dependant on the destructive industries that support us in supporting them, and comfort-masked lifestyle choices that control us. Destroying ourselves to upkeep ourselves. It sounds crazy. As is not realizing how essential the interconnectedness and mutual caregiving is that bonds us all living things. Enables life in us all. And gives life to us all. Like trees.

Trees that are believed to have started populating Earth about 385 million years ago, while the currently oldest living individual tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine is 5,069 years old based on tree-ring research.
And if we’re at trees and rings, don’t forget who helped fight Tolkien‘s Saruman in the War of the Ring. Treebeard, the Ent. As for another ‘supertreehero’, think of who’s guarding our galaxy. “I am Groot.”

And what’s the creepiest setting for a horror movie ever? A Japanese forest (in a Japanese horror film). Or the real version, the Sea of Trees (Aokigahara), the suicide forest located at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, today full of signs urging people to reconsider their actions. Just as humanity should constantly be reconsidering its actions, since

“A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt

So, hopefully today is just like yesterday and tomorrow, and any other day, when you hug some trees, have tree-purified air to breathe, or just appreciate nature all around and within you. Recharge with some ‘Shinrin-Yoku’ Forest Bathing, or blow off steam throwing seed grenades, but always keep in mind that we have no future without a sustainable and greener present.

In the meantime, relearn what you know about forests, and realize that they’re filled with Intelligent Trees – Family and Friends.