Hidden Among the Trees – The Festival of the Trees 39

Welcome to Hidden Among the Trees, the 39th issue of The Festival of the Trees blog carnival. The Festival of the Trees is a periodic revelation of our findings and imaginings from trees, forests, gardens, backyards, orchards, and oases located in different parts of the world. Our purposes are connection, celebration, a sharing of knowledge.

This month I have invited people to seek out what is hidden (or lurking) among the trees, and share a glimpse of a secret with us. By inviting others to reveal a secret, a discovery, or a dream, it is my hope that we can illuminate hidden (or perhaps, merely forgotten) connections between each other and our world.




Discovering Solutions: Environmental Problem Solving

At the new blog An Exploration of Environment & Spirituality, Antioch University Seattle graduate student Laura is “delving deeper into the connection between humans and nature.” Her introductory post tells us:


“The basis of my inquiry is my understanding that traditional cultures, in general, understood that humans are part of nature, and that, as we know from the scientific field of ecology, all life is connected in an intricate web of interdependence.”


Like Laura, I believe that our perceived separateness from the rest of the world is a source of our current environmental woes. By seeing ourselves as connected not just with each other, but with all of the Earth’s systems, we position ourselves to problem solve from the new perspective of “part of” rather than “separate from.”





Keeping Secrets: Forested Mysteries


One of my first discoveries this month arrived via Pacific Northwest hiker and photographer Stacy Marie Davis. In May 2009 Davis discovered “Dirty Harry’s Truck,” a rusting ‘museum’ in the forests of the Cascades, which she announces online with an emphatic “Suck it Dirty Harry!” in the NWHikers.net discussion forums. As Davis explains, “To find it, you must earn it.” There is no clear trail to this abandoned remnant of escapades past. Davis’ Dirty Harry's Trail photoset on Flickr shares a glimpse of her findings, but clearly we aren’t getting the full picture. If we want to see it for ourselves, we would have to strap on the boots and start walking.


Among many explorers an unending debate grumbles as to whether secret places such as these should be kept hidden, or shared with others. My internet search for more of Dirty Harry’s Truck took me to the blog KarensTrails, and her post The Power of Secret Places. In this post, Karen Sykes carefully explores the sometimes heated argument about whether or not to share secret places. As an example she tells us about hidden lakes, cherished by the pilgrims who use their will, fortitude, and love of the forest to find these mystical waters.


Bloggers everywhere are partaking in this argument whether we consider it, or not. Each day we reveal online for the unnamed audiences of ephemeral internet archives what might normally stay hidden: our journals. Poet G. C. Waldrep tells us in Apologia Pro Vita Tua: “ […] In the best paintings some key figure is always missing. This is the magic behind both Vermeer and Delacroix. / In the forest, the key figure is never missing, only hiding. […]” Which invites us to consider: what secrets do we selectively keep to ourselves when we share our discoveries online? What stays hidden, left to the imagination?


NimrodCooper presents us with just such a scenario in “It escalated into a melancholy murder.” Here, with photo and few words, the artist shares the last days of the Shaker Tree. When you gaze at this picture, I invite you to alight on the memorial stone of the Watervliet Shaker Community, take a look around, and consider what you see. Are we the fools?



Sharing Secrets: A bird in the hand…



… is worth two in the bush. Or so the saying goes. The idea as I understand it is that it’s preferable to have some advantage, rather than mere possibilities of potential advantage. Perhaps more clearly stated: don’t be greedy when you can be thankful for what you’ve got.


For those among us who are willing to share, the “bird in the hand” is in fact something which can be released – a treasure to be set free for someone else to admire. This is the spirit of Ester Wilson’s blog Daily Drawings, where she reveals moments of her ever-evolving artistic portfolio. Included among her recent drawings is Stone Mountain Graveyard, a sketch of a tree which she states she drew while sitting in a graveyard.


If you’ve ever sat in a graveyard to reflect, or to speak to someone who has passed, you can identify how this small glimpse is so revealing. When I visit a graveyard, trees are often the way-markers to finding the people whose memorials I seek. Sometimes, those trees are the only breathing audience to what I need to say. Lubna Kably of The Writer’s Cyberslate knows this too, which is why she chooses to share her post, Remember Your Roots. Herein, Kably reveals two distinct moments of wisdom: first, the power of sharing a secret with a tree, and second, the need to emulate a tree as we grow and change throughout our lifetimes, as she states simply: “Always strive to stand tall, but remember your roots.”



Author Aimée Laine remembers her roots clearly in creating her short creative nonfiction piece Nature Girls. I was (ok, I AM) one of those girls running barefooted into the unknown. Laine artfully articulates the mystery, anticipation, and discovery to which the forest lends itself, complete with tree-bridge photo, inviting you to cross into another world.


Speaking of tree bridges, I am so thankful for this hidden treasure revealed at the Damn Cool Pics blog. In The Living Bridges post we are taken to Cherrapunji, India, where they grow bridges from the Ficus elastic tree:



“The War-Khasis, a local tribe, noticed this plant and realized its potential. Using hollowed-out betel nut trunks, the tribesmen are able to direct the roots in whatever way they like. When the roots grow all the way across a river, they are allowed to return to the soil, and over time, a strong bridge is formed. It takes up to 10-15 years for a root bridge to develop, but it becomes stronger with each passing year and are known to last for centuries.”



As if the pictures and descriptions aren’t cool enough, the ladies of the Travel and… Action! blog escort us across one of these bridges for a unique video-peek at a living root bridge. You can visit their blog to see yet another amazing bridge, this one a suspended length of bamboo in Arunachal Pradesh. (Bamboo isn’t a tree proper, but it grows a lot like one!)



Meanwhile at Walking Prescott of Prescott, Arizona, Granny J shares with us a glimpse of fortitude revealed in the gritty trees of the rocky ridgelines. As you gaze at these Herculean evergreens, it’s easy to lose yourself in the silence. What do these trees see and experience up there on the rock about which we can only dream?



Lost and Found: Memories, Discoveries, and Tree-Secrets


The trees which grow in our communities and local woodlands can have significant, personal impacts on our lives. In August 2009 a powerful, passing storm felled over 200 trees and destroyed hundreds more in Central Park of New York City. At The American Friend blog, native New Yorker Druidhead shares a personal glimpse at the trees she knew, the sanctuary they provided, the personal history she shared with them, and the memories she keeps of their branching shade.


Trees don’t just keep our whispered secrets, but they also hold secrets of their own. Using fossil records of ancient trees and contemporary records of modern forests, paleoclimatologists and paleobotanists consider correlations between dominant leaf morphology (e.g. shape, size, and margins like toothed, lobed, or entire/smooth) and climate patterns in different world regions. In dendroclimatological studies, scientists consider correlations of tree ring growth to climatological, ecological, and geological history. Jeff Id of The Air Vent blog muses in An Ode to the Great Thermometer Tree on the virtues of paleodendric secrets yet to be revealed.



Meteorological studies on the formation of clouds are important for current studies in climate change. At the Ozark Highlands of Missouri blog Allison Vaughn shares a press release on cloud seeding based on the research of Henrik Kjærgaard of the University of Copenhagen which reveals newly-discovered connections between the chemicals released by certain trees which, when concentrated over healthy forests, contribute to the formation of clouds. According to Kjærgaard, a better understanding of the processes that affect cloud formation is critical to the development of meaningful climate models.


At Machines Like Us, the editors are discussing current research on the colors of autumn leaves conducted on behalf of scientists Simcha Lev-Yadun of the University of Haifa-Oranim and Jarmo Holopainen of the University of Kuopio. Lev-Yadun and Holopainen look back 35 million years to theorize about the differences in yellows and reds of autumn leaf coloring as it relates to the shared evolutionary history among of insects, plants, and seasons.

At Osage + Orange, Dave Coulter provides The Local Report: A Hawthorne in Decline from the Des Plaines River in Illinois. Coulter’s post reminds us to engage in the simple act of looking and watching as we travel our daily paths – be they urban or rural – and make connections.


Denny Lyon at Beautiful Illustrated Quotations elongates the experience of observation through a collected series of tree photography and poetry in People Trees. Stroll through the imagery until you find something familiar – something which resonates, and then stop for a while and just look at what’s there in the photo.



Arati at Trees, Plants, and More muses on the Tropical Tree Tales of old squabbles between people and trees. And in case you were doubting the connections between people and trees, hop over to Jill and Ted’s Tree-mendous Adventure to see the secret truth revealed in response to the old question, Where do people come from?

Dave Bonta of Via Negativa is Listening for the Saw-Whet. And as further confirmation of the people-come-from-trees-theory, we see someone emerging from A Hollow Hemlock. Still my favorite discovery at Via Negativa this month is the lunar moth, a gorgeous member of the mystical Saturniiae; its hugeness and iridescence remind me of forest walks I took in Belize when I first saw the Blue Morpho butterflies.


Here at Arboreality, I wasn’t sure what secret I would share for this Festival. It was the forest which decided for me. In August I discovered my newest neighbors, the Secretive Summer Residents: Bald-Faced Hornets in the Backyard. These busy insects are hidden in the branches just a few meters from my home, and I can watch them work from a safe distance.



Amber Coakley at the Birder’s Lounge blog shares a discovery which (unlike wasps) you can safely touch, taste, and smell: the Texas Persimmon Tree. It’s not just people who like this fruit, but birds as well.

At Rock Paper Lizard Hugh is also paying careful attention to the local birds, and the fruits they love. Hugh shows us The Young and the Handsome Cedar waxwings, and discovers an attentive Mother bird, a White-crowned sparrow, whose nest has been usurped by the Brown-headed cowbird. Among the neighborhood trees of Vancouver, British Columbia, Hugh reports that Frugivores are Happy.





Not a Secret: Human-Forest Connections Revealed


Discussions regarding human relationships with the Earth's systems (such as forest conservation, habitat destruction, ecological restoration, and climate change) are raised by scientists, politicians, environmentalists, and concerned citizens on all sides of the issues. These topics can remain (or become) “hidden” when they are not discussed, shared, and understood.

In South Wales Jennifer Marohasy believes that Red Gum Forests Need Water and Thinning: Not Bob Carr, while India and Pakistan seem to be neck-and-neck competing for the common goal of a Guinness World Record for tree-planting.

In an attempt to resolve the ongoing human-elephant conflicts, members of the Green Valley Forest and Wildlife Protection Society are supporting efforts to plant trees along the Indo-Bhutan border. The goal is to help reestablish important elephant corridors in order to mitigate their need to search for food in human settlements.


Audrey Rabalais at College Green Magazine reports on current efforts to restore the American chestnut tree in southeastern Ohio.


“At one time, the American chestnut made up roughly 25 percent of trees in the forests of the eastern United States and about 5 percent of Ohio’s forests. In 1904 the fungus Diaporthe parasitica was accidentally introduced to the Bronx Zoo in New York City through chestnut lumber imported from China. The parasitic fungus caused sores to develop in American chestnut trees, killing them slowly. By the early 1940s, the American chestnut was nearly extinct.”


The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative (ARRI) and the American Chestnut Foundation (ACF) support the planting of American chestnut throughout the region. As a fast-growing hardwood, it is believed that American chestnuts are an especially good choice for reforestation efforts, such as those planned for reclaimed mining locations.


LookAtVietnam discusses the need to support healthy growth in the region’s mangrove forests. Mangroves are slow-growing coastal trees which provide habitat for numerous creatures of air, land, and sea while simultaneously protecting coastlines from erosion.


In Malaysia, the Indigenous Peoples Organizations are speaking out for a moratorium on monoculture plantations. Chris Lang reports at PULP, Inc. that on August 9, 2009, the UN-declared international holiday of World Indigenous Peoples Day, the indigenous Malaysians submitted a statement to their governments which includes the following:

“ […] Over the past decades, our indigenous communities have faced a turbulent survival as a result of our forest being continuously exploited by the timber companies. Logging have destroyed our fundamental existence to livelihood, the plant varieties including medicinal plants, animals and fish have either become threatened or extinct. The bulldozed forests cannot be planted with crops as the soil is compacted and disturbed; crop harvests are reduced and rivers on which the people depend on for water becomes polluted. Forest produce becomes scarce and threatens the survival of the people who have depended on it for hundreds of years. […] ”


I would submit that while this problem is felt most acutely by the indigenous peoples of the world, that it is relevant for all humans. For those of us living in urban or semi-urban settings, the impacts of environmental destruction by humans may not be as immediate or as visible. This does not make the issues less relevant. The impacts of forest destruction do not pause at political boundaries, societal classes, or religious affiliations. It is critical that we consider the wisdom of the indigenous peoples who can tell us first-hand, “Hey everybody, this isn’t working!”

From suburban America, Lucille Clifton drives this message home during a 1990 poetry reading of her piece The Killing of the Trees posted at Moving Poems. Watch, listen, and consider: collected in this blog carnival are a mere handful of articles, essays, stories, images, and thoughts which reflect the deep connections shared among humans and the Earth’s systems. How much more evidence do we collectively need to examine before the health of our environments becomes personally relevant for all of us?



If you would like to continue the discussion of the human-forest connection, I invite you to visit Laura’s blog mentioned at the beginning of this month’s Festival of the Trees. Among her early posts Laura shares a glimpse into a discussion she facilitated this summer among pagans in the Seattle area. Some participants mention the struggle to connect with “nature” while living in an urban setting. Laura’s approach to this issue is to find avenues by which the separateness of “nature” can be dissolved to reveal the connectedness of life on Earth.



Regardless of where you live, or what system by which you form your beliefs about the world, each of us has something to share in both thought and action to cultivate a healthy relationship between people and planet. We are all housed under the same sky, wash ourselves with the same water, breathe the same molecules of life-giving oxygen, sustain ourselves with the fruits and roots of the worlds’ plants. The natural world is not out of reach: it is everywhere, it is in us, it is of us. This isn’t a secret; share it with the world!

* * *

Acknowledgments

Thank you for joining us this month for the 39th issue of The Festival of the Trees. Special thanks to all our contributors, and to Dave Bonta for his many submissions of found treasures in the arborblogging world.

Thanks to D. L. Ennis of Visual Thoughts Photography (http://dlennis.wordpress.com) for the use of his photo Wise Old Owl, Copyright © 2009 D. L. Ennis. Visit Visual Thoughts for more of D. L. Ennis' colorful perspective of the green, growing world.

All other photos in this issue by Jade Leone Blackwater, Copyright © 2009 Jade Leone Blackwater.

Dinosaur photos taken in October 2008 at the Prehistoric Gardens located off of Highway 101 in Oregon State.


Upcoming Issue of The Festival of the Trees

For the 40th issue of The Festival of the Trees we return to Local Ecologist with Georgia, who asks us to submit entries on the theme of “Benefits of trees to people, wildlife, and the environment in general.”

Deadline for submissions to The Festival of the Trees 40 is Saturday, September 26, 2009. Send tree-related blog posts, images, video, and other online discoveries to: info[at]localecology[dot]org .


Ready to host The Festival of the Trees at your blog? We are seeking volunteers for upcoming Festivals. To learn more, visit The Festival of the Trees coordinating blog.

Feature Interview: Nalini Nadkarni

Today it is my pleasure to introduce Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, author of Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees. Nalini is a professor at the Evergreen State College and an accomplished forest ecologist with over 25 years of experience conducting research in tropical and temperate rainforests. Her specialty is the upper reaches of the forest: the canopy. You can learn more about her work at the International Canopy Network (ICAN).

JLB - Nalini, welcome to Arboreality! Thank you for taking some time out of your busy schedule to chat with us.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to start with a little background. Please tell us, when / how did the idea for Between Earth and Sky first sprout? What motivated you to wrap your arms around such an enormous subject as the connections between trees and people?

NMN - In some ways, I have been thinking about this book since I was a young girl climbing trees in her back yard. In fact, I wrote a “self-published book” when I was 12 years old on tree-climbing, called “Be Among the Birds”. I produced only one copy! I grew up with a deep love of trees and nature, and chose to pursue the academic of forest ecology to deepen my understanding trees. Along the way, however, I recognized the power of poetry, literature, and art to convey important ideas, and so I incorporated them into my book. The actual launch, however, took place when I was teaching an interdisciplinary class at The Evergreen State College, called “Trees and Humans”, in which my students and I explored the many relationships between humans and people in a systematic way. I realized that although it is an enormous subject, as you say, if I could organize it and synthesize it, it might be a good contribution to the existing literature on trees and their conservation.

JLB - What were your original goals when you set out to create Between Earth and Sky? Now that the book is complete, have your goals for the book changed?

NMN - My original goals were to create a book that crosses disciplinary boundaries to document the many ways humans and trees interact. Initially, I conceived it as a book rich in content, with facts and figures that would “convince” readers that trees are important and worthy of being conserved. However, as the work progressed, I realized that I needed to give myself permission to move from a strictly “facts” base orientation and instead tell stories about trees, about people and trees, and most of all, about my own life in order to be more effective in my goal of moving people toward mindfulness.

JLB - Of all the research and outreach that contributed to this book, could you tell us what were the biggest, or most unexpected bits of learning that you personally took away from the project?

NMN - The most important thing I learned was about my own motivation to understand and protect trees. As I wrote the book, collected stories, and examined my own connections to trees, I realized that it was my childhood interactions that have most contributed to my sense of wanting to protect them. As I describe in the very first chapter, when I was a young girl, I found that trees were places where I felt safe and protected from the bewildering world of grownups. They were my refuge. Over the course of my forest ecology career, working in trees on four continents, I am fully aware of how much trees need protection and refuge from humans. That, I now realize, is the motivation for my drive to protect trees – not only their huge importance in maintaining stable climate, a supply of oxygen, and biodiversity.

I know you’re a smart cookie with extensive scientific knowledge (and a vocabulary to match). How have you crafted your book to be more interesting and accessible than an “academic tome”?

The process of making my writing more accessible was a difficult one! I have been writing scientific articles and books and speaking to academic audiences for over two decades, so that is the “default mode” I fall into when I write. I had to be very conscious about writing on a more personal and conversational level without falling into the trap of being either too sappy or too sloppy. One critical piece of the process of writing the book was to have many eyes pass over it in the form of a generous set of readers who could point out the parts that fell into the pedantic or the maudlin before I sent material to the editor.

JLB - What were your favorite parts of this project? Are there any sections of this book which are most dear to your heart?

NMN - Although the writing of the book had its times of frustration, loneliness, tedium, and low confidence, there were many high points. I loved the creative moments when an idea from a scientific work about some aspect of trees would be echoed in a contemporary poem, or when I made an original connection or metaphor that really worked. I very much enjoyed the doing of the work with my collaborators and editors (particularly Jade!), who helped in finding and sending pieces of information my way. I enjoyed getting a previously intractable sentence “just right”. I loved hearing the tree stories people would offer me when they learned about the topic of the book. The section of the book I enjoyed writing most was about trees and symbolism, as I learned so much about how central tree symbolism is in so many cultures, which indicates the importance of trees themselves.

What were your biggest challenges in creating this book? Are there any sections that you want to develop for a second edition (or volume)?

My biggest challenges was in organizing it all. There is a HUGE volume of information, facts and figures, images, and stories about trees. Perhaps more than any other part of nature (maybe rivers and mountains are on a par), trees have evoked thinking and writing and art. I struggled with filtering out what seemed the most interesting and compelling, but still feel insecure that I have left critical pieces out. I would like to work more with trees as inspiration for art – music, visual art, poetry, literature. That would be a logical follow up, not only to enumerate the pieces of art that have been inspired by trees, but also what those products tell us about the nature of the relationship between trees and people.

Now that Between Earth and Sky has its first chance to speak to an audience, what are your hopes? What do you most want readers to take away from this book?

My hope is that after readers finish this book, they will say, wow, I had no idea that trees are so cool, so important, so beautiful, so fascinating. I want them to recall trees that have been important to them in their youth and in their adulthood from all parts of their life. I want them to walk down an urban street and say, hey, look at the body language of that tree, what was its past? I want them to climb a tree when they are feeling scared or sad, and then feel braver and not so sad. I want them to become mindful of all of the things that trees provide, and to become mindful of all of the things we must provide trees.

As the concept of sustainability slowly enters the public consciousness and conversation, how do you see Between Earth and Sky as contributing to the discussion?

I believe that my book is a direct and powerful participant in the concept of sustainability, as it is growing into our society. The book is essentially a document about conservation about one of the best ambassadors to nature – trees. The ultimate objective is to instill a sense of mindfulness about the importance of trees and forests – the lungs of our Earth. What logically follows once mindfulness is aroused is a sense of stewardship and conservation, which are both bulwarks of sustainability.

You perform a tremendous amount of outreach work which connects you with the public and the community, both local and global. What are the most important benefits that you have expected and experienced from these efforts? How have those experiences shaped your latest book?

What I have learned from my outreach activities to diverse public audiences such as prisoners, poets, legislators, urban youth, Inuits, and modern dancers, is that I learn as much about trees and forests from them as I teach. They see the world – and trees – in different ways, with fresh perspectives, and that in turns wakes up my own eyes and brain from its entrenched past approaches. I believe that this is a theme that emerged in my book. I constantly described the different ways of seeing trees that I garnered from other audiences, with fresh metaphors and analogies. I have a proclivity to do that in everyday life, but by consciously opening the door and inviting in these new guests, I was able to see the forest and the trees in new ways, and to present those to my readers.

What’s the next step for you? I know you’re a veritable whirlwind of ideas and activity. Has Between Earth and Sky inspired any “branch-off” projects?

My next steps are to sit and listen for a while, instead of speak. I want to hear reactions and questions that emerge from readers from this book. I will also be forging ahead on science projects in the temperate rainforest canopy, to keep my scientific brain engaged, as well as moving forward on the collaborative research and sustainability projects with prisoners that has now gained substantial funding from the Department of Corrections. I am currently raising funds to go on a national tour with a modern dance company to perform “biome” a dance about the rainforest inspired by joint time in my study sites. All of these will continue to provide a rich milieu to better understand the relationship between trees and people. My ultimate hope is to establish a project called “1000 Voices of Nature”, in which I gather multiple voices of scientists, artists, children, and others from all over the world to document the importance of trees and nature to humans, and in so doing, to make a strong case for its protection.

Where can readers find you for book signings and events?

I will be signing books in major independent bookstores in the Pacific Northwest in August and September 2009: Portland (Powell’s); Bellingham (Village Books); Seattle (Seattle Town Hall, Elliott Bay), and Olympia (Orca Books).

Nalini, thank you again for the opportunity to discuss Between Earth and Sky at Arboreality, and to learn a little more about your goals and projects. You’re the type of scientist AND artist to whom we can all “look up”!

Thanks!

* * * * * *

To learn more about Dr. Nalini Nadkarni's work, be sure to explore the following:

Dr. Nalini Nadkarni - Homepage

Research Ambassadors

Join us to discuss Between Earth and Sky on Facebook!

To meet Nalini at an upcoming book signing event, visit one of these fine bookstores:

Powell's Books

August 21, 2008

7:30pm

1005 W. Burnside, Portland, OR 97209

Powell's Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

Village Books

September 3, 2008

7:00pm

1210 11th Street, Bellingham, WA 98225

Village Books Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

University Bookstore

September 30, 2008

7:30pm

Town Hall Seattle, Downstairs, 1119 8th Avenue, Seattle, 98105

University Bookstore Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

(Sponsored by Town Hall Seattle and University Book Store. Admission is $5 at the door.)

Orca Books

October 2, 2008

7:00pm

509 4th Ave E, Olympia, WA 98501

Orca Books Events - Between Earth and Sky, Nalini Nadkarni

* * * * * * *

All photographs used in this article are © Copyright 2008 Nalini M. Nadkarni. Do not use without permission.

Between Earth and Sky cover image is © Copyright 2008 University of California Press. Do not use without permission.

New Book Release by Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees

At long last, Dr. Nalini Nadkarni’s book Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees (UC Press, July 2008) is now available for purchase. I had the unique pleasure of assisting Dr. Nadkarni in the preparation of this book, and I look forward to sharing more about her work here at Arboreality.

First up, I’ll be reviewing her book, and following that I hope to take a few minutes of Nalini’s time for a brief interview. There’s no need to wait for me however: I can tell you right now that this is an outstanding book derived from Nalini’s own willingness to ask new questions, and search for answers in both the obvious and the obscure. Grab a copy and give it a read!

Want to see more about Nalini Nadkarni's recent work? Check out the video special "Green Prison Reform" from KCTS9.