Nature – happy hustle

There is a beautiful moment, (a day or two too early and you miss it, a day or two too late and you miss it) when the summer heat turns to autumn cool and the leaves of the forest make their most miraculous swan song.

This moment is spectacular. One can spend their life in search of a perfect fall moment and it would not be a wasted life. I have the privilege of living in a place where the colours of autumn are perhaps the most vibrant of all.

Having just experienced one of the more perfect fall days of my life, it has me thinking about this moment in time and other moments in time, where if you are just early or just late the moment is gone.

How many of us can say we have just missed an opportunity and many more could think back on opportunities we did not even know we had that were missed.

My thought is that these moments of perfection do not come too often, especially if you do not know how to look. This is where I find my thoughts today, wandering and in search of moments. I think in part we are always searching for moments, moments to be turned into great memories, moments to be frequently shared and embellished and moments that seemed so perfect that to even recall them in detail does not do it justice.

Here’s to a life full of those moments.

Trees are amazing. When I think of my first memory of trees, my introduction began with leaves. Fallen leaves. Autumn leaves on the ground to touch and smell and rake and jump in and collect.

I heard an interesting thing today on one of my favourite podcasts RadioLab: Trees are connected, by underground networks, to share data and collectively support each other in growing the wealth and health of the forest. Woah.

Networks of fungal tubes connect old trees to young, oak trees to maple and even insects to roots. These networks truly are the original world-wide-web. The trees provide sugar to the fungus’ which grow expansive networks between nearby trees and breakdown local matter and minerals to then transport back to the trees that need it most.

My first thought, “so the biggest, oldest trees have the most connections, get the most nutrients and continue to keep growing bigger and stronger” ah makes sense. Not true. The trees actually coordinate the allocation of minerals to weaker, younger and even diseased trees to help them become stronger and communally grow the health of the forest.

With all our human genius we have trouble supporting equally our neighbour, let alone another culture or species. Trees are amazing.

Check out the original RadioLab Podcast here – From Tree to Shining Tree

Category: Nature

in search of moments

wood wide web