Suzanne Simard

It's ...

And I'm seeing us as, um, as mother trees, so this idea from Suzanne Simard that there are these big trees in the forest who through the mycelial network, fungal network are, um, nourishing and supporting each other, and they're sending nutrients out to where, where it's needed.

Mm-hmm

You know, so to feel if it does, like, kind of punch you in the heart like it did when, when you shared on the retreat this idea of these sites being desecrated, the work's already been done underground [laughs] you know, and this network is so strong already.

But as a preface, I want to read you a few quotes from a novel by Richard Powers, The Overstory, which is very much about the consciousness of trees.

So a few quotes, and a lot of this is based, the information he presents is based on the very real work, not fictional, the Canadian botanist Suzanne Simard.

And you'll see a little later in the Tay Show, Jill Lepore in the New Yorker or the New York Times, I don't remember which, quoted her in an article about how trees have saved us at this point.

Anyway, here are a couple of quotes.

That's pretty astonishing.

The arrogance of what human cultures have done with that connection is very humbling.

In the novel The Overstory, Richard Powers talks of experiments by the Canadian ecologist Suzanne Simard, who concludes that plants form communities and guilds, communicate with one another chemically, as well as across species.

Her central point is that trees care for one another.

So you get to hear ideas like that.

A woman named Suzanne Simard, who is the leader who really figured out how trees talk to each other.

And again, trees are both supporting themselves and they're creating-- They're definitely supporting the common good through their roots.

They're distributing carbohydrates and nutrients to each other.

Watch the CEBL all season on CBC and CBC Gem.

We've talked to Suzanne Simard, forest floor researcher.

She means she looks at, at what's beneath the surface-

Yes

And then finally, one guy got exasperated with me, government scientist.

And he's like, you know who you need to talk to? You need to talk to Suzanne Simard.

Never heard.

This is 2010.

She wasn't really a household name at that point.

So I called up Suzanne Simard.

And here's the first person who is like, Yeah, it's crazy.

Aspen's an amazing tree.

You know, I'm, 'cause I'm curious about... 'Cause I, what you're saying, I also am like, oh, where can you find evidence, and I'm using air quotes, um, evidence of this, like in the natural world or in the 3D world.

And I'm a big fan of Suzanne Simard, who wrote Finding the Mother Tree, and then she has a new book out, When the Forest Breathes, which is wonderful and heartbreaking and everything.

In this march of the trees, because of climate change, the trees are marching to the north in an effort to survive as best they can because it's as a warming planet.

So I'm curious, I kinda think what you're saying with the, how the animals are creating the, the light code, the blueprints and whatnot for going forward is then, 'cause what comes in behind those trees marching to the north, so that feels like that might be part of that h- the healing repopulation work Gaia, how Gaia can heal and survive, which she will.