DO TREES TALK?
"Stones have been known to move and trees to speak" said Shakespeare's Macbeth, voicing an old superstition. Today a team of scientists at the University of Washington in Seattle, led by Professor David F. Rhoades, claim to have evidence that proves that trees really do 'talk'.
Humans cannot hear their conversations, but one tree can be understood by another.
The scientists gathered their evidence in the course of experiments, on the effects of stress on trees. Plant stress can be caused by drought, frost, pollution, or lack of nutrients in the soil. Under such conditions they are more vulnerable to attacks by insects and other plant-eating creatures because their natural defences are low. This vulnerability is much like people catching a cold when they have been soaked by rain, since it is the fact that the soaking lowers the body's resistance to any cold viruses.
Stress in plants is accompanied by chemical changes, just as it is in humans. The scientists discovered that when under stress, plants produce more nutrients, such as amino acids, and smaller amounts of chemicals that help protect them against the ravages of insects.
The scientists then began a series of experiments with willows, placing hungry caterpillars on some trees but not on others. The latter were the controls. At first the caterpillars flourished. But before long it became apparent that they were doing surprisingly little damage to the trees. Analysis showed that after the initial attack the trees produced more defensive chemicals such as proanthocyanidin, a kind of natural insecticide.
Then came the surprise. After a few weeks the control trees were also producing more proanthocyanidin. They were defending themselves in advance of attack. It seemed that the affected trees were somehow signalling to the others that "there is danger around".
Professor Rhoades and his colleagues wondered if the trees were 'communicating' through the roots and soil. But experiments in and out of the laboratory proved conclusively that this was not so. In any case, the trees were apparently 'talking' over a distance of more than 100 yards.
The scientists then proposed that airborne pheromones might hold the clue. These chemical substances given off by plants and animals act as signals between members of the same species. Although present in very small quantities, pheromones are amazingly powerful. For example, the pheromones emitted by female moths will attract males hundreds of yards away.
After further tests professor Rhoades and his colleagues came to the conclusion that the pheromone hydrocarbon ethylene, emitted by trees through leaves, was likely carrier of the danger signals from one tree to another. Research along these lines is still continuing.
Not all scientists are convinced by this evidence, however. Two British biologists from York University, Dr. Simon V. Fowler and professor John H. Lawton, maintain that the suppositions of the U.S. team can be explained equally well by the spread of infectious disease carried by the caterpillars themselves. The two scientists conducted their own experiments with birch trees. Their finding: no evidence that trees 'talk'.
Now as technology improves foresters like professor Suzanne Simard have discovered that along with pheromones, trees also communicate through carbon matter in the soil, this had led to her discovery of the 'other world', where this carbon material is the fuel that allows a process called Mycorrhizal, where she found that not just trees, but almost every life matter in a forest were communicating.
Trees are social creatures that mother their young, talk to each other, experience pain, remember things and have sex with each other, a bestselling author and active forester Peter Wohlleben has said.
CAN YOU TALK TO TREES?
With such discoveries, gives even more reason for foresters to be one with nature. Many foresters have opted in for nature walks, talking and hugging trees, meditating under trees, listening to trees, i'm sure you get the picture, as the foresters have. And when you continue to dive deep into the world of the tree lovers, you find mystical folk lore and enchanted forests protecting dragon dens, underground dwarf passages and sorcerers castles, the likes of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream paints a vivid illustration.
But are there really mythical fairies and spirits galvanising in forests? If so, who has evidence or can say they witnessed this euphoric realm? Well hidden in the deep womb of this secret world are the Nymphs, and they may just have the answers to our questions.
The Nymphs would proudly call themselves the children of the mother goddess, that being mother nature, the determent of all things living. Their practices include frolicking about in the grass, butt naked, whilst living off the Earth, and in return, they become one with nature (mother goddess).
A nymph (Greek: νύμφη, nýmphē [nýmpʰɛː]) in Greek mythology and in Latin mythology is a minor female nature deity typically associated with a particular location or landform. Different from other goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as divine spirits who animate nature, and are usually depicted as beautiful, young nubile maidens who love to dance and sing; their amorous freedom sets them apart from the restricted and chaste wives and daughters of the Greek polis.A major connotation of the Nymphs is their sex life, which is an open free orgy for all. The higher up you go in the cult of Nymphs, it's not as care free, as it almost becomes a religious sect, where chosen nymphs become representations of a certain god and much knowledge and pleasure is received in these so called high level practices, where it's no longer about the pleasure but about the interaction with heaven.
These communications with the gods and spirits all happen through the nymphs practices of talking to trees and the inhabitants of the forest, through the use of mediation, psilocybins and sex.
WHY DO PEOPLE TALK TO TREES?
It's an easy question to answer. In history, the Greeks saw trees more than just the life bringers of air, like the stereotypical legends that they were, trees to the Greeks were living embodiment's of gods! Thus to the ancient Greeks, such trees like the Birch tree, Pomegranate and the Ash tree were all sacred in one way or another. Out of all these trees however, one stands out due to it's historical background, and that is the Apple tree, also known to some as the Tree of Knowledge.
Apple Tree
The apple tree is a tree in the Underworld, a tree of immortality, and sacred to Apollo. The mythical Isle of Avalon, meaning orchard (from afal, the old Welsh word for apple) is the resting places where King Arthur is meant to wait until he is needed to rise one more to protect his people.
For Celtic people, the apple tree symbolised the World Tree, the axis of the Universe. They considered the apple the most magical of fruits. a fruit of immortality and prophecy. At Samhuin, or Halloween, the time of the apple harvest, the fruits has a large part to play in the rituals and celebrations, including divinatory practices.
Tree of the Underworld
The apple itself contains a potent magical symbol within. If it is cut across its 'equator' (with the stalk at the top), there are 5 pips inside, contained within a five-pointed star or pentagram. The pentagram, in turn, can be the basis of the golden spiral. The spherical shape of the apples symbolises eternity.
In the biblical story, when Eve persuaded Adam to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, she also handed him the pentagram hidden inside the fruit (although the Bible never specifically states that this fruit was an apple). Here, the pentagram stands for the spiritual nature of man, and eating it awakens Adam to new possibilities; the flesh combines with the spirit, and immediately Adam and Eve cover their genitals, signifying sexual awakening.
Magical apples that confer immortality can be plucked from mythological trees all over the world. In Scandinavian stories, apples guarded by the Goddess Idu keep the Gods youthful until the end of the Universe. The Hesperides, in Greek myth, are nymphs that tend a beautiful garden in which grows an apple tree (or trees) whose fruit also confer immortality. These apples are understandably highly sought after, and were given as a wedding gift to the Goddess Hera, by Gaia, The Earth Goddess.
In Latin, the world for apple, malum also means 'evil' and reflects the paradox of the apple as a symbol of both good and evil. Although in the Tales of the Arabian Nights the apple of Prince Ahmed cures all ills, in the fairy tale of Snow White, the heroine beauty is poisoned by a shiny red apple offered by the witch and falls into the sleep of oblivion, only to be awoken again by the knight in shiny armour.
So next time you have a yoga session or in your meditations you are near a tree(s), listen carefully to them, as the gods may just have a message for you..
