What If You Were a Tree

How different would your life be?

Let’s have fun and play for a minute…

Imagine that you are a tree; a deciduous tree growing along the banks of a small mountain stream in a small little valley with around seventy other trees also growing in that little valley. Let’s say that you are around 42 human years old (in tree years you are over eighty).

Obviously, you’ve lived your entire life in that beautiful little valley. Unlike humans, you cannot get up and move to the next valley over or, for that matter, across the country. That serene little valley is all you’ve ever known.

You have known the other seventy or so trees in that valley intimately. You’ve communicated with them all your life. You’ve lived with them all your life. There are no secrets between any of you. They are all your friends.

One sunny and warm afternoon over two hundred birds suddenly land in your branches. (What an exciting feeling is that?) While they tickle you with their birdsong you listen to them. With the sole exception of human females no one gossips more than birds. I mean seriously; they just won’t shut up.

You hear gossip about other trees, you hear gossip about other distant valleys and other states and even other countries. If you want to learn about distant places just listen to the birds. They’ve been everywhere.

Can you imagine how frustrating it would be not to be able to get up and go travel to some of these distant places the birds gossip about? Birds can travel while trees, thanks to their roots, are stuck in one place.

But while trees cannot travel they can in fact communicate with other trees hundreds and even thousands of miles away. This is made possible by what is commonly known as the fungal internet.

Like humans, trees exist in two dimensions simultaneously. They exist in the dimension above ground and the dimension underground. All trees have roots and it is through these roots that they can tap into the fungal internet. The world underground is like a whole different dimension operating in its own reality.

Underground fungal networks connect all plant life on this glorious planet. This underground internet has been operating far, far, far longer than the internet humans developed and use. Through this underground internet a tree on the southern slopes of the Uinta Mountains of Utah can communicate with trees growing on the shoreline of the Atlantic Ocean in Labrador. Trees even have their own underground fungal website known as Treebook — which Mark Zuckerberg had nothing to do with — although given his nature he may have stolen the idea.

So while trees hear gossip from the birds they also hear first-branch accounts from other trees around the world on the underground fungal internet. Can you imagine how frustrating it can be to hear all about what’s going on in the world and not be able to get up and travel in order to experience it all?

Can you imagine how frustrating it can be for a human to live their entire life in the same small community while spending inordinate amounts of time on the internet and not uproot themselves to go and explore other parts of the world?

Perhaps we humanoids have more in common with trees than we think. It’s those darn birds that are so lucky!

This piece was inspired by Bridget Webber .

Copyright by White Feather. All Rights Reserved.

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