Walkie-Talkie #4 'Some Amazing Tree Talk'

Dear friends,

In this fourth Walkie-Talkie, I rub my back against a large old tree, and talk a little about why the ‘map’ we have projected onto nature is incorrect and also particularly inadequate for understanding how complex trees, plants, forests, and ecosystems are.

The idea that natural organisms are merely ‘dumb machines’ that simply follow the commands of ‘selfish’ genes has been completely overturned by the latest developments in science.

Trees and plants, for example, appear to exhibit a form of consciousness, can communicate and warn each other of danger, support each other in times of need or illness, and can also make individual choices. Forests are organisms where the whole is much more than the sum of its parts.

The wondrous complexity of plants, trees, and forests, as well as the fact that they also appear to possess a form of consciousness, invites us to look in a whole new way at the organism of which we are a part, the biosphere.

Thank you for reading and watching, and until the next episode,

All the best to you,

Filip

The two books I refer to in this Walkie-Talkie:

'Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest' by Suzanne Simard

'Planta Sapiens' by Paco Calvo

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