Love letters from the dirt

(Un)Common Knowledge:

Trees can talk to each other.

Or rather, they communicate with one another. The connection is through their roots. An underground otherworld spanning far and wide beneath forest floors. Reaching through rainbows of happy yellow hues to rich reds and browns. Holding the world together. When one is rooting deeper in nutrient rich soil or the other is struggling to leaf - they merge resources via carbon transmission. Passing dishes around the dinner table.

This was discovered in 1997, by ecologist Suzanne Simard, who observed that trees expressed their needs “via a network of latticed fungi buried in the soil.” In addition, they are able to “send warning signals about environmental change, search for kin, and transfer their nutrients to neighboring plants before they die.”

Adult trees can recognize their saplings, and will starve off sections of their own root systems to create room for new growth. Can you imagine having space made for you like that?

In addition, Dr. Simard highlighted the symbiotic relationships between trees and fungi, wherein the subterranean exploring fungi exchange water and nutrients for sugars created by sunlit trees during photosynthesis.

Common knowledge would suggest that it is very lovely to enjoy a picnic under the green underbelly of lindens, or to gaze under the buttery lemon wave of an autumn oak. To lie back and watch their leafy plumes float back and forth, filtering sunlight down to you. However, shouldn’t it also be common knowledge that it is equally wonderful to think of them holding each other, holding you - your lungs and your veins and all your branches upright?

While these forest communities thrive together below ground, it is a little known but well-established fact that the surface of Earth herself contains a “limitless and continuously renewed supply of free or mobile electrons.”

What does that mean? Essentially when these electrons are absorbed through your skin, they “neutralize reactive oxygen species” or what are commonly referred to as “free radical involved in the body’s immune and inflammatory responses.”

Studies have reported better sleep, drops in levels of stress hormones like cortisol, and reduced pain from practices known as “grounding” or “earthing.” Research suggests that reconnecting what humans have lost with our ever evolving, increasingly more fast paced indoor lifestyles - direct contact with the Earth’s surface - can have positive implications for our physiological health. That planting your barefeet in the soil, can ease you.

In fact a pilot study suggested that walking barefoot (or mimicking this by walking or sitting indoors on surfaces that transmit Earth’s free electrons) can reduce blood viscosity, thereby allowing oxygen to move more freely through the body. Fresh air never tasted so good. Or rather, moved so well.

The wonders of old growth forests are endless. Their benefits are immeasurable, having provided for millenia.

We’ve moved away from our physical connection to the Earth. At times, the glow of a screen can begin to look like a map to happiness. All the shiny pieces necessary to assemble your life into little squares that drain your time and energy and bank account. And when you’ve tapped the final nail into the foundation, the icy uncertainties of unknown futures can still crawl their way up your spine to sit on your chest and you could very well find yourself surrounded on all sides by rocks and other hard surfaces, while the world continues to argue about how we’re all falling apart - then dares to ask - where do you see yourself in five years time?

Step outside. Hug an ancient friend with a sappy pulse. Ground your feet and know. Breathe. Deep.

You are held.