Kinship: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Love Poem to Trees, Transience, and Eternity
If one tree fruits, they all fruit—there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective. Exactly how they do this, we don’t yet know. But what we see is the power of unity. What
... See moreRobin Wall Kimmerer • Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
First there was nothing. Then there was everything.
Then, in a park above a western city after dark, the air is raining messages.
A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a pine. Its bark presses hard against her back, hard as life. Its needles scent the air and a force hums in the heart of the wood. Her ears tune down to the lowest frequencies.
... See moreHer concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called “love of nature”, seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and
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