An Ancient Connection

Here's a thought for you. My family know of my obsession with fungus, and the way in which Mycorrhizal fungus fills pretty much every inch of our soil, connect with one another, 'talk' with one another, connect entirely with trees and all plant life physically, and thereby allowing plants and trees to connect with one another. I did a post on plant connection and senses years ago. So, the facts and framework are set in the plant world, it's extraordinary.

A recent walk with a friend had me mention tree hugging. I felt that in the response was maybe disbelief, possibly subtle joking. I know what I have felt when tree hugging, and have heard from others of the strange feeling and connection they felt. Others have admitted that they just felt stupid. I have always believed in a real, physical and spiritual connection between animals and plants. Something quite fundamental.

More fact. Imagine if you will the fact that all animals, and we shall focus on humans for this one, have trillions of fungus on us, in us, bacteria within us have their own types of microscopic fungus. As a living being we are just like the plant life out there, A living communication system waiting to happen. Our senses, sixth, seventh, eighth, there may have been more, have not been lost, but dulled over hundreds of years until we don't need them anymore. Why would we?

Our bodies are still alive with fungus though believe it or not, and these will be connecting through their own micorrhizal network just like in the ground and plants.

See where I'm going yet?

When you hug a tree, hold a plant in a very real way. Truly hold them for a while and not in an edgy and temporary way, my theory is that we connect and actually, on a fundamental way connect through our network, to that of the plant itself. It feels us as we feel it. Why shouldn't it? Without sounding too gross, our fungus connects with the fungus in and on the plant, be it small or tree like, and that connection will also pass through the fungus in the ground to other plants. Hence the Avatar link to this whole thing.

I'm not a hippy, I'm a gardener who has just worked with plants all of his life.

Hug a tree, connect your bare arms and the palms of your hands to it, put your ear to it, talk to it. Make sure you are in a silent place if possible. Try to feel what it gives back to you. Open your senses to it.

Sounds daft, but most of that daft feeling comes from being ridiculed for wanting to do it in the first place from others. What is there to lose? A huge Beech tree is always my favourite.