“I like to imagine the moment of liberation for a molecule of carbon dioxide. Imagine being held tight for centuries in the embrace of an ancient tree, locked up in lignin until… the gasp of a fungus-eating beetle sets you free to become a free-floating molecule, a thing of the air, a part of something vast and fluid. Is that how the spirit leaves the body? Released from the weight of wood, into the afterlife of cedars, there is no boundary between the sacred and the mundane.” Robin Wall Kimmerer reflects on the death of a tree during a recent a visit to the Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.
Posted: November 25, 2024