Remain connected to your roots

Last week, I went walking in a nearby forest. I was mesmerized listening to birds singing, the breeze rustling in the leaves of the trees, and the sunlight filtering through the branches.

I wish I could understand what birds were saying to each other. Nevertheless, one thing was clear. They were happy. Trees looked happy too in their natural habitat.

I wondered if trees would be communicating with each other.

I came back reflecting on this, and got my answer with a bit of search on internet.

Trees remain connected to each other with the help of their roots. They not only talk with each other, they share their feelings as well as resources through a network of fungi that grow around and inside their roots.

Indeed, there is a lot happening below the ground, which we don’t see. Scientists have named this fungal network the Wood Wide Web. Through this network of fungi, trees share signals. If they are attacked, they send signals through their roots, which warn their neighbours to raise their defense. Older trees use this network to supply nutrients to the younger trees and help them grow. Tress that are sick or are dying dump their resources into the network for use by their neighbours.

There is certainly a lot we can learn from the ecosystem of trees. If we human beings had remained as connected as trees and shared our resources, what a beautiful place this planet would have been. No one will be poor. Every life will be important. And, there will be peace in the world.

However, we see conflicts; killing of innocent peoples; and we see hunger around us. At the end of 2020, more than 88 million people were suffering from acute hunger due to conflict and instability. Women and children endure the most during conflicts.

We see cities without water, shattered buildings of schools without students, patients without medication and hospitals without electricity. Children in conflict zones of Yemen, Syria, Gaza who should have been in schools are in refugee camps and scenes of children going hungry for days or holding jerry cans waiting to fill them with water tell a story of our collective failure as a humanity.

Now I realize the wisdom of my father who told me years ago, “No matter where you go, remain connected to your roots.