A walk in the woods
Have you ever wondered about how it all happened? Why does a certain plant grow in the shade, while another must have a sunny location to reach its potential to just survive? What did the first plants look like and how different were they from what we see today?
For billions of years the earth was barren. It appears that life began in the oceans and gradually came onto the land. At first, perhaps just a few cells stuck together in the crack of a rock. From there it probably took several million years for the land to turn green and be covered with plants.
First it was wetlands and then came our forests. Billions of years later earth’s newest creature, man, is trying real hard to reverse the greening process.
Land areas the size of states are being deforested and covered with asphalt and concrete as humans expand their habitat. Things were going along well until we humans came along and began using the forests and resources under the forest floor.
Even the forest floor and what’s underneath are the process of the greening of our earth. As our numbers increased, Mother Earth started to run into trouble and the future of our green planet is beginning to show signs of wear from overuse.
In addition to our forests, our waters and air are coming under stress. Our oceans and streams are filling with the pollutants of our lifestyles. In places we are running out of water. In other places we have too much water as our seas are rising as the ice disappears due to our warming planet.
Urbanization is decolonizing the surfaces that plants colonized millions of years ago. Fires, storms and drought bring havoc to the landscape.
We need growth to sustain our lifestyle and allow the underdeveloped nations to enjoy the benefits of an improved lifestyle; food, shelter and freedom from the burden of just survival.
Do we just continue to deforest our land and fill our waters with the by-products of our efforts to keep on going the way we have always done it or have we reached the point in man’s history when we truly get serious about our planet, our home, our provider.
Both science and our creator want us to be good stewards of what has been brought forward from the time when life moved from the water to the land. We have the resources to do the right thing. If the virus of recent years has taught us anything it has perhaps shown us that we are capable of a realignment of the way things are done.
Walking in the woods this week I was reminded of all the trees that make our life so beautiful and what it takes to grow a tree. For every tree that we see there are many more unseen in the ground waiting as seeds for their chance to be a tree. Each of these seeds has an embryo with a working blueprint for a real plant with a root and shoot already formed and ready to start its journey.
No risk is more terrifying than that taken by the first root. It will find water but its first job is to anchor itself and forever end its mobile phase. Once the first root is established the plant will never again enjoy any hope of relocating to a place less cold, less dry or less dangerous. It will face frost, drought and the jaws of animals without the possibility of flight.
The tiny seed has only one chance on the patch of earth where it sits. Now settled it will assess the light of the moment, refer to its programming and take the plunge. The new root grows down before the shoot grows up. Rooting exhausts the very last bit of energy of the seed. The gamble is everything and losing means death, but if it wins it is very big.
The odds are enormous and finding water and sun allows it to grow into a small twig and then a small tree and eventually into the tree that you marvel at as you hike through the woods, looking at its spring color and listening to the birds singing their songs of welcome on the branches above.
Just like that seed, mankind must take the risk and begin the discussion about our planet, our climate and the future for our children. A lot is at risk.
Next time you are in the woods give a bit of thought to how it all happened and where it is all going and the role you play in the life of the woods.