This morning, high up in my favorite maple tree, I saw this web shining in the early morning sunlight. It is more intricate than it seems at first glance. It is not one of the graceful circular webs with equal segments and a complex Ferris wheel design. It is more utilitarian and solid. It is larger than one might think as well. I cannot see where it begins or where it ends, only where it shines in the light.
I had been thinking, at the
precise moment I noticed this web, about whether or not trees communicate with
one another and, if so, how they do it. When
I saw this web, it made me think of the roots of a tree, first large, then
fanning out, then smaller and smaller and smaller still. Roots that touch the roots of other trees and
so on and so on. I wondered if they had
some sort of relay message service that served them all, and I thought perhaps
they did so that the tree in front of my house might be told by the tree I was
looking at right now exactly what I was doing and saying at this precise
moment. Long before I got home, my trees
would already know the whole story of where I had been.
 |
| High in a maple tree, the web shines brilliantly in the sunlight. |
I think this is true. I think that everything is connected in one
giant web. What happens on one side of
the web is felt on the other side.
Messages are constantly sent back and forth across the web without many
of the web’s members even knowing how their messages were received. “It just occurred to me . . .” a person might
say. “You know, I just got an idea . . .”
another would say. “It’s the strangest
thing, but I was just thinking of him . . .” says a third.
And it’s all part of the web. So be careful and selective about what you
say, what you think, and what you do because somewhere, somehow, some part of
the web is going to feel what you say and do even if it doesn’t know it comes
from you and even if you don’t know you’re sending it out. Be the part of the web that shines and
sparkles in the sunlight.
