Law and order in the woods (4/3/2018)

I have joined a (sermon) writing class at my Unitarian Universalist Church (which is probably why I did not post anything in March). While one of my fellow writers is absolutely hilarious while at the same time being very philosophical, we are all different but good in our own way. Although I feel that they are in a different league (much higher than me), I have had a chance of surprising my fellow writers by some of my experiences and thoughts. I am of course am the naturalist of the group and have been milking experiences like being bit by a moccasin and the quote by John Muir about passing between two pines and entering into a different world that I used in my previous blog post. It will be something that I will be using in my sermon if I ever get brave enough to give one.

Brave enough may be a stretch, truth be told, as a teacher I stand in front of a class one to two days a week and often feel that I am not a teacher, but a motivational speaker. I am such a strong believer in doing right to the environments and in environmental ethics, in particular for future generations that I have no problem getting in front of people and talking about that at length. As I have often written, we as intelligent beings on this blue marble in space have the responsibility to keep it livable for our and future generations; simply said, there is no other place to go.

After my day-long solo workshops I often get an applause. It is the best feeling when one or two of my students come to me at the end of the class and shake my hand, thanking me for such a great instructive class. I honestly feel that maybe I have inspired at least those one or two errand souls to do right to the environment. However, I am told that I will need to read my sermon and as a dyslexic that can be a challenge. I am not afraid of public speaking, but I am afraid of public reading.

My fellow spiritual writing students are amazed when I tell them that I escape to nature to get some order in my life; that I do this to get away from this absolutely out of control society. The group (everyone is over 35 years old) looks at me like I am crazy. They see a jumbled mess of branches, crap on the forest floor, and more junk, while I see order, predictability, rhythm, peace and quiet. This difference in seeing and experiencing things really amazes them, as well as me.

Look at the rhythm of all those tree trunks, the repetition, yet different structure. 

So let’s look at it. Trivial as it may be it starts out with the sun coming up every morning, with the days lengthening in spring and shortening in fall. Seasons are so important in nature, but so is day length or even the color of the light hitting the seed. For example, in the past two years I have complained in my blogs about the pine pollen (on the 18th and 19th of April on two consecutive years). We had such a weird spring this year, so I wonder when it will be this year; stay tuned. But even after such a cold March my recent walk in the woods show that the buds or candles in the pines are starting to grow, so pollen season cannot be far behind. The water in the ponds behind our home comes up in late fall, early winter, to peak in early March and then to recede and dry up by July. This is what makes it possible for the salamanders and frogs to breed in these pools; although this is the second year that we have not heard many of them. Hopefully some of the things described in Elizabeth Kolbert’s book entitled “The Sixth Extinction” isn’t playing itself out behind out home. In one of the chapters of the book she describes how environmental pollution is reducing the reproductive success of amphibians like frogs, toads and salamanders. The trees in the pond have a yellow pollen ring around them from the flowering maples. This ring will become more intensely yellow when the pines drop their pollen.

Spring is coming, this high bush blueberry is starting to bloom and spreading its pollen 

When looking at trees in a forest, you will see that the canopy of trees will usually barely touch and that they generally will not intertwine. Yes there are exceptions, but they will tend to give each space. As I mentioned previously, plants will wait for a hole to open up and then they will pounce. They have a chemical called phytochrome to thank for this. I have written before about self thinning in the woods. There is a very specific rule, the ⅔ rule or the self thinning rule that guides this. Foresters use this when they mechanically thin the woods. The phytochrome also helps seeds to “see” that there is an opening in the canopy. When there are leaves on the trees, the light hitting the ground is green. When a tree falls over and there is a hole, the light becomes more red (less green). The phytochrome in seeds can detect this and this can be a trigger in the seed to start germinating. Even in spring it may tell some of the seeds that it is spring and a may be a good time to try to germinate instead of summer when the leaves are on the trees.


Some trees practice mathematics in a different way. They may have a orderly distribution of branches. If you look at how a branch comes off a trunk and examine where the first branch is located on that particular branch, the next one may come of about ⅔ the original distance past that (or the first branch come off at 3 feet from the trunk, the next one will come off at 2 feet or 3 + ⅔ x3 feet, the next one would be 2/3x2 or 1.3 feet after the previous branch, etc. (yes there is lots of math in the woods, wow). In addition, branches are rarely thicker than the trunk or branch they branch come off. The only time that I have seen this happen was in New Mexico when I was studying mistletoe infections in Douglas fir and branches that were infected with mistletoe were much thicker than others, often thicker than the trunk. Mistletoe produces a hormone that tells the tree to bring all the water and food to the infected branch, which is why it grows so thick.

These are not set rules, but they do frequently apply and it is fun just to walk in the woods and see if you can discover more patterns like it. There are so many more to discover, certain habits of plants, of birds or even of certain animals. For me even all those vertical trunks, that repetition of those trunks throughout the woods as far as I can see gives me a feeling of order and comfort. They are like an an ancient European cathedral with pillars and high ceilings. The sun shining through the leaves are like the stained glass windows.

To me it is so much fun to be out there in the woods; the fresh air, the patterns to be discovered, or just to be out there, meditative, deep in your own thoughts, breathing in the forest air; you name it.