Register Here!
In a the relatively stable climate of the now past-Holocene, the end of May in the Northern Hemisphere, was typically a time of fast maturity. By late May, the young, fresh leaves and delicate blossoms that festooned early spring give way to deeper greens and embryonic fruits. Many tree beings perform the majority of their root growth in the spring and early summer, then they devote more of their energy to fruiting throughout late summer and fall.
Human beings have lessons to learn from our tree kin.
Hopefully, at some point in our lives, we will find ourselves rooting into place, nourishing and expanding into the community around us, just as tree roots do by breaking up compaction and releasing saccharine exudates to feed the biology of their soil ecosystems. But, it’s an increasingly common human experience to move regularly and only visit places for short periods of time. When we do so, we miss the opportunity to grow our roots. We can, however, offer our fruits: little gifts we put out into the environments we visit; sweet, nutrient dense offerings that we expect to leave behind and hope will nourish others.
On this call, we’ll consider two of the different stages of life we might occupy – rooting or fruiting. We explore how those stages feel to us, and consider how we can take both the language of rooting and fruiting (paired with the lessons from last week’s call on language) to imagine generous and nourishing ways of being.
Recommended resources for this EcoGathering: