“What a marvelous cooperative arrangement – plants and animals each inhaling each other’s exhalations, a kind of planet-wide mutual mouth-to-stoma resuscitation, the entire elegant cycle powered by a star 150 million kilometers away.”
Carl Sagan
I have just come across this quotation by the astronomer Carl Sagan, and it struck me with its simple truth. Our woodlands have never needed as much protection as they do today. I’m currently reading ‘The New Sylva’ by Gabriel Hemery and Sarah Simblet, a very beautiful book about trees, and I will be writing a review shortly!
Photo of the ancient oak woodlands at Taynish in Argyll, © Jo Woolf
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Maia T.
I recently (re)started an interconnectedness meditation that is based on this exact interaction, and takes it the next step further: We not only breathe together, we and the trees, but we become each other through that process. I talk a bit about the meditation at the end of this entry.
Jo Woolf
That sounds very interesting. Thank you for sharing – I will take a look! 🙂
blosslyn
Its quite amazing when you think about it and a little scary 🙂
Jo Woolf
It is – you realise how precarious human life is, so reliant on the position of our planet and its ability to ‘breathe’!
blosslyn
Yes and we are not helping it.
tearoomdelights
Lovely photograph. Great quote, it’s jolly clever, this whole life on Earth business.
Jo Woolf
Thank you! Yes, the more you think about it, the more you realise how fragile it all is, but at the same time it is all linked in some kind of beautiful pattern.
Ash
Ahh! Carl Sagan! What a wonderful quotation & a beautiful photograph
Jo Woolf
Yes, what insight, condensed into a few words! I’m glad you enjoyed this. The woods where that pic was taken are just beautiful.
dancingbeastie
Beautiful photo – calm and refreshing – and very striking quotation. Right up my street (or path through the woods, rather)!
Jo Woolf
Thank you! 🙂
Anny
Funny how the scientists and the esoterics so often come up with the same concept from different directions…
Jo Woolf
That is so true, Anny, I’m noticing it more and more myself.