Written by | Xiong Jiao
David Haskell is an American professor of biology who studies biological evolution and animal conservation, especially the protection of birds and invertebrates that inhabit forests. In his writings, there is always an emphasis on the web of life, on the connections visible to the naked eye between living beings, or on the subtler, more imperceptible connections. The popularity of his first book, The Invisible Forest, is mainly due to the fact that it reflects the interaction between this creature in a precise and meticulous description. The Chinese translation of the second book, Song of the Trees, also published by the Commercial Press, is illustrated by Nian Gao, the author of nature notes with pictures of The Invisible Forest, except that it focuses more on ecology and scenes. Although the book also starts from trees, the objects of observation are relatively scattered, and the thinking divergence is stronger. Using spatial coordinates as the axis, it selects more than a dozen trees in different parts of the world and in different ecological environments to study this connection that has existed and lasted for hundreds of millions of years: trees and various organisms in their surroundings, including connections with humans. The object of observation and recording in Song of trees is no longer just the trees in the forest and other creatures that inhabit it, but radiates into a wider field, including people, communities, nation-states and the entire human community in different regions.
"Song of the Trees", by David George Haskell, The Commercial Press, July 2020
The connection of the network of life in Song of trees includes several levels. There are only two levels to be said here.
Will clothes prevent us from listening to the trees singing?
The first level is to continue the observation method of "The Invisible Forest", to integrate themselves into the environment, and to quietly listen to and record the connection between the creature and the surrounding environment. Trees cover the earth's surface, provide shelter for all kinds of organisms, and are the basis for the occurrence of various relationships. Most obviously, it is the biological network of life from the lowest to the highest life; non-human species such as bacteria, fungi, insects, birds, etc. are all important components of this network. The relationship between living things appears on the surface as a form of contradiction and conflict, that is, the struggle for survival, which is often called the struggle for survival— we can easily see some fierce and even terrible conflicts, and the biological warfare in the rainforest is not only snakes, piranhas and the like, most biological struggles occur on a scale that is imperceptible to the senses, and requires more detailed, scientific anatomical observation to be able to understand. Because "the human senses are trained to feel only those creatures that make loud noises," we selectively focus only on the connections that are relevant to ourselves and ignore those that do not seem to be directly related to man. But in fact, the connections that are likely to be overlooked by us are what are more important to the entire community of life.
Modern science can compensate for this ignorance, either out of habitual neglect or the inadequacy of the general senses of humanity as a species. For example, "Song of Trees" mentions various devices used by ecologists, one is to use a tape to tie a thumb-sized ultrasonic sensor to a branch of the Western Yellow Pine, and then connect it to a computer, so that you can observe and listen to the story inside the tree through the on-screen images. "The branches emit a pop of ultrasound, and the image is bumpy." "Electronic sensors can also detect the movement of smaller bubbles within branches. These bubbles gather along the edges of the catheter cells, and they are elastic like walls made of balloons, alternately absorbing and releasing pressure. When the dried cells begin to absorb water again, this layer of foam becomes violent, emitting an ultrasonic burst. The catheters in the trees, like the water pipes of old houses, are struck by the movement of the water and groan, except that the catheter cells make a sound many octaves higher than the water pipes. "There's also an underwater listener, a waterproof microphone that's placed in an egg-sized rubber case.
In addition to scientific rational analysis, this connection can also be experienced by borrowing the poet's sensibility. For example, the sound of trees, "Song of Trees" mentions a kind of tree - western yellow pine. The same is the sound of the Western Ponderosa Pine, and in John Muir's record he can hear the conifers of the Western Ponderosa Pine making "the most beautiful music" in the wind and "free, like the buzzing of birds fluttering their wings." What Haskell heard was a cry of sorrow and eagerness. This discrepancy is actually caused by a combination of rational scientific analysis and perceptual experience. From a scientific point of view, Muir and Haskell actually heard different "dialects", that is, the characteristics of the same species shaped by different small environments. Western ponderosa pine varies widely, and in addition to the smell of the resin changing with location, the shape and hardness of the conifers are also regional. The length of the conifers, the thickness of the cell walls under the epidermis, the dry moisture of the soil, these seemingly irrelevant factors all shape the sound that trees make in the wind. Not only that, but the sound of a certain tree that we hear somewhere will also play a decisive role in the subconscious. To use the most simple analogy, when you were a child, you planted a date tree in front of your home, and when you see a date tree elsewhere when you become an adult, your memories of the tree when you were a child will be superimposed on your feelings about the tree in front of you. For example, if you read the names of certain plants in literature, you will automatically integrate the plant with the specific scenes created in the novel.
The Invisible Forest: Notes on Nature in the Woods by David George Haskell, The Commercial Press, January 2014.
Whether it is the influence of memory and sensibility, or through rational and objective analysis, we are experiencing the connection with the things around us. To truly appreciate the most-time neglected connections beneath the surface connections of everyday life, in addition to the ears being sharper and closer to hearing, the other senses also need to be awakened from a state of numbness. "The skin is able to feel these slight sounds better than the ears. Like a pear tree, our whole body has a 'sense of hearing'. Listening, not just the feeling from the ears. What we feel is the result of the body's dialogue with the chattering world. ”
There is a chapter in The Invisible Forest that may impress the reader, in order to feel how the overwinter to withstand the cold, they took off their clothes in the cold weather and shivered with cold. In "Song of trees", when it is described that the difference in the sound of listening to different vegetation on a rainy day, the problem of clothing is explicitly mentioned. "Here, human inventions of waterproofing are not only ineffective, but also dull the ears. Raincoats are rainproof, but the plastic texture amplifies the tropical heat, and sweat soaks through the clothes. Unlike many other forests, the sound of rain here reveals so much acoustic information, and the sound of raincoats, popping, or raindrops falling on woven polyester, nylon, and cotton will hinder us from obtaining sound information and distracting our minds. The soft and delicate skin of human beings is almost silent. For raindrops, my palms, shoulders, and cheeks respond with a sense of touch, rather than a voice. Western missionaries at that time demanded that the colony's natives wear clothes, which made the natives feel "embarrassed and bound." Because the clothes stripped them from the community of sounds. This cognitive limitation inadvertently closes the ears and leaves the forest. In a way, this closes the door to our relationship with plants and animals. "Just as workers in factories are deafened by mechanical noise, cloth wearers lose the ability to listen."
Taking off clothes is actually taking off the shackles of modern civilization and feeling the closest connection between people and their surroundings. On a metaphorical level, clothes represent the influence of misconceptions that keep modern people gradually moving away from their natural environment. There are many places in "Song of the Trees" that can be reminiscent of what Bacon called the "four illusions", also known as the "four idols", racial illusions, cave illusions, market illusions, theater illusions. The metaphor of "Plato's Cave" also appears in The Song of the Trees. Climbing into the tall Gibe treetops in the Amazon rainforest, taking a look at the canopy, and then returning to the familiar world on the ground, it is "as if you have returned to Plato's cave." This cave is, in a sense, the Western education and habitual mode of life that the author has received.
When Modern Civilization Encounters The Forest: Finding a Connection with Nature while Listening to the Trees
This brings us to a second level of connection: the connection between modern civilization, represented by Western countries, and indigenous culture.
Westerners trying to understand the world perceived by indigenous people through metal towers built over the Amazon rainforest, most likely seeing a different kind of illusion. The indigenous people of The Amazon have lived in western Amazon for thousands of years as hunters, gatherers and cultivators. It is difficult for Westerners to integrate into their communities to observe and understand their social relationships and ways of thinking, and it is even difficult to describe and evaluate them truthfully in the language of Westerners. For example, the Varani community sees plants differently from those seen by Westerners, who do not use the Linnaean method to name plants, but describe them in terms of their ecological relationships or uses in human culture. A gibber tree, for the modern disciplinary system, is a tall tree of the genus Gibberaceae in the family Mallowe, but for those indigenous people, it is a unique tree that has shown someone the way at some point, and an animal has stopped here at a certain time. They also value individuality, autonomy and skill, but they are all expressed in the context of social relations and communities. Indigenous peoples focus on the so-called "forest spirit", which is integrated with their communities. When Westerners try to experience what the indigenous people call the "spirit" of the forest by building metal towers that lead straight to the canopy, this Western philosophy itself has taken a toll on the beliefs of the indigenous people. Similarly, the "assimilation" of early Western missionaries and colonizers, as well as the lure of benefits from the industrial economy in the modern global context, had an impact on the lives of indigenous peoples. "The indigenous peoples of the Amazon themselves, like everyone else, relied on their own historical experience to perceive the world, and this understanding was bound to change over time, adding new situations and traits, and selectively presenting it to the outside world in a pragmatic way." Indigenous peoples are trying to rebuild the relationship between people and forests, fighting against the damage caused by industrial activities on their lands. They use the prevailing language to express resistance to external attacks, and refuse to use material wealth and linear development to hope that alliances will lead a good and harmonious life. So climbing up the ladder to listen is just "hearing the sound of trees through your imperfect ears, maybe just thinking you heard it." This contradiction is also reflected in the process of observing the behavior of other species as a particular species, or as a specific individual educated in modern science.
As the Invisible Forest puts it: "All stories are partly wrapped in fiction—fiction in all its forms, either out of simplistic hypotheses, or from cultural myopia, and from the pride of the storyteller." I learned to revel in stories instead of mistakeing them for the clarity and wonder of the world. "The connection that an American biology professor perceives in the rainforest of the Amazon is actually what Western culture allows him to hear, that Indigenous communities try to express to him, and that we can touch with our current level of technology." So a very crucial part of "Song of trees" is not to see and listen with your eyes and ears in the forest, or to observe and listen with the help of instruments, but to feel this connection through conversation with people. The author talks to the indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest, to the pedestrians who come and go on the streets of Manhattan in the United States, and to the survivors of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in Japan. In the process, he has been trying to be an observer, as he said in The Invisible Forest, to visit frequently, not to disturb, not to interfere, to truthfully record everything that happens in the environment. At the same time, just as the human voice is part of the song of the trees, man himself is part of the community of life, an inseparable link in the network of life. The individual man cannot be separated from the whole network, and he weaves the whole story in the process of establishing contact with trees and indigenous peoples.
Amazon Rainforest
Song of trees selects several locations on a global map, including the hottest and most contentious hotspots. Examples include the conflict between oil drilling in Ecuador and forest protection in national parks, and the olive trees in Jerusalem that forge a bond between Israel and Palestine. The antagonism and conflict between the West and the colonial indigenous peoples and nation-states is a form of connection. There is a passage in the chapter "The Olive Tree": "When people and trees lose their involvement in giving each other life, the fertile land withers." War and displacement do not only cut off people and land. The people who fled from the land also obliterated the knowledge it carried. The Varani of the Amazon displaced by industry, the North American Indians killed and expelled by the colonizers, the Jews exiled to Babylon, the Palestinians after the Holocaust, and even the loss of the agricultural population in peacetime due to the meager profits... All of this has led to the fading of memories imprinted in humanity's connection to other species. Displaced people can write what is in their minds and preserve it, but the knowledge that needs to be generated through continuous relationships dies when the connection is broken, leaving only a network of life that lacks wisdom and productivity, resilience and creativity. Human beings pass on and live in the midst of these chaos and losses. However, when we build new relationships, we will stitch lives back together and increase the beauty and potential of the web of life. In Ecuador, the Omer Foundation replants forests on degraded lands, reconstructing the relationship between plants and humans, who inherit the knowledge of their ancestors and pass it on to hundreds of young people. ”
As a biologist and naturalist, Haskell did not evaluate these international confrontations and conflicts too much, but he concluded from an ecological point of view that conflicts and injuries are local, only for individuals, and all kinds of turbulence and upheavals will eventually achieve harmony in the entire community of life. The death of an individual is precisely for the survival of the entire network of life. To paraphrase Nietzsche's famous saying, the network of life is characterized by "what cannot be killed by me, but must be a part of me." There is an interconnection between all things, and this biological concept is applied to the entire human society, forming a logical and self-consistent moral system.
The network of life usually expresses an eternity based on uncertainty. For example, a vegetable palm plant that "plays the role of a biblical fool, building a life on the sand and living it." The life of a palm tree, usually lasts for a century, has changed by the time it dies, and the landscape at the time of its germination has long since changed. This is not a tragedy, but a journey that a sandy coast must go through. I didn't realize it at first, but in fact the force of the waves and the flow of sand shaped the 'existence' of every part of the vegetable palm. Whether it's its body, its fruit, its seedling stage, the chemicals in its leaf cells, it's all rooted in this. Such a fluid eternity may avoid the despair of nihilism.
Individuals will always die, but the connections in the network of life will last forever. "There is life after death, but not eternal life." Death does not end the connection between networks. "When trees decay, dead logs, branches, and roots become the focus of thousands of relationships. In the forest, at least half of the other species, on the corpses of trees or inside dead wood, look for food and homes. ”
Trees are a metaphor that allows us to turn our attention beyond ourselves and to know the things around us from relationships and networks. This means that the relationship between people and external things is reciprocal, and while we exert effects on them, we are also affected by them. Man is a part of nature, he acts according to his own arrangement, and the final result will depend on various accidental encounters.
Author | Xiong Jiao
Edit | Liu Yaguang
Proofreading | Wu Xingfa
Source: Beijing News