Ancient Woods

Yeah, I'm back on the "forest" thing this morning.... bear with me!

My aunt is a botanist. She's travelled the world, collecting specimens, discovering plants and habitat riddles, visiting forgotten corners.

About a year ago she attended a conference in the UK, and managed to slip away for a few days to go wander some ancient forests. She said it was the strangest thing - she felt as if there were "presences" in the forest, as if there were conciousness and memory and living history. She's never felt this before in any other habitat - but she's also never before been in such ancient woods, thousands of years old perhaps.

I put this to a wise man here at work (who, like me, finds things like ley lines and geographical anomolies fascinating), and he's convinced that she's right - there is something that these woods hold, a memory of trees, so to speak. His theory is that we are constantly giving off molecules as our bodies grow and change. Little bits of us are floating around, indestructible. In such ancient places many things have happened, people have lived and moved and breathed for thousands of years as history unfolded. Their molecules are still hanging around there, filling the air and the forest floor and becoming a part of the growing things. And that's what my aunt felt as she wandered the forest.

I know, sounds strange and perhaps a little along "conspiracy theory" lines, but in a way it also makes sense. My high school biology teacher used to illustrate the perpetuity of molecules like this:

Let's say Goliath had a pimple on his nose. It was, of course, composed of molecules. These were released into the air as his body shed them, and perhaps landed in the soil. They were a part of many plants, animals etc through history, and then joined up with other molecules in the tomato that grew this year. The tomato that you ate for breakfast - that contains a molecule from the pimple on Goliath's nose.

Perhaps these forests truly do hold molecular secrets, memories, that are far beyond our comprehension. There certainly are innumerable unexplained things in our world that we know nothing about!

Perhaps that's also why we feel connected to Higher Powers, to the earth and living things when we wander between old trees.