My guide here is a kind of tree whisperer.
It’s all happening in the ultra-slow motion that is tree time, so that what we see is a freeze-frame of the action.
Crown princes wait for the old monarchs to fall, so they can take their place in the full glory of sunlight. Reckless youngsters take foolhardy risks with leaf-shedding, light-chasing and excessive drinking, and usually pay with their lives. Wise old mother trees feed their saplings with liquid sugar and warn the neighbors when danger approaches. To reach enormousness, they depend on a complicated web of relationships, alliances and kinship networks. They’re involved in tremendous struggles and death-defying dramas.
They’re communicating with one another, for starters. The trees have become vibrantly alive and charged with wonder. I’m walking in the Eifel Mountains in western Germany, through cathedral-like groves of oak and beech, and there’s a strange unmoored feeling of entering a fairy tale.
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