Deer Man

 

"The Universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”

Eden Phillpotts

Deer are intriguing to me.

I remember being drawn to the fleeting gaze of a deer, perceiving in her gentle eyes the radiance of her friendly nature and intelligence. My curiosity was satisfied by Geoffroy Delorme’s Deer Man, a unique book that surpassed all my expectations and became an all-time favorite.

  During his childhood Geoffroy Delorme had a disappointing experience at school, so the decision was made to homeschool him. This period of his life afforded him the time and space he needed to explore his interests in the natural world.  He devoured books by Dian Fossey, Jane Goodall and other naturalists. He also learned as much as he could about the forests in Normandy, France, where he lived.

 He researched the kinds of foods in the forest that could nourish his body, gleaning information about the rich variety of plants and trees.

Geoffroy bonded with the forest when he was a kid.

 When he was nineteen years old, he decided to immerse himself in those forests, living close to the roe deer. As they foraged for food in the same areas, the deer were very curious about his presence.

What was a human being doing there? The interest was mutual, and their interactions evolved into friendships.

 Geoffroy got to know each deer as a unique individual; complex relationships developed as they cooperated with each other, living side by side for seven years.

 Roe deer have the ability to tell the difference between good and evil, or between those who wish them well and those who wish to do them harm.

 Geoffroy Delorme learned as much as he could from the deer.  He adopted their sleeping habits and gained insights from them about the ways he could support his own nutrition; similarly, Geoffroy was able to guide the deer to safety at times, when hunters tried to attack them. Surviving in the forest was not an easy feat. Winter is harsh, and Geoffroy shares the details on how he was able to endure the season. It is also made harder by the way humans destroy the forests, threatening the sources of food needed to survive and thrive.

“Adaptation to the natural environment is a long process that demands patience. Your metabolism changes. Your mind changes. Your reflexes change. Everything changes, but slowly.”

 It was human encroachment what pushed him out of the forest after seven years of living in the forests in France. His need to speak up for the deer and the forest compelled him to write Deer Man.

 “The forest brings us food and medicine. Without it, our landscapes would be nothing but desolation, and life would be reduced to the most total silence. It is the forest that purifies the atmosphere and allows us to breathe the oxygen indispensable to all living creatures”.

 The experience of living side by side with his deer friends taught him a lot about himself, and he dedicated this book to Chevy:

 “To Chevy, my best friend.

You taught me to live, to feel, to love,

To believe that everything was possible,

And to become myself.”

 

 I cried many times with Deer Man and I’m sure other readers cried too. This book warms the heart and educates the mind. Inspiring and mesmerizing, Deer Man will hopefully instill in peoples’ consciousness the wisdom to guide themselves toward respectful empathic choices, to genuinely honor life through their own humane behaviors. Jane Goodall makes it clear in one line: “Read this book and enter into another world.”

 You can learn more about Geoffroy Delorme’s forest experiences by checking this fascinating conversation at the Greystone Books site.

 

Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard

 

“But man is part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.” Rachel Carson

   Working in the logging industry, Suzanne Simard introduced the concept of cooperation among trees; it was based on a discovery for which she was mocked and shunned. Her finding had the potential to turn forest practices upside down. 

  Policies and practices in forestry had been established on the basis of competition as the key to the survival of trees.

  Decades ago, Suzanne Simard’s discovery on the way birch trees support the health of the fir trees was the beginning of an ongoing journey that would study the kind of interaction the field of forestry had ignored for so long: cooperation among trees.

 

You may wonder how trees cooperate with each other when all you’ve heard in school was about competition.

 Just as Albert Frank was fiercely criticized when he introduced the concept of symbiosis, Suzanne Simard was dismissed when she explained the need to let birch trees coexist with fir trees to support the health of the desired fir trees. Birch trees were considered “weeds”; therefore, policies to spray and kill those trees had always been in place.

 Thankfully, Simard found another job at the University of British Columbia and she continued to work hard on her path of research, asking questions that challenged the blindsided system and paved the way to comprehend how trees communicate with each other.

 

Suzanne Simard’s research showed that trees connect underground with the roots of other trees through an intricate network of fungi (the mycorrhizae), and their health and resilience depend on this complex web.

  In her book Finding the Mother Tree, Simard details the story of her research and threads into it her own life experiences, delving into her childhood, youth, family relationships, motherhood, and other relevant matters, like her cancer diagnosis and treatment.

 I appreciate how she was able to integrate so many subjects into a thought-provoking book, and I could empathize with her on every aspect of her journey.  

 “I have come full circle to stumble onto some of the indigenous ideals: Diversity matters. And everything in the universe is connected—between the forests and the prairies, the land and the water, the sky and the soil, the spirits and the living, the people and all other creatures.”

  

Suzanne Simard also focuses on the role of Mother trees. These are the oldest trees in a forest, and they are pivotal to the survival of young seedlings and various other trees, for they provide nourishment, making the forest strong and resilient. Mother trees are the foundation that underpins the integrity of a forest, and they are vital to the diversity of the woods.

  Simard reveals the power of her scientific observations by adding poetical reflections:

  “Imagine the flow of energy from the Mother Trees as powerful as the ocean tide, as strong as the sun’s rays, as irrepressible as the wind in the mountains, as unstoppable as a mother protecting her child. I knew that power in myself even before I’d uncovered these forest conversations. I’d felt it in the energy of the maple in my yard, flowing into me as I contemplated Dr. Malpass’s wisdom about embracing the mystery of life, sensing that magical emergent phenomena when we work together, the synergy that reductionist science so often misses, leading us to mistakenly simplify our societies and ecosystems.”

  After she survived her breast cancer treatment, she asked for some kind of reassurance to get on with her life, but all she encountered was the mystery of life, so she used her knowledge and passion for trees to create The Mother Tree Project. 

 “Our goal is to further develop an emergent philosophy: complexity science. Based on embracing collaboration in addition to competition—indeed, working with all the interactions that make up the forest—complexity science can transform forestry practices into what is adaptive and holistic and away from what has been overly authoritarian and simplistic.”

 Perhaps this book will confirm what your intuition perceives in your own interactions with trees and forests; or it may offer you a new window of contemplation, immersed in a deeper understanding of the trees, inviting you to cherish those moments of communion.

 “There is no moment too small in the world. Nothing should be lost. Everything has a purpose, and everything is in need of care. This is my creed. Let us embrace it. We can watch it rise.”

  Feel free to visit The Mother Tree Project:

https://mothertreeproject.org

 To keep marveling at the ways trees communicate, check this video by Suzanne Simard:

 

You may want to read my writing on Entangled Life if you haven't had a chance to read it yet:

https://juliahoneswritinglife.blogspot.com/2021/12/entangled-life.html

 

The Woods Scientist

"We send thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us people. We are glad that they are still here and we hope it will always be so." ~ Excerpt from the Thanksgiving Address, Mohawk version

(I found the above quote  printed on my passport).

  "The Woods Scientist" is about reading forests. 
  How can we read forests?
 Sue Morse has had a fascination for forests all her life. She grew up in Pennsylvania to a family who did not watch much TV. Her parents filled their lives with a love of animals and the outdoors.

 Every day after school, Sue ran more than four and a half miles to reach the Wissahickon woods. Her passion to get to the woods turned her into a strong distance runner. In 1967, as a senior in high school, she became the first woman in the United States to run a twenty-six mile marathon.

 Sue also has a passion for books, and reading Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” when she was a teenager inspired her.

  I learned some interesting facts about wildlife from The Woods Scientist.

 Sue has a didactic way of explaining what biodiversity means. She does so creatively, by using the example of a puzzle. Biodiversity is like a puzzle in motion. This “puzzle” is made of trees, shrubs, insects, flowers, mushrooms, amphibians, birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals. This dynamic puzzle is made of thousands of species, and they all depend on each other.

  Now imagine removing a piece of that puzzle. What happens?

When species are killed off, the puzzle falls apart. Every living thing counts in this delicate puzzle of nature.

Harvard biologist E.O Wilson states that we are losing species at a rate not seen since the dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. Wilson estimates that this current rate of extinction is 10,000 times faster than what is “normal” or natural.

  Animals that are more vulnerable to habitat fragmentation are called “indicator species”. Grizzly bears, river otters, wolverines, Canada Lynxes and bobcats are a few examples.

 The decline or absence of such creatures serves as a warning.

  The Woods Scientist helped me to understand the importance of corridors. Even the biggest parks in the country such as two-million-acre Yellowstone National Park and Adirondack Park need to be connected to other big tracts of land to allow animals to move back and forth. They are necessary for them to survive. 

 Four-lane highways and other developments lead to the fragmentation of their habitats, which prevents them from finding food and cover. By keeping tracks of wild animals Sue intends to create alternatives that can help to protect the fragile wildlife.

 As human population grows more housing developments, highways, roads, and corporate offices threaten the existence of these complex ecosystems.

Sue encourages us to protect the wildlife habitats in our communities. Feel free to check her website.

  Here in Wisconsin we deal with many challenges. The Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, changed regulations to allow the pollution of lakes, streams and wetlands.  This may have something to do with the false belief that protecting the environment is at odds with the economic progress of a region. How do we define progress? Perhaps we need to redefine it in order to understand that dollars cannot be drunk or eaten, and that human health is not dissociated from Nature, although some people seem to believe that dollars can be breathed in (excuse my sense of humor here.)

 To learn more about this situation you can read this article.

 Nature is not our enemy. Educating our communities and raising awareness are part of the solution, but changing regulations to pollute the environment is not a sign of intelligence.

   The more we discover and learn about Nature, the more we can understand how ignorant we are. Educating ourselves is the way to love Nature and to develop creative solutions to live in harmony with the environment. 
     We can also learn about the destruction around us through our senses... but would would Mother Nature say if she could speak?

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