Bathing in wood air

- Posted by Quaker Earthcare in Resources,  | 1 min read
Photo by Kathy Barnhart

Bathing in wood air

by Pamela Haines

We all know that a walk in the woods refreshes–
great trees, bird calls and breezes
pungent scents of earth and pine.

Yet our senses fail to name the greater forces
here at work.

Mushroom threads—mycelia—
weave a network underground
sharing nutrients at the root
helping those great trees to thrive.

And all those trees give out
not just the oxygen
that we depend on
and forget to thank them for
but other subtle essences
that nourish us (old knowledge
newly named by scientists,
now real to the western mind).

We are bathing in wood air
as they say in Japan
deep in the molecular life of the trees
breathing in the benefits of
living in an interspecies web.