Wisdom of Trees - "Community" - by Frances Murphy

            Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary defines “community” as “a unified body of individuals”.  After reading the novel “The Overstory” by Richard Powers and “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben, I am convinced that trees, indeed all plants and fungi, are designed to live together in a huge community.  Wohlleben describes trees in a forest as “social” individuals who care for each other, help to nourish each other, and keep each other alive.  According to Wohlleben, “[t]he reason trees share food and communicate is that they need each other. . . . So it’s not surprising that isolated trees have far shorter lives. . . . Perhaps the saddest plants of all are those we have enslaved in our agricultural systems.  They seem to have lost the ability to communicate and are thus rendered deaf and dumb.”  We are all connected—humans, animals, vegetation, the Earth, the Universe.  When we lose one, we have lost our ability to communicate with all.

Commercial fabrics and sequin cloth, Quilters Dream bamboo batting.  Fusible and machine applique.  Machine quilted.