Crown Shyness

It seem a trifle bit odd that we could learn principles of cooperation from the trees of the forest. Though, I suppose it should seem a trifle bit odd that we could learn anything from the forest. Yet, when we consider the teacher in Proverbs tells the sluggard to observe the ant in order to learn wisdom, I suppose the proposition shouldn’t seem too extraordinary. Some species of trees exhibit the characteristic of ‘crown shyness’, that is, their upper canopy foliage leaves gaps between the leaves of each tree so as to create a negative space network of labyrinthian proportions. The gaps almost look like the gyri and sulci of the unseen brain of the forest, the little folds that make up the cerebral network of the viridescent plane; or perhaps like a fluvial pattern of rivers and tributaries, feeding into one another along their serpentine course. Whatever shape the gaps may take, we have to deal with the fact that they are there and the trees ‘intentionally’ left them. Now, to ward of the assertions that I somehow believe trees to have sentient consciousness like that of humans, let me explicitly here denounce such a claim. However, the trees are alive, according any biologist, even if that biologist thinks that all of the universe is a cosmic and purposeless accident (though I’d like to ask such a biologist how dead rocks produced life, or better yet, how nothing produced everything?). Thus, we can agree the trees are alive. Now, it could be, as some assert, the gaps that the trees ‘intentionally’ leave between their foliage are due to abrasion that disrupts the buds of new branch shoots from forming and the pattern is merely an accident. Alternatively, it could be the photoreceptors-mediated shade avoidance that they all mutually exert indirectly upon one another. All this is well and good and I’m obliged to be open to such assertions - and the reader will be pleased to know that I am open to them, indeed. I do think they are ‘speaking’ in this type of language, pheromones, physiologic, or otherwise, though I do think there is a deeper language they speak to one another that we cannot hear. Even if the pheromones are the end of it and the entirety of the matter, let us not forget just how magical that language really is. I, for one, think this is merely the ‘observable’, superficial language they speak to one another, though, for clarity’s sake. However, I do not think that this answers the grander question at hand. If I hear a symphony, then I am obliged more to know and understand the mind of the composer and appreciate him more than that of the conductor. The conductor, and even the orchestra, are the mediators of the brilliance of the composer. They are the carriers of his message to the audience, though grand carriers they may be. I could get caught on the angle of incidence of the funnel shape on the French horn in the second row - and this may be a worthy pursuit, at some point - but that doesn’t get me to the mind and, indeed, heart of the composer. The ecstasy of the symphony draws me in! The lyricist was right on this one:

“This is my Father's world:
The birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white,
Declare their Maker's praise.
This is my Father's world:
He shines in all that's fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.”