From The Marginalian, I learn about David George Haskell's book, The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature.
He writes about the symbiotic relationship of lichen, and how they show us how life forms and continues not in competition but in interdependence.
"We survive and thrive not through combat but through collaboration."
When I was a Terwilliger nature guide we would sing with the kids: "Annie Algae and Freddie Fungus took a Lichen to each other."
We'd look for the colors and varieties of lichen on Ring Mountain, where it's prolific as there's no pollution. My yard is the same way, is a garden of lichen on chairs, windchimes, and trees.
Haskell writes: We are Russian dolls, our lives made possible by other lives within us. But whereas dolls can be taken apart, our cellular and genetic helpers cannot be separated from us, nor we from them. We are lichens on a grand scale.
Wow!
And may that knowing bring us to peace in the world. We survive and thrive together. It's time to end conflict and war, and live in prosperity and peace.
Lichen grows on the leg of a wooden chair
And on the branches of trees
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