Tenth Quarterly Newsletter from the Ziraat Council

FANA-FI-GAIA

Imbolc, February 1, 2024

10th Quarterly from the Ziraat Council

Note from the Council

Aija Bruvere

Greetings from Ziraat council to everyone in the wide world.

I would like to talk today about the way connection manifests in the natural world, and more specifically – tree connections.

We humans are all connected mainly due to prevalence of mobile networks and the Internet, but a much broader and more sophisticated network exists on this earth that the scientists call Wood Wide Web. Yes, it is not a misspelling! I would like to bring to your attention the network that trees form in the woods. And perhaps we can all learn a lesson from the way trees are connected. It turns out that with the help of mitochondria and fungi they can exchange nutrients, information and much more. In the underground a whole functioning ecosystem exists: a tree network.

It may be that the very real social network of tress that exists is not only present in old growth forests but to some extent also in orchards and city parks. Communication is happening and synergies are taking place everywhere.

There is a very fitting Rumi quote also pointing in the same direction:

One attuned scientist that brought attention to the Wood Wide Web and has undertaken measuring the tree networks is Suzan Simard:

I’m standing on the shoulders of thousands of years of knowledge. I think it's so important that we all recognize this: that there is so much knowledge there that we’ve ignored.

She talks about the fact that modern science, with ability to map networks of connection, brings us back to the knowledge that Indigenous cultures have held for a long long time. In the tree network the importance of the Grandmother Tree, the oldest tree, is paramount. Indigenous people still honour the grandmother trees and know their locations. Last year, here in Australia, a group of us were brought to a grandmother where it took 13 of us joining hands to measure her circumference.

On behalf of Ziraat council

Aija (in Australia)

Excerpt from Ziraat Reader

“Unfold Thy secret through the nature and reveal Thy mystery through my heart.”

—Pir-o-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan, Nature Meditations

From Ziraat reader download here:

https://www.ruhaniat.org/pdf/ziraat/NatureMeditationsofHazratInayatKhan.pdf

Ziraati Changemakers

An amazing changemaker Cynthia Jurs is a Buddhist teacher in the Order of Interbeing who received Dharmacharya transmission to teach from Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh in 1994. Also a practitioner of Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism, for 30 years she has studied and practiced with many great masters and spent much time in retreat. In 2018 she was made a Lama by Ngawang Tsultrim Zangpo Rinpoche at his seat, Tolu Tharling Monastery in Nepal, in recognition for her many years of dharma practice and dedication to the work of global healing through the Earth Treasure Vases.

In 1990 Cynthia Jurs undertook a pilgrimage that transformed her life when she met a 106 year-old Sherpa lama living in a cave high in the Himalayas. When she asked the old wise man, Charok Rinpoche, ‘What can we do to bring healing and protection to the Earth?’ he instructed her in the practice of the Earth Treasure Vases – a practice dedicated to bringing healing and protection to the Earth by filling consecrated clay vessels with prayers and offerings and burying them in places of need around the world. She was given 30 of these consecrated clay vessels and told to fill them with offerings and prayers, take them to places in need of healing and bury them according to the tradition.

https://earthtreasurevase.org/project/

Keeping Up

Dive even deeper into the lives of trees and tree networks Fungi that allow trees to be connected in a wood wide web.

https://emergencemagazine.org/interview/finding-the-mother-tree/

Interview with Suzanne Simard about Wood Wide Web

Suzanne Simard TED talk about Wood Wide web if you like TED talk format:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un2yBgIAxYs

An invitation to inhale tree aromas from different parts of the world all united in this beautiful essay, very evocative:

https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/eleven-ways/

Another way of looking at what the trees are telling us:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/01/the-trees-are-trying-to-tell-us-things-the-ecologist-championing-our-ancient-forests

A video about unusual transformation that Climate change brings to a desert perhaps making it green as it was 5000 years ago.

https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/world-of-wonder?vpid=p0gzbyh4

Practice

Aatoon Nina Massey suggests we sit under a tree to find a sacred place in nature. I have also implemented this as a practice. On our Ziraat website you can read the full Deep Ecology focused article:

“Standing near a tree, I wonder what it would be like to stand tall, in absolute stillness for hundreds of years. That inner, stalwart strength a representation of meditation at its deepest. Sitting under a tree, I feel that silence & tranquility deep in my heart and soul. A sacred place in nature to visit regularly, to offer prayers for Mother Earth has always been a part of my life. Watching the changes of the seasons, the natural cycles give a rhythm to daily life.Having a sacred place in nature to visit has been part of the culture of humanity since earlies times. Groves were used in early pagan and Druid for rituals. Visiting lakes, rivers and the sea have always uplifted people. Climbing hills and mountains create a natural elevation of the spirit. Sites that are visited by many begin to gather the spiritual energy of those who offer prayers, whose states of being are lifted by the very nature of the sacred place.”

https://www.ruhaniat.org/index.php/practices/2877-deep-ecology