trees and spirits and stuff

D

data farm 26

Been here a while
Location
the raft
What do you make of Dryads and things like that? Or the Shinto beliefs surrounding spirits and trees, do you think there's anything to it or just a bunch of nonsense? Do you think that you get any "bad karma" from harming or killing trees?
 
All living things have a sentience. Some organisms are harder to understand than others, but as far as I can tell, life is life. Karma is simply action and it's subsequent consequences. Cause and effect. There is no "good" or "bad" Karma per se. I sometimes get into this a bit aggressively when Vegans try to get high and mighty with me.

You can't avoid Karma, except by not doing anything. If you don't breathe, I am pretty sure you will die, and there are microbes floating in the air that will die inside of you after you inhale them, so there's that. I think that the Karmic elements are fairly clear, and I respect the notion of never killing a tree.

My Karma is such that I still enact other people's desires to have a tree removed. I feel like that's more on them than me, but we all play our part.

You feelin' bad about cutting down that tree last week?
 
Matias said:
There is no "good" or "bad" Karma per se
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I put it in quotes because of that, I just used that as it is commonly understood among westerners to try and get the point across :) my bad. What I meant to ask more accurately is do we accrue some type of ill will through harming or killing trees? In the way that certain cultures believe that spirits like Dryads will seek vengeance!
Matias said:
You feelin' bad about cutting down that tree last week?
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No. I was just reading some stuff about Dryads this morning and was wondering what the people on this site, who touch trees every day, think about ideas like that. Honestly, when I cut down a landscape tree in boulder I think of it more as a mercy kill, like putting the damned thing out of its misery. (most of the time...) A woods tree though, has a much different "vibe"
 
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We know so little.. personally I think ‘we’ are hung up with anthropomorphizing plants and their symbiosis too much. Not saying they aren’t ’intelligent’ or have a shit ton of stuff going on with them and their relationships (even to us). It’s just we fail to understand what we don’t experience ourselves.




www.scientificamerican.com

See how thunderstorms create ghostly UV sparks on the tips of trees

Thunderstorms can generate weak electrical discharges on the plants underneath, but until now, they had never been observed in nature
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
If you look for evidence you will likely find it. But that doesn't make it real. There are real spirits and some of them would love nothing better than to trick you into believing weird stuff that hampers and eventually ruins your life. Others will trick you and then make your life better, so long as it keeps you focused on them, ignoring the true creator God. There is some One who created the first trees (what a marvel they are!!) and He created us as well. He is the One we need to get to know and give him thanks for all the good things he has given us. Thankfully he has given us his Word, the Bible, so it's simple to find out who he is.
 
evo said:
I think ‘we’ are hung up with anthropomorphizing plants and their symbiosis too much.
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I like that. I am often bothered by clients talking about trees like they are people, it's just a whole different reality. There has been great discussion here in the past about 'tree time' vs how we perceive time, I'd like to delve more into that someday.

I will say though, if a tree was to be given a human like personality, I like Tolkien's characters the Ents.
 
I had a client (an American couple) who had a chateau type property.

They hired me to take out 2 trees, a 40 year old Leylandii and something else smaller, days work.
So we’re there at 9am, parked in front of the leylandii filling the saws up, and the husband comes out, and with an earnest face asks ‘would you mind taking the other tree out first as my wife would like some time alone with the tree to say goodbye?’

He looked a little suprised when I said no bloody way, too late mate.

Now I’m not saying all Americans are like this, but statistically this sort of behaviour is exhibited mostly by people from the colonies.
Make of that what you will.
 
I get that. I get attached to things as well -both living and inanimate. I had a nice relationship with my first pick up, for example. We’d stay up late and talk for hours sometimes …ok that’s only half true. ;)
But I did lose a nice southern red oak at our last house during a hurricane a few years back and that really made me sad. I guess I can relate to forming a bond with something that doesn’t reciprocate
 
Neill said:
I get that. I get attached to things as well -both living and inanimate. I had a nice relationship with my first pick up, for example. We’d stay up late and talk for hours sometimes …ok that’s only half true. ;)
But I did lose a nice southern red oak at our last house during a hurricane a few years back and that really made me sad. I guess I can relate to forming a bond with something that doesn’t reciprocate
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It was performative, in my opinion, ‘look at me, I really care about nature‘n’shit, I’m sooo spiritual‘
 
data farm 26 said:
I like that. I am often bothered by clients talking about trees like they are people, it's just a whole different reality. There has been great discussion here in the past about 'tree time' vs how we perceive time, I'd like to delve more into that someday.

I will say though, if a tree was to be given a human like personality, I like Tolkien's characters the Ents.
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I’m also a huge reptile geek, folks love to try to put mammalian traits or characteristics on them as that is the what their imagination are limited to.

Using reptiles as an example, all of iguana and monitor/gonna families are venomous. ‘Old world’ pythons and boas as well as pit vipers ‘see’ in thermal. Most diurnal lizards have a modified scale on the top of their heads with a optical nerve, it’s thought it’s to ‘see’ UVB light, most all snakes have a Jacobson organ on the roof of their mouth that ‘reads’ molecular particles in the air.. aka smell with their tongue… crocodilians can sense bio electrical impulses from other animals nervous systems….

All utterly amazing adaptations, with no way to understand what it’s like to have these abilities.

Why in the hell are plants not the same? They can do things in ways we just can’t wrap our heads around.

Us hairless monkeys are all part of it the broader picture, different but one of the whole. This does include the need to take resources etc.. so best not to rationalize it away, but to also understand how limited our understanding is.

Getting off my soapbox.. stay curious
 
Mick Dempsey! said:
It was performative, in my opinion, ‘look at me, I really care about nature‘n’shit, I’m sooo spiritual‘
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We all need something to believe in. Even you, dear Mick, must have beliefs beyond the drudgery that carry you through your days and embed your life with meaning.

(Those two do sound like they were a few bobs short of a working clock though)
 
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