What can Ancient Ones teach us?

An ancient, gnarled Western Redcedar trunk stretches into the sky. Green branches surround them, and plants and moss grow around the trunk.

Just outside a small beach town lies an old growth nature preserve. A sturdy boardwalk leads you over swampy ground, through trees that stand stark and bare. A little bit of a winding way in, the Western Redcedars appear.

Tall, with shaggy bark, and ferns and salal ringing their trunks. Huge uprooted trees and their massive root balls surround the boardwalk. Some have so deeply become the earth that you can see them there just by the slight trunk-shaped hill that now supports plants, moss, fungus, and younger trees. 

Continue on and eventually you meet an ancient one. They stand enormous, supporting life on every bit of theirself. Plants (whole bushes in fact), moss, and lichen cover their trunk. Above, entire Hemlock trees have grown from near the canopy, sending roots down through the Cedar’s body and into the earth far below. They are exuberantly gnarled, their trunk fantastically bulbous and folded. 

They’re a forest within the forest.

A sign states that this tree is likely between 900 and 1200 years old. They have survived a tsunami. And they survived the tsunami of white settling and logging - the free-for-all of destruction and death; of trees destroyed in the name of progress. 

Meeting this tree, I’m awestruck, and I wonder: what vast stores of truth and possibility does the body carry forward through time?

The ancients call to me. I’m bewitched by the long-lived ones. I want to know and understand the lives of the Bowhead Whales, who can live 200 years or more. And I want to know the Greenland Shark, who can live to be 500 years old. Or the Giant Barrel Sponge, who is 2,300 years old. The Glass Sponges could be 10,000 years old. 

When we look to plants and fungus, we find Pando, a clonal Aspen who may be 14,000 years old. Here in Oregon, there is the “Humongous Fungus” - as old as 8,500 years (and may be the largest organism on earth). A seagrass colony lives off the island of Ibiza and could be 100,000 years old, or older. 

Contemplating their lives, I’m swept into the mystery. What does it mean to live decades, centuries, even millenia? What have they witnessed; what have they lived through? How have their lives entwined with family; predators and prey; friends and enemies? What joys and grief do they carry through the long, long years? What do they know of injury and illness, health and thriving? And what do they have to teach us about how to live? 

I want to know these beings, to sit at their knees, or fins, or curled in their underwater meadow.

Coming close to them, if only in my heart and mind, reminds me that countless beings have lived through apocalypse, time and time again. They have survived drought, fire, ice; the birth and death of loved ones; scarce resources; fear and grief, joy and love. 

These beings - individuals and species - have much to teach us. 

Is it a surprise that so many of them lead slow, simple lives. That the fungus and plants that live so long do so as interwoven bodies and selves? 

The world burns around us. We’re watching seemingly unstoppable fires, violence, and tragedy.

Rather than turn away from this pain, how do we learn from these ancient ones about how to live? What can we learn about how we might take good care of each other? 

Fear can make me contract, stiffen, pull inward, and protect. But when I can stop for a moment and listen, I hear that we must find ways to weave ourselves together. This weaving moves us outward, softens us, offers expansion. We can then share our love and protection with those most vulnerable, and open ourselves to the world when and where we can.

I’m grateful to those who are leading the way in this weaving. I’m moved to see the work of the Sarayuku people, for example, who lovingly fight for the for legal recognition of the rights of Kawsak Sacha - the Living Forest. Their long and committed labor has extended to partnerships with others, such as the More Than Human Life Project. This creative and brave work recognizes the agency and beinghood of forests, rivers and land, and has created great beauty in the Song of the Cedars. In a petition to the Ecuadorean government, the Los Cedros Cloud Forest theirself is named as a co-creator of this work of art - and, MOTH argues, should be legally recognized as such. 

Screenshot of a YouTube video link. Text is 'Song of the Cedars' over an image of 2 trees connected underground by their roots; creatures woven into the roots

Across the world and right outside our door, we can find examples and inspiration everywhere for how to reach out to one another with aid and care.

I’m spellbound by the ancient elders, those that have lived through change, apocalypse, and abundance. The mystery of their lives, and all that they hold within, can teach us so much, if we only pay attention.

They teach us what it means to go slow, to be utterly interdependent - never separate and singular. They teach us to stand strong and stable, while we share in with others. 

May we, together, continue to learn from them, protect them, care for them - and do the same for one another.

One teaching I and others hear from our elders the trees over and over again: “Slow down. Breathe.”
Not only does this support our own bodies and spirits,
but it’s a path toward liberation for all.
As Julia Watts Belser puts it:
“Let’s learn to press pause for migraines, for brain fog, for exhaustion and grief. Let’s learn to work more slowly, move more deliberately. Let’s learn to listen, when our bones say no…
Let’s make sure that all of us can breathe.”