This summer, the intermediate musical will be “Into the Woods,” so we have been hearing fragments of the songs floating out of the woods all summer. Clearly, for the composer and lyricist, the late Stephen Sondheim, “the woods” was a metaphor. So I'm sure he was using irony in the prologue when he wrote: “the woods are just trees; the trees are just wood.”
Just wood? Hardly. Trees . . . well, trees are wood, but so very much more.
Trees are home to countless creatures. Trees cool the air, prevent soil erosion, protect water quality and enrich the soil. Trees absorb carbon dioxide and then sequester the carbon and release the oxygen . . . I could go on.
But understand that a woods is a community. Trees help each other.
Researchers now believe that trees communicate through a network of mycorrhizal fungi that connects their roots. When some trees are stressed by things like insect attack, drought or lack of nutrients, they communicate their needs to other trees and the other trees share their resources through this underground fungal network.
Say a tree is in shade or, for some reason, is lacking adequate nutrients to thrive. The tree will communicate its need to nearby trees through the mycorrhizae.
If a tree in its vicinity has adequate resources, enough for its own needs and then some, that tree can literally send sugars through the fungal filaments to the tree in need. This happens throughout a healthy forest community.
It’s not all that different from IPR. From time to time, a public radio station communicates a need over the airwaves or the internet. Listeners hear, and if they have enough for themselves and still have the means to help, they share their resources . . . they send a gift.
Sometimes, listeners are more than listeners. They are community supporters.
