This koan focuses our minds on the Standing People older than the forest they live in.

An elder tree, a mother tree, has many connections. It’s now known that trees are connected underground by roots and fungal hyphae to many others. For the oldest trees, there may be two hundred connections to other individuals. Trees share nutrients and water, back and forth. They send warning signals about pest and drought threats.

You may now see lonely trees who have watched relatives be cut down. Perhaps this gnarled tree was not useful to the loggers, perhaps it was good at hiding. It’s seen so much.

A veteran English oak has 700,000 leaves. It’s home to three hundred species of insect. It’s a whole living planet.

Some world trees are among the oldest surviving individuals on Earth. Bristlecone pines above Timbisha (Death Valley) are 5000 years of age. A colony of Aspen in Utah, maybe 80,000 years old.

Ancient trees are seen and not seen. They hold up the sky.

Be kind to the ghosts, to your own ghosts. Remember too who made those trees into ghosts.

Trouble’s been brewing.

The earth, it could be said, needs more of us to recognise how lovely it is. And to say: we’ll not leave. We’ll not let bands of modern bandits steal it all away.

Story has a role beyond entertainment. It is also a way of looking after places, giving them a sub-song of emotion and meaning that could last across the centuries.

This koan says, look for the connections.

All actions cause consequences. Bad action chops down the tree.

Good actions help to weave the web.