Additional Comments on reading FINDING THE MOTHER TREE, Suzanne Simard

Still enjoying this book but dismayed to discover during chapter 3 that Dr. Simard's awareness of the interconnectedness of the forest systems, a broader consciousness, didn't yet embrace other entities. I am referring to her supporting her brother, Kelly in his rodeo ambitions. Somehow her awakened consciousness didn't spread far enough to take in the tortured, suffering, enraged bull her brother was riding and lashing with his metal spurs for the entertainment of the crowd.

Many people, like myself, saw, even early on in our lives how various animals were suffering in what others saw as entertainment. Somehow, no matter what the exhibition, I couldn't help but be aware of the fear and suffering of the animals unwillingly caught up in it. The most intense suffering I encountered from this kind of experience was at a bullfiht in Spain which I wouldn't have ever thought of attending except that I was 21 and was taken there by my husband when we were traveling around Europe during his US Military deployment. It was, to me, heartbreaking. The bull kept trying to jump over the wooden fence around the arena to escape the stabbing spears of the men on horseback. The crowd shrieked and screamed in bloodlust and barbaric cruelty. It reminded me of the Roman Collisseum. Even as a child, I couldn't help but read the expressions on the faces of the animals imprisoned in the zoo. There eemed to be an invisible barrier betwen other people and these animals, but I didn't have it. I felt their sorrow, loneliness and fear.

I am not the only one. I have several friends with a history in the animal rights movement, and I remember once one of them and I went to the Camden Aquarium and we saw the poor alligator entrapped in a narrow plexiglas coffin like enclosure and his sorrow was palpable. We were both repulsed and depressed. Once, back in the 1970's I was at a friend's house and they had an enormous white fish almost as big as the aquarium in which it was imprisoned. They were proud of it, but I was disheartened and I had this overwhelming feeling that the fish was about to die, which I, impolitely I must confess, expressed outloud. I said, "I think he is dying." He died that night. They kind of blamed me as though I put a spell on him, but it was his unhealthy an depressing confinement that killed him, but they didn't want to face their own guilt.

Another story of awareness is when a friend of mine who has no such sensitivities to animals, was given a lobster. She called me on the phone and said she couldn't boil it, and every time she opened the fridge, his eye stalks looked at her. I told her I would go with her the next day to put it in the ocean, but it died durin the night. Sometimes the invisible rays, the radio signals of emotion can penetrate even the most hardened human and give an insight into the reality of another species.

No such thing happened with Dr. Simard and his brother, the Rodeo champ. I wish she could read one of the web sites devoted to ending this barbaric and cruel form of animal torture for human entertainment, so that she might know what suffering the animals endure for the ego and fake bravado of these "Cowboys" - as the old cowboy song goes "It's your misfortune and none of my own. Yippee tie yi yo."

AS soon as I finished that chapter, I sent a donation to PETA.

And just in case someone reads this and sks the usual questions of anyone who feels for other creatures - No, I do not eat meat, and No, I do not buy leather products, and No, I do not buy lumber - I buy already fabricated 2nd hand furniture, and I buy recycle paper products whenever possible. I do what I can. No, I do not use pesticides and I have no lawn and my cats do not roam free to kill birds - we have an outdoor chain link catio for them to enjoy the outdoors without predation on other creatures.

Consciousness is a many layered resource and perhaps in time, Dr. Simard's will increase to include the well being of other sentient creatures as well as the forest.

Jo Ann