Starting from a Single Tree: an Ecological and Cultural Perspective on Ancient Forests of the Pacific Coast And Beyond

Dan Well’s presentation, Starting from a Single Tree: an Ecological and Cultural Perspective on Ancient Forests of the Pacific Coast And Beyond, will start at the base of Iluvatar, a nearly 1700-year-old Coast Redwood Tree, and gradually expand our view outward, exploring ecology, culture and their intersections. Modern ecology tells us in a new language what many traditions from Buddhism to Indigenous North American beliefs have long known—that the world is deeply interconnected and interdependent not only more complex than we know, but more complex than we CAN know.

Questions such as: What does it mean to live in a world of this kind of connection? What does the science say? What are our obligations to the world beyond the human, and what considerable hope can it bring us? As Robin Wall Kimmerer asks us, What if the Earth loves us back? How do the interconnections in ancient forests, from a single tree to the global climate, offer us the possibility of a better world? will be discussed.

Daniel B “Shuttterbug” Wells is an ecologist, artist, humanist, long-distance hiker, and student of the natural world. Dan was educated at Swarthmore and the University of Vermont in ecology with a focus on ancient forests, and on the Pacific Crest Trail, Redwood National and State Parks, Point Reyes National Seashore, the Green Mountain National Forest, and Harvard Divinity School (among other places) about the importance of our direct connection to the world beyond ourselves. Dan’s work ranges widely through photography, writing, science and beyond, but it is all about the importance of a world of interconnection.