Tag Archives: Tolkien

Listen to the Trees

looking up tree trunk branches

In the small amount of Dr. Who that I’ve watched, I picked up on the idea that the future could be a place where human and plant DNA combine to create a whole new species that we can’t even imagine.

As a Tolkien nerd, I have a deep respect for trees, because they might just be ancient shepherds of the forests that used to stand.

When I was 10, I was known to climb dangerously high in large trees near to my home. Somehow, I’ve never broken a bone.

Someday, I want to see the Redwoods, those living mountains of the biological world.

Did you know that what is thought to be the globe’s oldest, heaviest organism is the Pando tree root system in Utah?

Magnificent and magical, trees connect us to the deep past. When science shows us new ways in which we might be connected to the trees themselves, maybe we should listen.

How Removing Trees Can Kill You (don’t worry – it’s from PBS).

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Relaxing the Nerd

history George Washington Avalon Tolkien booksI’ve never denied that I’m a huge nerd. There’s just no point.

For reasons that are varied and debatable, nerds such as myself find great satisfaction in cultural items that contain myth and magic, and it is preferable that these things be wrapped in a package that offers elements of the epic and obscurely historical.

Case in point: Tolkien stories, and the movies inspired by them. This past Saturday, we finally saw The Hobbit. While I have great respect for an author (especially one who didn’t take himself too seriously), and appreciate the purist view regarding its ideal of preservation, I just have to say that I freaking love the Peter Jackson interpretations, and I don’t care if that makes me uncool. And yes, I’ve read the books.

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