title: The Spirit of Trees: Science, Symbiosis, and Inspiration
author:  Fred Hageneder 
description: "An attractive, well-illustrated, and rewarding book that explores the relationship between humanity and trees." -- <i>New Age Retailer, Nov/Dec 2001</i><br /><br />"Hagender's passion for his subject and the wealth of scientific fact...have resulted in a virtual arboretum...of best-loved trees." -- <i>Napra Review, December 2001</i>
zlib_text: 
  
  
  Dedication
  
  
  To all my students, past, present, and future.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CHAPTER 9
  
  
  “Be the tree!” Mr. Evans instructed us, his own short arms stretched high
  above his head, fingers splayed. “Feel the warm breeze in your branches, the
  sun on your leaves. Now the wind is picking up. Sway with the wind, my trees!”
  
  
  I looked around me and was amazed once again that people were going along with
  this. A roomful of perfectly rational—or at least not certifiably
  insane—people were seriously pretending to be trees. And I was one of them,
  though I had to admit my arms still felt like arms and I wasn’t keeping my
  eyes closed, as I had been instructed to do and as all the others seemed to be
  doing. I was humoring the deranged person who was apparently in charge of all
  of us. Maybe the others were as well? I could only hope this was the case as I
  watched them sway in the pretend wind.
  
  
  “Now we’re worms,” Mr. Evans informed us. He dropped to the ground, legs
  together and arms pressed to his sid