Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest

“My queries started from a place of solemn curiosity, one clue leading to another, about how the forest was more than just a collection of trees.”

As Simard begins her career working in the forests of British Columbia, her curiosity centers on the relationships that link individual trees together into a whole. This passage also sets the stage for The Memoir as Embodiment, hinting at the ways in which Simard’s story will necessarily encompass the people (and trees) around her.

“This is not a book about how we can save the trees. This is a book about how the trees might save us.”

Simard emphasizes that a respect for nature can benefit human society. In the introduction, she introduces this theme of Nature and Generosity to prepare the reader for her theories on interspecies connectivity, the healing properties of nature, and trees’ inherent ability to communicate with their neighbors. The passage also foreshadows how trees will repeatedly “save” Simard personally, from helping her overcome her grief and guilt regarding her brother’s death to providing the drug that cures her cancer.

“How had the trees weathered the changing cycles of growth and dormancy, and how did this compare to the joys and hardships my family had endured in a fraction of the time?”

Simard structures her memoir around the connections she finds between her experiences in the forest and her family life. Family and nature are the two cornerstones of her life; in writing this memoir, Simard shows how it is impossible to separate emotional relationships from the environmental context one lives in.