Trees Scent and Sing for Life by Sara Wright

On November 6^th, the day after the election in the middle of writing through my own anger/grief I suddenly stopped and got up – heeding that inner voice that often interrupted my train of thought. Picking up the lights I opened the door to adorn my young cedar for the very first time ever.

 I planted this twelve-inch-tall seedling in 2020 to replace my original Cedar Guardian Tree that had been decimated by deer during a year-long absence.  To my astonishment in four years, this seedling had become a seven-foot-high Guardian Tree. Of course, in the interim I have carefully tended this cedar, watering her, talking with her, touching her, loving her, calling her ‘my guardian’ but this species is very slow growing so even as I began to festoon the tree with lights, I experienced a sense of awe. I was of course talking with this tree as I adorned her… I told her that I would be lighting her as a Tree for Life.

When the air around the tree suddenly exploded with the scent of cedar, I experienced a powerful sense of relatedness with this cedar, and with all nature that is impossible to describe. That she was communicating with me using her own words moved me deeply. Although I have had these experiences before each one remains a revelation, especially when I have one during times of deep distress. When I plugged in the lights, I saw the unintentional spiral that I had created when I wound the strings so carefully around and across her delicate fronds. Just perfect I thought as a breeze rustled through her branches making the lights twinkle for a moment.

I went back to my writing but throughout the day I periodically stopped, got up, and gazed out at my tree, still marveling, feeling deeply comforted by this Presence. I remembered another winter long ago when her predecessor lit up the night as I took my little puppy out to pee. Hope always gravitated to that tree, and when I shoveled on dark and snowy nights the tree acted as a beacon…

Early that evening, exhausted by the day’s writing I soaked in the vision of my tree that was now literally lighting up the night. Then I checked my email. I discovered that scientist and friend Rupert Sheldrake had posted a piece about his two sons, Merlin a scientist, and Cosmo a musician, who are in Ecuador. Together. Merlin is doing mycological research on fungi and mycelial networks, and Cosmo has co -written a song with two Native musicians/scholars, and writer Robert Macfarlane about the Ecuadorian cloud forest. The song contains melodies of echo-locating bats, howler monkeys, rustling leaves and even a subterranean recording of the soil taken from the spot where a new species of fungus was collected and described.

“It wasn’t written within the forest, it was written with the forest,” said Macfarlane. “This was absolutely and inextricably an act of co-authorship with the set of processes and relations and beings that the forest and its rivers comprise…the forest wrote it with us”.

The More than Human Life project (Moth) is an interdisciplinary initiative advancing rights and well-being for humans, non -humans, and the web of life that sustains us all. Moth has submitted a legal petition to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognize the Los Cedros (cedar) cloud forest as the co – creator of this composition called: “Song of the Cedars”. This is the first legal attempt to recognize an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art.

I immediately listened to the extraordinary song that uplifted me just as the above paragraphs did. Life will go on.

And I had only this day lit a cedar tree for life.

What is happening in the United States is only a blip on the earth’s radar I thought after reading the words of the song out loud and singing along with the melody.

Life Will Go On.

(Moth)  More than Human Life

More than Human Life A forest in Ecuador could be recognised as the co-creator of a song under a groundbreaking legal proposal.

A petition is to be submitted to Ecuador’s copyright office to recognise the Los Cedros cloud forest as the co-creator of the composition Song of the Cedars. The action by the More Than Human Life (Moth) project is the first legal attempt to recognise an ecosystem’s moral authorship of a work of art.

The song contains melodies of echo-locating bats, howler monkeys, rustling leaves and even a subterranean recording of the soil taken from the spot where a new species of fungus was collected and described.

It was composed by the musician Cosmo Sheldrake, writer Robert Macfarlane, field mycologist Giuliana Furci from the NGO Fungi Foundation and legal scholar César Rodríguez-Garavito during a field trip to Ecuador.

The song was created when the group set up camp in the high forest during an expedition organised by Macfarlane as part of his research for Is a River Alive?, his new book about rivers and the rights of nature movement, which will be published in May 2025.

“It wasn’t written within the forest, it was written with the forest,” said Macfarlane. “This was absolutely and inextricably an act of co-authorship with the set of processes and relations and beings that that forest and its rivers comprise. We were briefly part of that ongoing being of the forest, and we couldn’t have written it without the forest. The forest wrote it with us.”

Los Cedros cloud forest, where melodies of bats, howler monkeys, rustling leaves and a subterranean recording of the soil were incorporated into the song. Photograph: Robert Macfarlane

The song was written when Macfarlane began sharing verse one evening around the campfire. Sheldrake used an app on his mobile phone to layer forest sounds he had recorded and create melodies to match the words. Furci said: “Night came, the fire was lit and we were all tuning in to make some sounds and record others, and also participate in what beings should be named in the lyrics. That’s how the song emerged. It was very much shaped by the time we’d left that high camp.”

In a historic ruling, the legal personhood of the Los Cedros biological reserve was recognised by Ecuador’s constitutional court in 2021, when it determined to cancel mining permits in the reserve.

“It gives us confidence and a firm legal foundation that we can make this claim in Ecuador,” said Rodríguez-Garavito, the chair of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law and founding director of Moth. “The copyright agency will have to look at the decision by the constitutional court which is binding on all other authorities and decide whether that legal personhood means that the Los Cedros forest can also be the moral author of a song.”

If the agency refuses the request, Rodríguez-Garavito said they would challenge the decision in Ecuador’s courts.