Vincent Ribeiro

“A tree starts out as we do, as the union of two haploid gametes, the egg and the sperm. Cells divide again and again to become embryos. An infinitesimally small number of embryos become seedlings, and out of these, a tiny subset become trees. Time may stand still for decades in some seeds that enter dormancy until conditions for growth become suitable. Time may stop for decades as the seedling exists in the shade, garnering just enough energy for survival but not enough for growth. Time speeds up as sunlight is reached and the tree explodes in sudden growth and then proceeds along its trajectory to reproduction, senescence, and death. In some trees, like the gray birch and balsam fir, maximum life span is usually shorter than our own. In many others it is close to ours, while in a few trees, including the bristlecone pines, a life span of four thousand years is not impossible.

Bristlecone pines grow extremely slowly because they live in a cold climate (the White Mountains of California) and because they have little water and few nutrients. They nevertheless stay a step or two ahead of decay and death because the climate also dries their deadwood. It takes them thousands of years to experience the growth, and life, that a white pine in Maine experiences in two hundred summers. Trees must be growing to be alive, but different species grow, and therefore live, at very different rates. Thus, even to a tree, both time and life are relative.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Trees in My Forest

“When I got to the waterfront, I parked the car beside a deserted warehouse, smoked a cigarette and put Bob Dylan on auto-repeat. I reclined the seat, kicked both legs up on the steering wheel, breathing calmly. I felt like having a beer, but the beer was gone. The sun sliced through the windshield, sealing me in light. I closed my eyes and felt the warmth on my eyelids. Sunlight traveled a long distance to reach this planet; an infinitesimal portion of that energy was enough to warm my eyelids. I was moved. That something as insignificant as an eyelid had its place in the workings of the universe, that the cosmic order did not overlook this momentary fact. Was I any closer to appreciating Alyosha's insights? Some limited happiness had been granted this limited life.”
― Haruki Murakami, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“At that hour of dawn Agilulf always needed to apply himself to some precise exercise: counting objects, arranging them in geometric patterns, resolving problems of arithmetic. It was the hour in which objects lose the consistency of shadow that accompanies them during the night and gradually reacquire colors, but seem to cross meanwhile an uncertain limbo, faintly touched, just breathed on by light; the hour in which one is least certain of the world's existence. He, Agilulf, always needed to feel himself facing things as if they were a massive wall against which he could pit the tension of his will, for only in this way did he manage to keep a sure consciousness of himself. But if the world around was instead melting into the vague and ambiguous, he would feel himself drowning in that morbid half light, incapable of allowing any clear thought or decision to flower in that void. In such moments he felt sick, faint; sometimes only at the cost of extreme effort did he feel himself able to avoid melting away completely. It was then he began to count: trees, leaves, stones, laces, pine cones, anything in front of him. Or he put them in rows and arranged them in squares and pyramids. Applying himself to this exact occupation helped him overcome his malaise, absorb his discontent and disquiet, reacquire his usual lucidity and composure.”
― Italo Calvino, The Nonexistent Knight & The Cloven Viscount

“Like other species, we evolved in wilderness and although we are now able to satisfy many of our physical needs outside it (at least in the short term), psychologically we still need the vital diversity, complexity, grandeur, and beauty of wild places. We need to feel connected to something tangible that can be seen, smelled, tasted, that is much greater than out own fleeting existence. Call it religion. There are untold millions who believe in this religion although they may not come out and say so, mostly because its tenets are so deeply ingrained as to be taken for granted. No organized faith is therefore necessary. To me and others of this religion a wilderness made by God and/or by the mechanism of evolution is at least as, if not more, holy than a cathedral made by man, and to harm it is a desecration. I see enough glimpses of this wilderness in my forest to feel inspired by a feeling of interconnectedness with the web of life. It gives me a dream. It is a realistic dream that is not destructive, and that all can take part in and enjoy the results. Preserving and fostering the fantastic life on earth grants infinitely more practical and intellectual rewards than the expensive but trivial knowledge of whether there are microbes on Mars.”
― Bernd Heinrich, The Trees in My Forest