Inspired By... Trees That Talk


We are always searching, listening and learning. Below, you’ll find a few things that have recently stretched our minds, increased our pulses and inspired us to dream.

 

An old log cabin sits along a time-worn, stone path in the dense forest of the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail, Smoky Mountains, TN.

 

INSPIRED BY CONNECTEDNESS

In The Hidden Life of Trees, a documentary based on the bestselling book of the same name, Peter Wohlleben argues that trees are social beings: living in family units, sharing nutrients and warning each other of impending danger. He describes a forest as an interconnected colony, made of sentient beings with collaborative strategies. The film presents a fascinating theory that leaves one wondering if we shall ever, truly, understand the world beneath our feet. (Rent on Youtube, Prime Video, AppleTV and more.)

 

INSPIRED BY STORIES

The Memory Palace is a storytelling podcast about the past and its forgotten moments. In remarkably concise episodes, one is drawn in by eloquent accounts of people and places that have been otherwise lost to time. Touching on everything from pirate queens to giant lobsters, they are the kind of stories that stay with you. While some might make one chuckle with delight, others will remind you of how far we’ve come.

 

Ancient petroglyphs and painted pictographs on the walls of the red sandstone ruins at Honanki Heritage Site near Sedona, AZ.

 

INSPIRED BY REVITALIZATION

Languages are being lost and absorbed the world over. Every three and a half months, a language goes extinct. Some estimate that by 2050, ninety percent of current languages will have disappeared.

Wikitongues aims to save them. It launched in 2016 as an open internet collection and equips people with resources to document, teach and revitalize their native tongues. Should such a goal seem impossible, consider this: Hebrew went extinct in 100 A.D., and would not be revived as a spoken language until the 1800s.

 

A Pink Jeep® Wrangler drives along the Diamondback Gulch trail at sunset with treelined hills in the distance, Sedona, AZ.

 

INSPIRED BY MUSIC

We love music! It lifts our spirits, takes us places and puts us in the mindset to do great things. The latter is precisely what we had in mind when creating a Spotify playlist to herald in the New Year.