Few places fire one’s imagination like the Amazon rainforest. How grounding it must be to stand beneath a towering shihuahuaco (cumaru tree) in the depths of the Madre de Dios region – centuries old, shaping biospheres and casting shadows over the teeming life of the forest floor.
In the Amazon, you can feel such life holding a near-sacred legitimacy. Richard Powers describes this evocatively in The Overstory (a glorious tribute to endangered trees): “This is not our world with trees in it. It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.” Trees drink from the depths, pulling water through their roots, trunks and leaves, then releasing it as vapour in quiet service to other life. How thrilling it is to be part of such an intelligent ecosystem...
Read the full article from The Lissome No 5, Rise Up Rooted.
WORDS: Anna Roos van Wijngaarden
PHOTOGRAPHY: Arianna Lago & Alonso Mujica
