8x12 print with frame.

Back in May, Cumberland was a magical experience. I’ve never camped over there, but rising before the sun to the sounds of the busy birds and hiking in the maritime forest under the old growth oaks gives a profound sense of peace and wonder. When nature is let to go do it’s own thing, it’s easy to see how everything is so vastly interconnected. Nature isn’t just cutthroat competition. There is a tremendous amount of cooperation required for plants and animals to survive. Take the oak, for example. It’s an apartment complex that houses birds, bees, other little insects inside the bark, fungus and lichen, and the list goes on. Those same oaks are connected under the ground via cooperation of their root systems and mycorrhizal fungi which allow for nutrients to spread among a community of trees (sometimes different species wage war or crowd out others). There’s an energy slope in nature. The older trees aid the younger trees. Trees aren’t existing as individuals. They are communities that require cooperation.