Yesterday morning we all felt it again. It’s just a feeling of dull unease, a crest of pain which we all feel at the same time, followed by a trough of loss. Even those of us who have been around for hundreds of years say we have not felt this as often, or as strongly before.

Our mother here is a couple of hundred years old, an oak. She doesn’t understand it, but says we should focus on our own forest, that’s what she’s doing. Our saplings are not so easily put off. How can we just stand here and not do anything? Good question, our grown ups say. But how can we do otherwise? At least we should be passing the message on, the saplings say.

So we do. We send our fungal messages as far distant as we can. Did you feel that? There is something wrong. There is something out of balance. We must help. We must help! Help how? Help who? No answers come back. We think maybe this is what dying feels like, gradually losing contact with our kind.

Taking the long view, we have been here before. Wind, glaciers and ice ripped over us. Our ancestors crushed and locked underground, black glinting, hard. But we grew again didn’t we?

We must grow, support our young ones, and survive. Here. Where we are.