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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And today's episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

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Speaker 2: a travel episode. That's, of course a broad category that

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Speaker 2: we're sometimes asked to consider. And since we've already done

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Speaker 2: more specific episodes on say, the psychology of travel, like

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Speaker 2: why do we travel, what does the travel do to

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Speaker 2: the brain, and so forth, we decided to turn our

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Speaker 2: attention instead to topics that invited travel. You know that

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Speaker 2: maybe even sort of summoned an itinerary or a bucket

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Speaker 2: list in the mind of the listener. Certainly get in

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Speaker 2: touch with an actual travel agent or travel coordinator if

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Speaker 2: you need a book flights based on anything we discussed here.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, there are many reasons to travel.

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Speaker 2: To visit friends and family, to take in culture and cuisine,

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Speaker 2: to visit natural wonders, and of course to experience various

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Speaker 2: ecosystems while we still can. And I was thinking about

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Speaker 2: all of this during recent travels with my family and

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Speaker 2: kind of landed on a focus for this episode. Sacred

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Speaker 2: trees of the world, often old and or ancient trees

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Speaker 2: that instantly set our minds and perhaps our spirits as well,

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Speaker 2: into motion. I don't know if you've had this experience, Joe,

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Speaker 2: when you've been around you know, big trees, old trees,

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Speaker 2: novel trees, and so forth.

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Speaker 3: I'm a big fan of trees. I can easily get

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Speaker 3: to thinking of trees as sacred just in their generic form.

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Speaker 3: Like a forest is a place that feels like a

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Speaker 3: church to me. You know, I like to be surrounded

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Speaker 3: by trees. There's a part of me that feels a

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Speaker 3: little I don't know, I get my hackles up a

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Speaker 3: bit when there are no trees around, when I'm just

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Speaker 3: in like an empty field. I don't know if that

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Speaker 3: bothers you in the same way it does bother me.

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Speaker 3: It really does, like I need some vertical things around me.

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Speaker 3: I assume that's a fairly common experience. I don't know,

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Speaker 3: but I have respect for their power as well. I

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Speaker 3: don't remember if we ever talked about this on the show,

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Speaker 3: but you know, there was a week last summer, not

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Speaker 3: this year, but the year before where a huge old

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Speaker 3: tree in our neighbor's yard fell down, took out the

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Speaker 3: power lines, and it was like you know, it was

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Speaker 3: a long time coming back from that. There was a

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Speaker 3: large storm, and of course Atlanta has a lot of

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Speaker 3: trees in it, so you know, things were falling down

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Speaker 3: all over the place, many people affected. But yeah, it

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Speaker 3: just kind of reminds you that there are there are

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Speaker 3: these wooden gods all around you, these giant, giant beings

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Speaker 3: that are alive and going through life cycles of their own.

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Speaker 3: You don't always notice it, but some of them are

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Speaker 3: young and growing, and some of them are old and ailing,

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Speaker 3: and some of them are covered in parasites, and others

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Speaker 3: are you know, getting stronger by the day. And there's

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Speaker 3: a kind of plant drama that we miss out on

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Speaker 3: because we're not really attuned to its frequency. It's happening

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Speaker 3: usually on a timescale that we're not very sensitive too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, there's this sense that they are divine beings

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Speaker 2: and you don't want to invoke their wrath, but also

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Speaker 2: we benefit from their shade and their comfort, and you know,

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Speaker 2: and they're just great to be around. We lost several

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Speaker 2: big trees in the immediate vicinity here in part due

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Speaker 2: to the recent storms, but also I think kind of

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Speaker 2: the aftermath of those storms, I believe I was looking

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Speaker 2: at an article in the AJAC having to do with, like,

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Speaker 2: you know, insurance companies becoming more strict about large trees

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Speaker 2: and overarching limbs and so forth for insurance policies on

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Speaker 2: homes and so At any rate, there are a number

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Speaker 2: of big trees that I'm just accustomed to seeing that

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Speaker 2: are no longer there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when a big tree falls, when it falls naturally

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Speaker 3: or when it gets cut down, you know, just because

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Speaker 3: it's looming, I do feel that as a missing presence,

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Speaker 3: and you know, it's like somebody has gone out of

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Speaker 3: my life. You get used to the canopy and their presence.

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Speaker 3: It does change the landscape. So yeah, that kind of

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Speaker 3: thing actually does. It affects me a lot when trees

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Speaker 3: are gone. But to come to the idea of sacred trees,

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Speaker 3: when you suggested this as an episode topic, I thought

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Speaker 3: it was really cool, and I thought it was also

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Speaker 3: interesting how it can be taken a couple of different ways, right,

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Speaker 3: because when you think of a sacred tree, you could

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Speaker 3: be thinking of a specific tree, like maybe a really

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Speaker 3: beautiful tree, or a really old tree, a really giant tree,

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Speaker 3: a specific tree or specific grove of trees that people

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Speaker 3: go to, and maybe that specific place has meaning to people,

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Speaker 3: or you could be thinking about a kind of tree

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Speaker 3: that has a kind of sacred significance in say a

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Speaker 3: culture or mythology.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, there are various ways to think about it.

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Speaker 2: And then we'll get into examples of how like the

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Speaker 2: sacred nature of a given variety of tree or maybe

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Speaker 2: even individual trees. You know, it can vary over time,

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Speaker 2: it can certainly wane, and then it has to be

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Speaker 2: relearned and so forth. So humans have a law history

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Speaker 2: of seeing the sacred in trees. Certainly, tree symbols go

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Speaker 2: way back. We have various examples of you know, the

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Speaker 2: likes of world trees bridging Earth to the cosmos and

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Speaker 2: so forth. So pretty much anywhere you go, especially if

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Speaker 2: there are large trees of some sort there are there's

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Speaker 2: there's gonna be some sort of tradition, and so you

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Speaker 2: really could chart your travels based entirely on the big trees.

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Speaker 2: To be clear, this is not quite what we do,

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Speaker 2: but I now that I think back on it. Pretty

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Speaker 2: much anywhere we travel, we often end up checking out

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Speaker 2: really cool trees. You know, It's like it's it's often

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Speaker 2: on the itinerary. If there's some sort of you know,

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Speaker 2: nature based attraction. There's a good chance they'll be an

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Speaker 2: interesting tree. So we have sought out trees in various

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Speaker 2: travel destinations before, So in this episode we're going to

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Speaker 2: look at at least a couple of examples of sacred

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Speaker 2: trees of the world. We are not going to cover

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Speaker 2: all of them. That would take far more than even

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Speaker 2: a few episodes. But hey, if listeners enjoy our treatment

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Speaker 2: here today, this is something we can perhaps come back

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Speaker 2: to in the future. So for our first destination, I

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Speaker 2: want to bring you to the western Sierra Nevada. This

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Speaker 2: is in California here in the United States, to see

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Speaker 2: the giant Sequoia trees, also known as the giant redwood. Specifically,

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Speaker 2: the species we're talking about here is Sequoia dendron gigantium,

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Speaker 2: and there are two related trees in the same subfan family,

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Speaker 2: and I'll mention these as well. I think as we've

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Speaker 2: received the coast redwood or coastal redwood or California redwood

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Speaker 2: Sequoia simper veins. These are also giant trees. And then

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Speaker 2: there's the don redwood or meta sequoia. This is the

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Speaker 2: shortest of the redwoods, but I think still a big

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Speaker 2: tree by most other measurements. So again, in their natural habitat,

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Speaker 2: you'll find the giant sequoia on the western slopes of

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Speaker 2: the Sierra Nevada Mountain range of California. As their name implies,

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Speaker 2: they are among the largest trees in the world. There

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Speaker 2: are several different ways to decide on how the honors

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Speaker 2: of giant tree biggest tree are divvied out, But if

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Speaker 2: you focus purely on raw height, trunk volume, limb volume,

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Speaker 2: or bark thickness among currently living trees, the giant sacquoya

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Speaker 2: is absolutely have it. Though to be clear, just over

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Speaker 2: the last century, humans have cut down some trees of

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Speaker 2: various species that would be considered the tallest today if

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Speaker 2: they were still alive, and another caveat if those historic

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Speaker 2: measurements were accurate to begin with.

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Speaker 3: Ah okay, so some people in the past were like, Hey,

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Speaker 3: this might be the biggest tree ever. Let's cut it

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Speaker 3: down to see.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a long There are multiple examples of

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Speaker 2: that that going on, you know, where it's a big tree,

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Speaker 2: let's cut it down. We've got to we've gotta tell

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Speaker 2: the rest of the country about this. The way to

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Speaker 2: do that is to go ahead and cut it down

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Speaker 2: and get a nice big sample on it and send

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Speaker 2: it out. Let it travel around from city to city. Now,

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Speaker 2: according to the National Park Service, the two largest giant

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Speaker 2: sequoias in the world are the General Sherman Tree and

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Speaker 2: the General Grant Tree. These are the names, obviously we

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Speaker 2: give the trees. They didn't choose to be named after

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Speaker 2: what are to them very recent human beings. Both of

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Speaker 2: these can be found in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

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Speaker 2: I had the chance to visit these parks on a

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Speaker 2: recent trip with my family. We went out to California.

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Speaker 2: I got to experience these amazing organisms up close or

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Speaker 2: as close as you know you're allowed to get to them.

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Speaker 2: And as the National Park Service points out, these are

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Speaker 2: I mean, it's like this with a lot of things

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Speaker 2: in nature. It's this is the way it is with say,

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Speaker 2: the Grand Canyon. You can look at a picture, but

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Speaker 2: it's another thing to experience it. To be there and

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Speaker 2: take in the vastness, the emptiness of it is just

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Speaker 2: an entirely different experience. And it's absolutely the same thing

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Speaker 2: with these massive giants sequoia trees. You look at a

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Speaker 2: picture and yeah, they look big, but you're often seeing

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Speaker 2: them next to other gigantic trees. There'll be people in

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Speaker 2: the shot as well, but you can't always completely grasp

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Speaker 2: how big they are. But when you're there, there's just

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Speaker 2: no denying it. I mean, it is like this, we

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Speaker 2: compare it to a cathedral, but it's even grander than that.

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Speaker 3: Yes, as far as I know, I've never seen a

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Speaker 3: giant sequoia in person, but I have been to a

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Speaker 3: coastal redwood forest, so not exactly the same, but very similar.

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Speaker 3: Years ago, my wife and I we were visiting family

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Speaker 3: on a trip to southwest Oregon, so we were in

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Speaker 3: a fairly secluded area around the Rogue River Siskiyou National

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Speaker 3: Forest in Oregon. One day we just drove down over

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Speaker 3: the state border into northern California and spent the day

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Speaker 3: walking around in the redwood trees. And yeah, absolutely marvelous experience.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to know exactly how to describe it. I

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Speaker 3: like your comparison to a cathedral rob not just in

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Speaker 3: the more abstract sense that it feels sacred, but in

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Speaker 3: kind of specific sensory qualities. There's a sense in which

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Speaker 3: you feel enclosed, but enclosed in a kind of vast

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Speaker 3: and powerful space, not like a small room, but like

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Speaker 3: a cathedral. You know, there's a vaulted canopy over you,

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Speaker 3: these trees going up so high. There's a sense in

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Speaker 3: which sound is kind of changed in these forests. That

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Speaker 3: also reminds me of the well, I don't know here,

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Speaker 3: probably less like the sounds of a cathedral, which are

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Speaker 3: a bit more echoey with all the stone. I think

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Speaker 3: there's more damping of the sound in the forest. But

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Speaker 3: still there's something in common there, kind of an ability

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Speaker 3: to hear indistinct murmuring all around you, you know, just

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Speaker 3: this just this kind of drone that lends itself well

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Speaker 3: to achieving a peaceful state of mind. Also smells, I

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Speaker 3: remember thinking, you know, there are smells of I guess

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Speaker 3: just decomposing wood and all the normal things of life

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Speaker 3: going on in this forest. That reminded me of the

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Speaker 3: smells you might get in a church or in a

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Speaker 3: high church kind of cathedral, like incense and stuff like that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no burning incense around these trees, by the way. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but yeah, these things are massive, like for example, the

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Speaker 2: largest giants saquoias, are said to be as tall as

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Speaker 2: twenty six story buildings, and to put that in you

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Speaker 2: compare that to an actual building. The historic Flat Iron

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Speaker 2: Building in New York City is twenty two stories tall,

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Speaker 2: and unlike a skyscraper, these trees are alive and growing.

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Speaker 2: Giants Saccoia Is, according to the NPS, produce roughly forty

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Speaker 2: cubic feet or one cubic meter of wood each year,

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Speaker 2: so they just continue to bulk up. And you know,

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Speaker 2: you can compare that to like how many trees worth

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Speaker 2: of wood it's growing per year. The General Sherman tree

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Speaker 2: currently stands at two hundred and seventy four point nine

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Speaker 2: feet tall, has a ground circumference of one hundred and

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Speaker 2: two point six feet and a trunk volume of fifty

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Speaker 2: five hundred and eight cubic feet. General Grant is a

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Speaker 2: little shorter but has a slightly larger ground circumference.

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Speaker 3: I wonder why they named the bigger one after Sherman

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Speaker 3: and the slightly smaller one after Grant. I guess Sherman

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Speaker 3: the man was I assumed taller than Grant, just imagining

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Speaker 3: from the way they look in pictures. I mean, I

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Speaker 3: never seen him side by side.

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Speaker 2: They neither could take this as a slight. These are trees.

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Speaker 3: I'm just saying, Grant was his boss. They should have

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Speaker 3: made the bigger one Grant.

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Speaker 2: The thing is like, not only do they dwarf us

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Speaker 2: in space in size, but they also dwarf us in time.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's another reason that it's easy to

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Speaker 2: think of them in terms of the sacred. And these

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Speaker 2: are giants that are especially long lived. They are thought

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Speaker 2: to live more than three thousand years in some cases.

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Speaker 2: The Grizzly Giant Tree, for example, this is one I

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Speaker 2: also got to see. This one is in Yosemite National

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Speaker 2: Park's Mariposa Grove. It's one that has this enormously thick

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Speaker 2: limb coming out from the side of it, like it

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Speaker 2: looks like the tree has developed a giant muscle arm

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Speaker 2: and is about to flex. Like it's just it's on

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Speaker 2: inspiring and a little frightening because it just doesn't it

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Speaker 2: doesn't look stable. But it's been obviously it's been up

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Speaker 2: there for a very long time. But this tree in

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Speaker 2: particular is thought to be between two thousand and three

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Speaker 2: thousand years old, according to the National Park Service. A

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen study put it at two nine hundred and

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Speaker 2: ninety five years old.

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Speaker 3: That's funny precision. Shouldn't you just say three thousand?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know you cross the line at

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Speaker 2: that point, right, But I mean the exact estimated ages

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Speaker 2: of some of these trees has varied over time, as

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Speaker 2: you know. Sometimes it's been a lot, a lot greater

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Speaker 2: and then they pull back on them. But just assuming

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Speaker 2: that we're talking about two thousand, nine hundred ninety five

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Speaker 2: years old, I mean, just think about that, this tree

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Speaker 2: has potentially lived since what nine to seventy BCE, a

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Speaker 2: time when pharaohs and Old Testament kings walk the earth,

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Speaker 2: more than nine centuries before the birth of Christ, almost

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Speaker 2: too millennia before the earliest known first contact between Europeans

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Speaker 2: and Native North American peoples. You know, our lives, even

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Speaker 2: the two hundred and forty eight year history of the

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Speaker 2: United States is just a drop in the bucket compared

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Speaker 2: to the life span of one of these wooden Leviathans.

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Speaker 3: Makes you want to ask it for advice.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't have any advice to give, like, but

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Speaker 2: you know, just keep growing. I guess it's its whole thing.

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Speaker 2: And they're pretty. But yeah, these are just such fascinating trees.

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Speaker 2: So we could go into great depth about them here,

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Speaker 2: but I'm just gonna hit some of the high points.

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Speaker 2: One of the big ones, of course, is they drop

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Speaker 2: their lower branches as they grow, and this helps to

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Speaker 2: afford them resistance against forest fires. And indeed, and I

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Speaker 2: believe we've probably discussed this on the show before, wildfires

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Speaker 2: are part of their life cycle. Their seed strategy evolved

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Speaker 2: alongside periodic fires, so their closed cones hold on to

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Speaker 2: their seeds for as much as twenty years, opening up

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Speaker 2: when there's that hot, dry air outside brought on by wildfires.

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Speaker 2: This allows the seeds to pop out and take advantage

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Speaker 2: of those post fire soils and the openness of the

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Speaker 2: post fire environment. Okay, and so they're impressive survivors on

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Speaker 2: their own without humans protecting them or interfering with them,

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Speaker 2: they got by just fine, and thus far they've also

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Speaker 2: survived the dangers of human logging and other human cause

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Speaker 2: problems in the environment. Part of this, to understand is

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Speaker 2: because the giant Sequoia two didn't have as what was

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Speaker 2: considered as high a quality of wood as some of

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Speaker 2: the competing giants, which maybe helped prevent us from cutting

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Speaker 2: them all down. But they remain endangered and protected to

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Speaker 2: this day getting into the sacredness of it. You know,

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Speaker 2: modern interlopers into these environments certainly would would connect with

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Speaker 2: the sacredness of them. There's a sacredness that kind of

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Speaker 2: builds up. So Europeans initially began to encounter these trees,

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Speaker 2: and you know, individuals may have thought they looked impressive

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Speaker 2: or you found something sacred and then but a lot

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Speaker 2: of people just saw them as resources to be plundered.

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Speaker 2: And then that begins to change over time. But you know,

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Speaker 2: gets to the point where the General Grant Tree, for example,

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Speaker 2: was dubbed the Nation's Christmas Tree in nineteen twenty six,

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Speaker 2: and various dedications and proclamations have taken place in the

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Speaker 2: presence of these trees, as if you know, it is

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Speaker 2: like sacred American ground upon which you know one should

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Speaker 2: be present, you know, where one might make something you know, official,

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Speaker 2: and so forth, as if before the eyes of God

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Speaker 2: or something. In fact, if you're looking for an example

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Speaker 2: of like bipartisan unity in American politics, at least non

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Speaker 2: contemporary politics, you can look to multiple examples of past

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Speaker 2: US presidents at the very least expressing admiration for the

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Speaker 2: great trees, which I guess you know, if I'm going

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Speaker 2: to be cynical as far as politics go, I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's it's a pretty safe bet to be like pro

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Speaker 2: giant sequoia after a point, right, it would be a

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Speaker 2: weird hill to die upon otherwise. And so you have

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Speaker 2: past US presidents from both major parties that have expanded

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Speaker 2: protection for giants aquoias. So I mean that's pretty cool,

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Speaker 2: you know, I'll take that. Also worth noting that in

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Speaker 2: May of nineteen forty five, more than five hundred United

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Speaker 2: Nations delegates attended the first UN Peace Conference in San Francisco,

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Speaker 2: and they gathered at Newer Woods National Monument, home to

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Speaker 2: a number of these sequoia simper vans or coastal redwoods

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Speaker 2: that we mentioned earlier, as well as some pretty great

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Speaker 2: banana slugs, like go for the trees, but stay for

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Speaker 2: the banana slugs and you know, the world peace.

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Speaker 3: One of my good family friends was a camp counselor

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Speaker 3: somewhere out there, and it's like it was like a

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Speaker 3: nature camp, and apparently they had some great songs about

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Speaker 3: banana slugs the kids liked.

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Speaker 2: They're very impressive. Well, we took my son out there

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Speaker 2: when he was a lot younger, and he really barely

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Speaker 2: cared about the trees, but he was excited to see

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Speaker 2: the banana slugs. And we got there early in the morning,

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Speaker 2: and at first we did not see any banana slugs,

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Speaker 2: and he was about to become very upset at having

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Speaker 2: not seen them, and then luckily a park ranger showed

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Speaker 2: us one, and then we were like, oh, okay, all

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Speaker 2: was saved.

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Speaker 3: I think the thing is, you hear banana slug and

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Speaker 3: you think it's just a name. Until you see it.

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Speaker 3: You don't realize how much like a banana it's gonna look. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely Now. Before the coming of the Europeans, the treaties

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Speaker 2: were already held in high, even sacred regard, though they

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Speaker 2: were not called Sequoias. The Europeans selected names seemingly derives

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Speaker 2: from that of Cherokee polymath Sequoia, who live seventeen sixty

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Speaker 2: seven through eighteen forty three, though this connection is sometimes contested.

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Speaker 2: At any rate, the situation may be much like the

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Speaker 2: name Yosemite itself, which is derived from actual names in

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Speaker 2: the Miwok languages. But itself, the word Yosemite doesn't really

348
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Speaker 2: mean much, you know, It's just like a composite word now,

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Speaker 2: Who were the Miwok peoples. They were one of the

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Speaker 2: native inhabitants of what is now northern California, and they

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Speaker 2: practiced complex landscape and ecosystem management strategies to help ensure

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Speaker 2: the the dominance of for them, key acorn producing trees.

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Speaker 2: This is something you can learn about if you visit Yosemite.

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Speaker 2: They have a lot of really fascinating stuff about how

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Speaker 2: they would gather these acorns, process them, save them. It

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Speaker 2: was a vital resource for them, and they would do

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Speaker 2: things like engage in intentional burns to manage both vegetation

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Speaker 2: and game, ensuring the acorns, but also this would tie

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00:20:27,320 --> 00:20:29,720
Speaker 2: into the management of game that they would hunt as well.

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Speaker 2: And they reportedly, and this reporting tends to come from

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Speaker 2: Europeans that were at the time at least looking to

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Speaker 2: exploit exotic romanticism about Yosemite, they would say that the

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Speaker 2: native peoples knew the giant sequoias as Wawona. Wawona is

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Speaker 2: also the name of an historic hotel in Yosemite One.

365
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Speaker 2: I've stayed at it a couple of times. It's a

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Speaker 2: very interesting historic landmark. But as to what Wowona actually meant,

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Speaker 2: Like you see counts that it is referring to the trees.

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Speaker 2: There are also accounts that it is referring to owls

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Speaker 2: or the sound the hoot of an owl as it

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Speaker 2: is heard passing through a grove of these trees. And

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Speaker 2: it does seem like there is some sort of connection

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Speaker 2: between the owls and the great trees. They have a

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Speaker 2: shared sacredness in the tradition, with the owl possibly serving

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Speaker 2: as like a spirit guardian of the Great trees. So

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Speaker 2: I was looking to read more about this, so I

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Speaker 2: turned to a book titled King Sequoia, The Tree That

377
00:21:30,160 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 2: inspired a nation created international park System and changed the

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Speaker 2: way we think about nature, by William C. Tweed. This

379
00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 2: is a really interesting book. I definitely recommend this for

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Speaker 2: anyone out there who wants a deeper dive into the

381
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Speaker 2: history of this tree and how, and as the title indicates,

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Speaker 2: the role it has played and sort of the changing

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Speaker 2: attitude we've had towards the natural world in the United States.

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Speaker 2: But he points out that prior to the Gold Rush

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Speaker 2: of the eighteen forties in the eighteen fifties, the domains

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Speaker 2: of the Great Trees were largely left alone by Europeans,

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Speaker 2: including during the Spanish and Mexican period. Preceding the gold Rush,

388
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Speaker 2: these areas have been mostly left alone to the native

389
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:16,560
Speaker 2: inhabitants of those regions. But then when the gold rush occurs,

390
00:22:16,680 --> 00:22:19,639
Speaker 2: people come out looking for the gold, tearing up the

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Speaker 2: land for the gold, and of course ultimately decimating indigenous

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Speaker 2: populations and driving them from their lands. The author here

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Speaker 2: points out that nearly all of California's native groups, including

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Speaker 2: the Miwok, of course, understood the importance of fire to

395
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Speaker 2: the ecosystem, as we mentioned earlier, and used it to

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Speaker 2: manage vegetation and game. And this is interesting in that

397
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Speaker 2: this is a lesson that Europeans and Americans would be

398
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:47,480
Speaker 2: very slow to realize, to realize that, yes, you can't

399
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Speaker 2: just prevent all wildfires, you have to of course engage

400
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Speaker 2: in strategic, small scale burns, in part because this is

401
00:22:56,119 --> 00:23:00,760
Speaker 2: what the natural environment is accustomed to. Also goes into

402
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,480
Speaker 2: detail about the many steps that were involved in the

403
00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:07,919
Speaker 2: near worship of these great trees in the early twentieth

404
00:23:07,960 --> 00:23:11,000
Speaker 2: century in America. You know, it was very much a

405
00:23:11,040 --> 00:23:13,879
Speaker 2: transition from past attitudes that against all these trees as

406
00:23:13,960 --> 00:23:17,480
Speaker 2: mere resources to plunder like everything else, to this growing

407
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 2: sense that these trees are special, and then that idea

408
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,719
Speaker 2: seems to sort of it's sort of like, once you

409
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 2: pull on it, you begin to pull up these other

410
00:23:25,720 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 2: ideas and you realize, oh, well, maybe it's not just

411
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:30,280
Speaker 2: the trees that are sacred, you know, it's the areas

412
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Speaker 2: around the trees. Maybe it's the whole ecosystem that the

413
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: trees are a part of. Maybe it's the natural world

414
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 2: that is important here and should be conserved. However, he

415
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:43,800
Speaker 2: points out that sadly, in terms of what the indigenous

416
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:47,520
Speaker 2: people thought specifically about these trees, he said that we've

417
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Speaker 2: lost quote most of the experiences, tales, and wisdom of

418
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Speaker 2: the first peoples to have walked in the shadows and

419
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:57,920
Speaker 2: sunlit reflections of these mountain forests. But he still points

420
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,440
Speaker 2: out that from what we do know, from what was

421
00:24:01,480 --> 00:24:04,959
Speaker 2: passed down and remembered, quote, they perceived the trees as

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00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: they did everything else that surrounded them, as part of

423
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 2: a complex web of existence that had spiritual value embedded

424
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Speaker 2: in every element. And of course, if the Miwok saw

425
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Speaker 2: the trees as part of a grander world of interconnected

426
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,720
Speaker 2: spirits in nature, then you know, perhaps we can see

427
00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 2: the giant sequoias and their ken as like the prime

428
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 2: deities that again steadily helped to reveal the sacred aspects

429
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Speaker 2: of nature to a wider American public. You know, that

430
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 2: leads you know, early conservationists like John Muir himself to

431
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:40,959
Speaker 2: refer to the trees as the noblest of the noble

432
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 2: race and noblest of God's trees. So I left this research,

433
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 2: you know, wanting to know more about how indigenous people

434
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 2: specifically thought about the great Sequoias, the giant Sequoias. It

435
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 2: sounds like a lot of those traditions have been lost,

436
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:03,399
Speaker 2: but it is interesting how though those traditions were decimated

437
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 2: and lost, there is this sense of sort of like

438
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:13,320
Speaker 2: rediscovering them in the history of conservationists in America, realizing

439
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: that the trees should be protected and and should be conserved.

440
00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: But again that's it's very much a transition. There's certainly

441
00:25:20,440 --> 00:25:22,760
Speaker 2: a phase in between there where we have a lot

442
00:25:22,800 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 2: of like the cutting down of these trees or the

443
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 2: drilling of great holes in them so you can drive

444
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:29,480
Speaker 2: an automobile through them. And I guess, you know, part

445
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 2: of that is like we've got to show people how

446
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 2: big these are. Let's put a car next to it. No,

447
00:25:34,640 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 2: let's drive a car through it, you know, without fully

448
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 2: realizing that, you know, how destructive that is.

449
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 3: I was just reminded of seeing that photo when you

450
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 3: said it. I don't know how common that is. Is

451
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:46,399
Speaker 3: that something that happened to a bunch of trees or

452
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 3: is it just like that one famous one, the driving

453
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 3: the car through.

454
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 2: I mean, oh, I mean there there have been a

455
00:25:52,119 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 2: couple of different examples of this. National Park Service actually

456
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:59,280
Speaker 2: has a has a page about this you can look up,

457
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:01,119
Speaker 2: called the Myth of the Tree you Can Drive Through

458
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 2: and it covers, like some of a couple of the

459
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 2: actual examples of trees that had been tunneled. One of

460
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: the ones that they have pictured in this article is

461
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 2: in the Suqua National Park and it's a tree that

462
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 2: had already fallen and then they had dug out an

463
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 2: area to drive a tree through. But unfortunately, like live

464
00:26:21,600 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 2: trees were also tunneled. Yeah, the Wawona tree is one

465
00:26:25,800 --> 00:26:29,440
Speaker 2: that they write in this article stood for eighty eight summers,

466
00:26:30,040 --> 00:26:34,200
Speaker 2: but then eventually it fell during a severe winter between

467
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:37,480
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight and nineteen sixty nine. And part of this,

468
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:40,200
Speaker 2: of course, is that when you tunnel a tree, you

469
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:43,960
Speaker 2: weaken the tree, so there you go. Yeah, so it's

470
00:26:43,960 --> 00:26:47,000
Speaker 2: not something that is currently done. Now. I want to

471
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 2: add an important note on the Mewook people. We've been

472
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,880
Speaker 2: speaking about them in an historic context here, who they

473
00:26:54,920 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 2: were when Europeans first encountered them, and what they lost

474
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 2: in terms of life, culture, and then so stroll land

475
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 2: because of that contact. But it's important to stress that

476
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 2: the Miwook did not vanish, and they the indigenous people

477
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 2: of central California, still largely reside there on five rancherias

478
00:27:12,320 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: under tribal leadership, as well as elsewhere in California. Their

479
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,760
Speaker 2: access to ancestral lands in Yosemite, i'm to understand, has

480
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,680
Speaker 2: improved quite a bit in recent years, though there's obviously

481
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 2: a long way to go there. So those are the

482
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 2: giants squoias. So we have visited California. Where are we

483
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:32,440
Speaker 2: off to next, Joe?

484
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 3: Well, the tree I wanted to talk about is is

485
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:39,320
Speaker 3: one I've never seen in person before, but I think

486
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 3: probably you have because you've been to the place it grows.

487
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 3: So this is a tree that is found in Hawaii,

488
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,679
Speaker 3: and for centuries it has been an important part of

489
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 3: Hawaiian culture, both in a practical sense as a source

490
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 3: of wood used to make a variety of objects, but

491
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 3: then also in a sacred sense. For its role in

492
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:03,199
Speaker 3: Hawaiian religion and mythology, this tree is known as the

493
00:28:03,320 --> 00:28:10,359
Speaker 3: Ohea lahua. The scientific nomenclature is Metrocederos polymorpha. So I

494
00:28:10,440 --> 00:28:13,320
Speaker 3: was going to start by trying to describe what an

495
00:28:13,320 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 3: ohe lahua looks like, but that's a kind of complicated

496
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 3: proposition because the species name, again is polymorpha, which means

497
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,400
Speaker 3: many forms or many shapes, and that is quite appropriate

498
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 3: to describe this plant, which, depending on circumstances, can change

499
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 3: the color of its flowers. They can be cherry red,

500
00:28:32,320 --> 00:28:34,960
Speaker 3: that's the most common version you'll see, but also pink

501
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 3: or even lemon yellow. It can change the size and

502
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 3: shape of its leaves, and it can vary drastically in

503
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:46,200
Speaker 3: its overall size and growth pattern. So sometimes the Ohee

504
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:49,719
Speaker 3: la hua is a small shrub you might see projecting

505
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 3: from a fresh black lava field, or sometimes it is

506
00:28:53,840 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 3: a tree more than fifty feet tall in a dense

507
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,240
Speaker 3: forest of many of the same tree. So it takes

508
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,120
Speaker 3: many forms. It can be a shrub, can be a tree,

509
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 3: and in its tree form, this species is the most

510
00:29:06,320 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 3: abundant of Hawaii's native trees. Going back centuries, the wood

511
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:14,000
Speaker 3: of the Ohelahua has been used by the people of Hawaii,

512
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,480
Speaker 3: especially for sacred and religious purposes. It's been used to

513
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:22,480
Speaker 3: make tools like wooden beaters that are used for producing kappa,

514
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 3: a traditional textile of Hawaii, but it's also been used

515
00:29:26,560 --> 00:29:30,240
Speaker 3: to make things like statues for religious purposes, representations of

516
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 3: gods and other spiritual beings. So Rabbi included some pictures

517
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 3: for you to look at here in the outline. One

518
00:29:37,400 --> 00:29:41,680
Speaker 3: thing that's very notable about the blossoms of the ohela

519
00:29:41,800 --> 00:29:47,120
Speaker 3: Hua is that they have these many projecting stamens, so

520
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 3: they can look kind of like a sea anemone.

521
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,440
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I do remember these. These are quite beautiful.

522
00:29:54,480 --> 00:29:58,120
Speaker 2: And then you also share some images of the full

523
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 2: sized trees with that are kind of I guess you

524
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:05,520
Speaker 2: might describe these as kind of like veining. There's a

525
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,240
Speaker 2: sense of like veining upward, or it's almost like the

526
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 2: shape of roots growing into the sky. I don't know.

527
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: This feels insufficient, but it's one of the one of

528
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 2: the aspects of the forest of why that certainly resonated

529
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 2: with me a lot when I was there be it,

530
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 2: you know, in the botanical garden situation, or just driving,

531
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: you know, across the islands. You just see these beautiful

532
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 2: trees and they're just like they're unlike anything I'm accustomed

533
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 2: to seeing back home.

534
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,280
Speaker 3: Obviously. Yeah, it's funny because in a couple of the

535
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 3: myths I was reading that incorporate this tree, the tree

536
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:43,080
Speaker 3: is described in some sense as like gnar oled or ugly,

537
00:30:43,960 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 3: but in other cases it's regarded specifically for its beauty,

538
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,960
Speaker 3: and certainly the blossoms are always thought of as particularly beautiful.

539
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 3: And I guess those two different ways of describing it

540
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,440
Speaker 3: come together in one of the last myths I'm going

541
00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 3: to get to in this section. But so, yeah, you

542
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:01,959
Speaker 3: can see a diversity of forms. If you look up

543
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:08,080
Speaker 3: images again, it's the Ohea lehua. There's some unusual characters

544
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:10,920
Speaker 3: in the Anglicized version of the name, but I think

545
00:31:10,960 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 3: if you just type in O h I A l

546
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 3: e h u A you can find it. But anyway,

547
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 3: these forms include full sized trees with woody trunks, and

548
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 3: also just these particularly lovely red blossomed shrubs that you

549
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 3: see growing up from cracks in new volcanic rocks. Sometimes

550
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 3: by themselves. They're known for beings among the first plants

551
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 3: to sort of fill in and colonize an area that

552
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:40,120
Speaker 3: has newly been paved over by a volcanic eruption.

553
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 2: And that's always picturesque. It's like the hang in there

554
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 2: baby signed with the cat, you know. It's like like,

555
00:31:47,320 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: look at this, Even in the midst of of all

556
00:31:50,240 --> 00:31:54,040
Speaker 2: of this volcanic desolation, there's re growth, Like this is

557
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 2: a cycle we're witnessing here.

558
00:31:56,200 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I was reading in multiple sources that the

559
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 3: Ohee Lahua is a type of sacred tree within Hawaiian tradition.

560
00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 3: But what was interesting to me the more I got

561
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 3: into it was the diversity of ways that this sacred

562
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 3: status was defined. That there are so many different connection

563
00:32:17,120 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 3: points between this species of tree and traditional stories and

564
00:32:21,680 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 3: beliefs of the Hawaiian people, for example, gods and spiritual

565
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 3: beings embodied by or represented by the tree. This is

566
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 3: not a case where you will get one clear and

567
00:32:33,400 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 3: unique association between one deity and one plant species. Instead,

568
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:41,600
Speaker 3: I've found so many stories in which this tree is

569
00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 3: the embodiment of or is associated with so many different

570
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,600
Speaker 3: named spiritual beings in Hawaiian religion. So I just want

571
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:51,320
Speaker 3: to list some of the things I've come across to

572
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 3: give a sense of this diversity. One thing is I

573
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 3: was listening to a video interview with a scholar, a

574
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:03,120
Speaker 3: professor named Kalna Silva, who is at the University of Hawaii, Hilo,

575
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: who specializes in Hawaiian language and history, and he says

576
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 3: that the Ohia Lahua is what he calls the physical

577
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:16,080
Speaker 3: manifestation of a couple of divine figures he names he

578
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,920
Speaker 3: Iyaka and Laka. So I went looking for more on

579
00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 3: these two connections. First of all, Laka is a name

580
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,480
Speaker 3: referring actually to multiple figures within Hawaiian religion. One is

581
00:33:28,480 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 3: a goddess of the growing forest as well as well

582
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 3: as of hula dancing, and another is a member of

583
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 3: the assemblage of cou gods Ku gods, which I'll say

584
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:45,120
Speaker 3: more about in a minute. But this Laca god is

585
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,480
Speaker 3: also associated with hula dancing. So both of these associated

586
00:33:48,520 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 3: with hula dancing, which you might have some awareness of

587
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:53,920
Speaker 3: as a form of dance, but it's not just a

588
00:33:53,960 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 3: form of dance. One thing that's important to understand about

589
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 3: hula is that it is narrative in so it's a

590
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 3: dance that tells stories about Hawaiian history and mythology and

591
00:34:05,320 --> 00:34:10,360
Speaker 3: so forth. The other entity that Silva mentions as being

592
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 3: embodied in the tree is he Iyaka, who is an

593
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 3: interesting figure, the daughter of the goddess Halmea and the

594
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,200
Speaker 3: god Kane, and also the younger sister of the volcano

595
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 3: goddess Pele. So there is a famous story about the

596
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 3: two sisters Pele and he Iyaka, which exists in apparently

597
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:34,880
Speaker 3: a lot of different forms. This will sort of be

598
00:34:34,960 --> 00:34:37,759
Speaker 3: a theme today, many different forms, but I'll give an

599
00:34:37,800 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 3: abridged summary of one form of the story. This form

600
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:44,360
Speaker 3: is hosted on the National Parks page for Hawaii Volcano's

601
00:34:44,440 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 3: National Park. It starts off with Pele. She lives up

602
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 3: on the volcanic mountain of Kilauea, and once Pele had

603
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,880
Speaker 3: a lover named Lohiao, who lived on a different island

604
00:34:57,920 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 3: from her, on the island of Kawaii. Pele wanted to

605
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 3: see her lover, but he was so far away, so

606
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 3: she asked her sisters to go to the other island

607
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,720
Speaker 3: and bring him back to her, and only her youngest sister,

608
00:35:10,840 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 3: he Iyaka, agreed. And while he Iyaka is away on

609
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 3: this mission, Pele promised that she would take good care

610
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:20,520
Speaker 3: of what he Iyaka cared about the most, which was

611
00:35:20,719 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 3: a sacred grove of Ohia trees and of he Iaka's

612
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 3: best friend Apoe. Unfortunately, when he Eyaka got to the

613
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 3: other island, she discovered that Pele's lover Lohiao, had died,

614
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 3: so he Iyaka has to bring him back from the dead,

615
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:39,000
Speaker 3: which was no easy job. She has to go chasing

616
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:41,719
Speaker 3: after his spirit which has left his body, but she

617
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:45,360
Speaker 3: catches it, brings it back, and she's able to resurrect him.

618
00:35:45,600 --> 00:35:48,800
Speaker 3: He Eyaka and the now revived Lohio make the journey

619
00:35:48,880 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 3: back to Pel's Island, but with some stops along the way,

620
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,399
Speaker 3: in which he Eyaka has to defend against this guy

621
00:35:56,520 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 3: being tempted to betray Pele with another woman. There's like

622
00:36:00,680 --> 00:36:04,560
Speaker 3: a beautiful queen who has some history with Lohio, and

623
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:07,000
Speaker 3: he Iyaka has to win some kind of game to

624
00:36:07,080 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 3: prevent him from from I think the prize that she

625
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 3: would that the queen would get if she won is

626
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,480
Speaker 3: that Lohio would have to stay with her for a night.

627
00:36:15,640 --> 00:36:18,600
Speaker 3: So he Iyaka is really going above and beyond. She

628
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 3: raises this guy from the dead keeps him loyal to

629
00:36:21,360 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 3: the volcano goddess, but Pele unfortunately gets paranoid and impatient

630
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 3: her sister has not returned, so she gets angry and

631
00:36:30,000 --> 00:36:34,319
Speaker 3: she burns down he Iyaka's precious Ohea trees, and then

632
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 3: she also covers he Iyaka's friend Hapoe with molten lava,

633
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 3: so she's very mad. This in turn makes he Iaka furious,

634
00:36:43,480 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 3: so she and Lohioo go to Pele's volcano crater to

635
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 3: face off against her, and there is a battle involving

636
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 3: multiple parties and incantations and sorcery. Pele tries to compel

637
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:57,920
Speaker 3: some of her other relatives to attack them and to

638
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:02,239
Speaker 3: kill Lohiao, but they sort of hesitate, and in the

639
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:07,400
Speaker 3: end Pele herself kills her lover Lohiao out of rage,

640
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 3: and then in revenge for this, he Iyaka she plans

641
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,879
Speaker 3: to destroy Pele. Her plan is she's going to break

642
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:17,880
Speaker 3: through the crust of the earth, flood the volcano with water,

643
00:37:17,960 --> 00:37:20,520
Speaker 3: and snuff it out. But then at the last moment

644
00:37:20,640 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 3: she relents and she does not extinguish her sister's fires

645
00:37:24,560 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 3: with the water from below, and they make up and

646
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:30,160
Speaker 3: they get over their differences, but in the story you

647
00:37:30,160 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 3: can see he Iyaka, this powerful divine heroine who has

648
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 3: all these You know, she has magical powers. She can

649
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 3: break through the earth to summon waters. She she can

650
00:37:41,120 --> 00:37:43,360
Speaker 3: sort of like see things from afar like, she can

651
00:37:43,440 --> 00:37:46,120
Speaker 3: sort of do everything. And the thing she really loves,

652
00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 3: things she cares about the most apart from her friend,

653
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:53,360
Speaker 3: is this grove of the ohia Lehua trees. Now I

654
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,360
Speaker 3: was reading in another source, according to a scholar named

655
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,840
Speaker 3: Beatrice Krauss, in a book called Plants in Hawaiian Culture

656
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:02,479
Speaker 3: from University of Hawaii Press. This is the twenty twenty

657
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:06,480
Speaker 3: one edition of the book. The Ohee Lahua tree is one,

658
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,800
Speaker 3: according to this book, one of the natural forms taken

659
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:13,880
Speaker 3: by Ku, who is one of the four major gods

660
00:38:13,960 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 3: of Hawaiian religion. Ku, in his many manifestations, is a

661
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 3: male god of war and politics, known as the Snatcher

662
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 3: of land, but also represents farming and fishing and forests

663
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 3: and a number of different things. So Ku is known

664
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 3: to take a many animal shapes, including the Hawaiian hawk

665
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:39,280
Speaker 3: and the shape of a shark, but also plant forms,

666
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:43,240
Speaker 3: notably the Ohee Lahua tree. And so I was reading

667
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 3: more about this in another book, a book called Hawaiian

668
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:50,480
Speaker 3: Mythology by Martha Warren Beckwith this was University of Hawaii Press.

669
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:52,560
Speaker 3: This is a much older book, but this was the

670
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,680
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one edition of it. And in this book

671
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 3: she talks about how the Ohee Lahua tree form of

672
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 3: Coup is one of what she calls the coup gods,

673
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 3: which could be interpreted either as sort of subordinate gods

674
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:12,279
Speaker 3: who serve under Coup and are worshiped under his auspices,

675
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 3: or derivative manifestations of Coup himself. And many of these are,

676
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,600
Speaker 3: in her words quote, functional gods of the forest or

677
00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 3: sea upon whom depended success in some special craft. So

678
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:31,320
Speaker 3: there are number of examples listed in this text. Beckweth

679
00:39:31,360 --> 00:39:36,439
Speaker 3: identifies a god named ku Ohilaka as an example here,

680
00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 3: one of the many gods who was worshiped, for example,

681
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,759
Speaker 3: by canoe builders for playing some role in the construction

682
00:39:42,840 --> 00:39:46,040
Speaker 3: of a canoe. In this case, he was, for one thing,

683
00:39:46,080 --> 00:39:49,400
Speaker 3: a god of rain in the forest, but also the

684
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 3: god embodied in the wood of the Ohee Lahua tree,

685
00:39:53,440 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 3: which was one of the sources of hardwood building material

686
00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 3: available in the upland forest. Also you can hear the

687
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 3: name Laca in Kuka ohel Laca. This is the male

688
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,560
Speaker 3: god Laka, which was one of the entities I mentioned

689
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,399
Speaker 3: earlier as a patron of the hula dance art form

690
00:40:12,480 --> 00:40:17,879
Speaker 3: in which history and important stories were stored and then expressed. Now,

691
00:40:18,000 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 3: beck With in her text mentions a really interesting story

692
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:26,080
Speaker 3: connecting this Laca, this version of the coup god Laka,

693
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:31,120
Speaker 3: to a particular cave in Hawaii and to the ohe

694
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:35,560
Speaker 3: Lahua tree. So she says that there's a particular cave

695
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 3: in Hawaii where there grows a specific tree of this species,

696
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:45,760
Speaker 3: and that tree is the preserved body of Laca. Several

697
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,279
Speaker 3: things are said about this tree. One is that it

698
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 3: only ever has two blossoms at a time, and the

699
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:53,719
Speaker 3: other is that if you snap a branch off of it,

700
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:57,680
Speaker 3: blood will flow from the wood. And then Beckwick goes

701
00:40:57,719 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 3: on to tell the story of the tree. Up here

702
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 3: is that I believe it's that Laka and his sister

703
00:41:05,280 --> 00:41:09,520
Speaker 3: Kawa come to Hawaii to live with their spouses, Laka

704
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 3: and his wife kaa Aw and Kawa with her husband

705
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,480
Speaker 3: in the uplands of the island. So here I'm going

706
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:19,319
Speaker 3: to read from Beckwith quote When the sister brings vegetable

707
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:21,719
Speaker 3: food from her garden to her brother at the sea,

708
00:41:22,200 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 3: her stingy sister in law pretends that they have no

709
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 3: fish and gives her nothing but seaweed to take home

710
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 3: as a relish. In despair at this treatment, Kawa transforms

711
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:36,400
Speaker 3: her husband and children into rats, and herself into a

712
00:41:36,480 --> 00:41:40,040
Speaker 3: spring of water. Her spirit comes to her brother and

713
00:41:40,080 --> 00:41:43,759
Speaker 3: tells him of her fate. He visits the uplands, recognizes

714
00:41:43,840 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 3: the spot as she is directed in the dream, and

715
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 3: plunging into the spring, is himself transformed into the Lahua tree,

716
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 3: which we see today. Oh wow, but it doesn't stop there.

717
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:58,840
Speaker 3: I was talking about the god cou earlier. Ku himself

718
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:01,640
Speaker 3: is said to be the husband of the goddess Heina

719
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:05,920
Speaker 3: and here this can also be confusing because there are

720
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,719
Speaker 3: apparently multiple divine figures referred to as Hena, but this

721
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,680
Speaker 3: is one of them, and Ku is the husband of

722
00:42:12,880 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 3: the Heinah, who is associated with the ocean, the moon,

723
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 3: and with female female fertility and motherhood. Now, Beckwith's book

724
00:42:21,719 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 3: also lists the goddess Hena as a spiritual being embodied

725
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:30,080
Speaker 3: by the same tree, in this case as hina ulu Ohea,

726
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 3: meaning Heina the growing Ohea tree. So this version of

727
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,320
Speaker 3: Hena plays an important role in the genealogies of Hawaiian

728
00:42:37,360 --> 00:42:42,800
Speaker 3: gods as a mother, ancestor, and protector of other important

729
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 3: characters who figure into various stories. But then Beckwith writes

730
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 3: quote to both God and goddess, the flowering Ohea is sacred,

731
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 3: and no one on a visit to the volcano will

732
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 3: venture to break the red flowers for a wreath or

733
00:42:56,960 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 3: pluck leaves or branches on the way thither. Only on return,

734
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 3: with proper invocations, may the flowers be gathered. A rainstorm

735
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:08,760
Speaker 3: is the least of the unpleasant results that may follow

736
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:13,319
Speaker 3: tampering with the sacred Lahua blossoms. And then connecting to that,

737
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,200
Speaker 3: there's one more story that it's sort of along the

738
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 3: same lines. I've seen this repeated in several places. Once again,

739
00:43:20,480 --> 00:43:24,480
Speaker 3: this involves the fire and volcano goddess Pele as a

740
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:28,799
Speaker 3: jealous lover. So in this story, there's a gorgeous guy,

741
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:33,879
Speaker 3: a beautiful dude named Ohea. He's unbelievably good looking, and

742
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,399
Speaker 3: Pele falls in love with him, but he only has

743
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 3: eyes for a different woman named Lahua. So when Peley's

744
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:46,080
Speaker 3: affections are spurned, she reacts with envious rage, and she

745
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 3: transforms Ohea into a gnarled tree, an ugly tree with

746
00:43:50,960 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 3: twisted branches. And so the woman Lahua mourns the loss

747
00:43:55,440 --> 00:43:57,720
Speaker 3: of her lover. He's been turned into a tree now,

748
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:00,480
Speaker 3: But the other gods take pity on her, and they

749
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 3: use their power to help sort of make things right,

750
00:44:04,040 --> 00:44:07,520
Speaker 3: not fully, but they allow her to join him in form.

751
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 3: So Lahua becomes the beautiful blossom that grows on ohea branches.

752
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,719
Speaker 3: This way they can be together for all time. But

753
00:44:18,200 --> 00:44:21,600
Speaker 3: as one possible consequence of this story, if you pick

754
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:24,840
Speaker 3: the flower from the tree, you tear the lovers apart again,

755
00:44:25,239 --> 00:44:28,280
Speaker 3: and then the tears of Lahua and Ohea will fall

756
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:28,799
Speaker 3: as rain.

757
00:44:29,160 --> 00:44:29,600
Speaker 2: Oh wow.

758
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 3: Now I mentioned that these trees are known for having hard,

759
00:44:33,400 --> 00:44:36,960
Speaker 3: sturdy wood, and even in their smaller shrub forms, they're

760
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:43,000
Speaker 3: known for, you know, for flowing into apparently inhospitable environments.

761
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 3: You know, there'll be some of the first plants growing

762
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,000
Speaker 3: out of the cracks in fresh volcanic rock after interruption.

763
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:51,919
Speaker 3: So that might kind of give the impression that these

764
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:55,480
Speaker 3: plants are invincible, but they are not invincible. In fact,

765
00:44:56,120 --> 00:45:01,240
Speaker 3: currently Ohea lehua are threatened by a wide spread fungal disease.

766
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,120
Speaker 3: The phenomenon has been known as rapid ohea death or

767
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:09,240
Speaker 3: ro D, so named because it can appear that something

768
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 3: happens to these trees and kills them very fast and

769
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 3: like a matter of days. According to once ourst I

770
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 3: was looking at, this is caused by a couple of

771
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 3: species of fungus which are in the genus serato cistus.

772
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 3: These fungi can harm the tree greatly, and it's thought

773
00:45:28,160 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 3: that they harm the tree by stopping up the tree's

774
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:35,399
Speaker 3: vascular system. So like you know this, this tree has

775
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 3: hardy roots that can reach down into you know, the

776
00:45:37,880 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 3: cracks and rocks and so forth, and can access water

777
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 3: wherever it needs to. But this plugs up the vascular system,

778
00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:47,840
Speaker 3: so the water from the roots can't get up to

779
00:45:47,920 --> 00:45:49,840
Speaker 3: the canopy, can't get up to the leaves and the

780
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 3: tops of the trees, which of course is going to

781
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:56,239
Speaker 3: first turn them brown and kill the leaves and then

782
00:45:56,320 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 3: ultimately kills the whole plant. And so there are conservation

783
00:45:59,680 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 3: effort it's ongoing to try to understand this threat and

784
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:07,760
Speaker 3: counteract it. But this is something that that conservationists and

785
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 3: and also just people to whom the Ohea Lhua has

786
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,160
Speaker 3: great cultural and religious significance are very aware of and

787
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 3: having to deal with.

788
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 2: It's interesting you see this in various examples. You see

789
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:23,759
Speaker 2: this with the great sequoias as well. You know, we

790
00:46:24,000 --> 00:46:25,840
Speaker 2: look at a tree and it doesn't even have to

791
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 2: be a giant tree. You know, they're all they're often

792
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:31,839
Speaker 2: pretty big. They're often bigger than us. But you look

793
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 2: at a tree and you can often think that by

794
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:37,799
Speaker 2: virtue of its size, by virtue of the pace of

795
00:46:37,840 --> 00:46:41,399
Speaker 2: its existence, we think of them as being sometimes more

796
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 2: rugged than they actually are. We don't think that human

797
00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:47,960
Speaker 2: activities can harm them, can interfere them, so we do

798
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,920
Speaker 2: things like, you know, carve our initials into them, or

799
00:46:53,040 --> 00:46:57,280
Speaker 2: tunnel holes through them for novelty automobile photographs and things

800
00:46:57,320 --> 00:46:59,880
Speaker 2: like that, when in reality, you know they are often

801
00:47:00,160 --> 00:47:02,840
Speaker 2: they're often very sensitive to their environment, and sometimes it

802
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 2: comes down to details like for instance, I I didn't

803
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:07,600
Speaker 2: mention that the sequoia tree has you know, reasonably shallow

804
00:47:07,680 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 2: root systems, and that's one of the reasons that when

805
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:13,239
Speaker 2: you're around them, there's a lot of emphasis given on

806
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:15,880
Speaker 2: staying on the path and not you know, walking up

807
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 2: close to them, because you could damage these roots like

808
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 2: the thing that is, you know, ancient and rough and tumble,

809
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,880
Speaker 2: and you know, we compare them to giants and grizzly bears.

810
00:47:26,080 --> 00:47:28,440
Speaker 2: You know that there they are, in their own way, fragile,

811
00:47:28,880 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 2: and you know we can do great harm to them.

812
00:47:31,760 --> 00:47:34,640
Speaker 2: We can do great arm to the environment, and we

813
00:47:34,760 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 2: have to respect it and care for it.

814
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 3: Trees, like us are both tough and fragile, and you

815
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:43,480
Speaker 3: have to understand the ways in which we are both.

816
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:46,400
Speaker 2: But I love these these Hawaiian stories. I love these

817
00:47:46,400 --> 00:47:50,200
Speaker 2: stories of transformation into trees. This is something you see

818
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:54,640
Speaker 2: echoes of in other traditions as well, sometimes you know,

819
00:47:54,840 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 2: for more tragic effects, sometimes for haunting effect. But I

820
00:47:59,640 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 2: imagine and it's probably one of the key mythological tropes.

821
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 2: Like you have world trees, and you also have transformation

822
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:10,360
Speaker 2: into trees, people and gods and demi gods becoming the tree.

823
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:12,919
Speaker 2: And I guess maybe you see combinations of the two

824
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:13,319
Speaker 2: as well.

825
00:48:13,800 --> 00:48:16,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you think, did we cover all of

826
00:48:16,480 --> 00:48:17,800
Speaker 3: the sacred trees in the world?

827
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:22,680
Speaker 2: Now? We left a few off? Sadly, yes, we only

828
00:48:22,719 --> 00:48:26,279
Speaker 2: covered two. Fortunately they I think they're connected essentially by

829
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:28,799
Speaker 2: a direct flight from San Francisco to Hawaii. So if

830
00:48:28,800 --> 00:48:31,360
Speaker 2: you want to turn this into a travel itinerary, this

831
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:34,319
Speaker 2: one's an easy one. But yes, obviously there are a

832
00:48:34,400 --> 00:48:37,320
Speaker 2: number of sacred trees we didn't get to. I originally

833
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,040
Speaker 2: was going to talk about the body tree the sacred

834
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:43,080
Speaker 2: fig a bit in this episode, but obviously we ran

835
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:45,879
Speaker 2: ran out of time, So you know, consider this an

836
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 2: unofficial part one. If you want to hear more about

837
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:50,919
Speaker 2: sacred trees in the world, let us know and we'll

838
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 2: come back with another episode at some point in the

839
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 2: future talk about the body tree and who knows what else.

840
00:48:56,960 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 2: There are a number of great ones in terms of

841
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:02,560
Speaker 2: just big impressive tree, but also trees that have various

842
00:49:02,640 --> 00:49:03,920
Speaker 2: roles within a given culture.

843
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:06,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, there are so many. We could do a ten

844
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:09,120
Speaker 3: part series on this, and it often does get surprisingly

845
00:49:09,120 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 3: interesting at how like the botany interacts with the legend

846
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:13,319
Speaker 3: and mythology.

847
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, all right, so we'll go ahead and close

848
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:18,439
Speaker 2: this one out, but yeah, let us know if you'd

849
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 2: like to hear more. If you want to hear us

850
00:49:19,600 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 2: speak for the trees some more, we can do so

851
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:25,080
Speaker 2: in the future. In the meantime, we'll just remind you

852
00:49:25,120 --> 00:49:27,000
Speaker 2: that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science

853
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:30,560
Speaker 2: and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

854
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:33,160
Speaker 2: On Fridays, we set aside most serious concerners, just talk

855
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,439
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema and let's

856
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 2: see any other thing we need to mention here. Oh,

857
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:41,440
Speaker 2: if you're on the Instagrams and you wish to follow

858
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Speaker 2: us STBYM podcast, that's where you'll find us. Keep up

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Speaker 2: with some of the episodes coming out. And we haven't

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Speaker 2: mentioned this a lot recently, but hey, rate and review

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Speaker 2: if you have the power to do so. Wherever you

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00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:54,799
Speaker 2: listen to us, give us a nice star rating. That

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00:49:54,920 --> 00:49:57,560
Speaker 2: helps you know, keep things nice and fresh. It's it's

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00:49:57,600 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 2: like putting some fresh flowers in the room, just freshen

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Speaker 2: things up nicely, and so we do move ask you

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Speaker 2: to remember to do that.

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Speaker 3: If you have it all right, huge, thanks as always

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Speaker 3: to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would

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Speaker 3: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

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00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:16,000
Speaker 3: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for

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00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,400
Speaker 3: the future, or just to say hello, you can email

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Speaker 3: us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: Dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.