REFLECTIONS on SENTIENCE
Cohort Testimonials
Beings, Brief, Ephemeral
By Milja Laine
When heading North, birches are the last trees to remain in the landscape. As I miss the autumn retreat, I wander in the old woods behind my mother’s summer house and think how the northern birches must be already dressing in yellow. Here the heathers are still in bloom.
In a living landscape, every step asks for awareness. As the linguistic mind falls silent, a different kind of knowing emerges. Some trees invite my attention, and a kind of dialogue may take place. This time it is interrupted by echoes from the past, and the border between me and the forest begins to fade.
The plant kingdom is not mute or unconscious. Trees share our reality as perceiving, remembering, and social beings that are known to communicate with each other and other groups of organisms. They, too, look after their offspring, carry ancestral burdens, and pass them down through generations.
Moreover, trees offer us a touch to the past otherwise beyond our reach: old trees are living witnesses to the times of our ancestors. The same tree under which my grandmother once sat may still stand tall after all of us are gone. To trees, we humans are ephemeral beings.
The forest has its own quality of experience and language that precedes ours. Stories are etched in tree rings and preserved in the layers of ancient bogs. The untamed memory of the forest travels in underground mycelium, murmurs in mosses, and howls in the heights of the canopy. It pierces holes into the present from the collective - and intertwines with that of humankind.
Memory, human or arboreal, is a force that holds communities together, providing shelter and continuity. Forgetting parts of ourselves or those who have passed can leave us rootless and disconnected. Through remembrance, we can find our way back to what is meaningful.
Trees invite us to listen, remember, and belong. They are, then, not merely silent witnesses but portals of history and renewal. Trees ground us more fully in the present and help us restore not only the connection to our roots but to the vibrant web of life that weaves all of us together.
The loss of old growth forests, where the ecological and cultural memory runs deep, severs this connection in ways we might not yet fully understand. The old forest is breathing heritage. It is like a vast, living library, and when we become quiet, the leaves of the trees become like pages of holy books.
All images on this page are copyright of the artist Milja Laine.
Top: 'Beings, Brief, Ephemeral' (2024). Toned cyanotype. 10 cm x 15 cm.
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Bottom: 'Beings, Brief, Ephemeral' (2025). Toned cyanotype, family archive, collage. 10 cm x 15 cm.
