I’ve been thinking of three forest metaphors lately, firstly the Forest Primeval. That one does have trees, actually. In fact, I had mistakenly thought of it as a symbolic original forest, a complex, natural ecosystem sheltering tribes that use it gently. Now I know that it is specifically associated with the Acadians as popularized in Longfellow’s Evangeline, which, together with The Ride of Paul Revere and The Song of Hiawatha, cement Longfellow’s Factoid legacy. I love dactylic hexameter as much as as the next fellow, but New England had a dark role untouched in that epic tale of expulsion, just as William Dawes was robbed of fame by Revere, albeit in different meter.

I do think of myself as living By the shining Big-Sea-Water.

Metaphorically superior is Liu Cixin’s Dark Forest, from his Three-Body Problem trilogy. In this chilling view, the entire universe teems with alien lifeforms, but we haven’t met any because they aren’t Friendly. This is Goldilocks’ forest, not Bambi’s. Each civilization is either hunters or prey, and those beaming We Are Here messages into the void are inviting a smackdown of solar system proportions.

Definitely more Independence Day than Contact.

My current favorite forest metaphor is that of Cate Shanahan, MD and author of Deep Nutrition. The human brain is a forest. A healthy human brain is a lush forest with lots of natural water. If a fire breaks out, it won’t burn too long, or be able to spread widely. An unhealthy human brain is like a forest in drought. It’s alive, but much less resilient in fighting off fires. A human brain on the American Standard Diet is like a forest in drought that also houses an abandoned meth lab filled with pails of nasty substances that act as accelerants when the fire arrives.

The fire is usually some form of dementia, but the unhealthy brain travels many symptomatic pathways, and the effects emerge in younger people with each nutrient-deprived generation.

Nurture your forest!