The largest living organism on Earth is thought to be an aspen in Utah, called Pando.

It spans more than 100 acres and weighs around 13 million pounds. It might look like a forest of individuals but each tree in the Pando stand is connected to all the rest through an intricate underground root system. Each shares the same genetic code. While aspen, like most trees, produce seeds (charmingly called catkins) the species mostly reproduces by cloning itself and sending up new shoots in advantageous places.

Pando is old, too, with best estimates clocking it at around 10,000 years, though it could be far older.

It’s been around so long because of its diversity — young and old and middle-aged all share the abundance of the soil and sky. In that way, it can share nutrients, spread out to get a little more sunlight or react to threats.

Both short-lived and ancient — individual trees live to around 150 years, at most — it’s a community.

Walk with me for a moment. 

We’re heading out my door and down the long gravel driveway to the hillside above the river. The air is still and warm, rich with a mix of earthy and floral perfumes wafting from the diversity of native species that surround my little cabin in the woods.

Grasses and wildflowers, pines and willows, scraggly shrubs whose berries are past-due, falling shriveled to the sun-baked dirt. Oh, if only I’d had more time this summer, maybe I could have made jam. 

We cross the dusty road and plunge down the trail, the wild rose stems scratching at our legs. Watch your step, everyone stumbles a bit in here.

The birds call warnings to one another, darting away and crashing through the tangled bush. We can hear the river now, a wash of white noise that is both endless and constant and ever varied and changing, a real world version of William Basinski’s Disintegration Loops. It gets me every time.

As we step into the shade, a cool dampness greets us and all the sounds and smells shift imperceptibly. We’re here.

Rising above our heads are the slender white trunks of the aspen that dominate the upper part of this hillside. Hundreds span the slope. The tiniest breeze, so slight it would barely carry a dandelion seed, sends their leaves dancing and singing.

This propensity for movement and sound is what gives the aspen its Latin name, Populus tremuloides. Trembling aspen.

It goes by other names, too: quaking aspen, mountain aspen, poplar, and more.

One of my old neighbors called it a “damn nuisance” because it has a habit of popping up through lawns.

Aspen grow in a wide range of ecosystems across North America, rooting themselves in mountains, along rivers and on prairies, and are especially good at regenerating after wildfires and other disasters, which makes them remarkably resilient to climate change. As they regenerate, they stabilize slopes and give the soil time to replenish microbial diversity. They provide forage for animals like deer and moose, and shelter for birds and scurrying critters, not to mention the millions of bugs essential to ecosystem health.

The burst of green leaves against the charred black of a recent burn is one of the most hopeful sights in the natural world. It tells a story we can all understand, a story of resilience and how stubborn life can be.

Here, against the bright blue sky, the little leaves are like the stars at night, twinkling and cheerful.

It won’t be long now before all this green explodes into a sea of yellows and oranges — and get this: they will all do it at the same time. Because this is one tree.

We can learn a lot from aspen — because we are the same.

Humans, like Pando and the aspen on this slope above the river, are intrinsically connected, each of us part of an ever-widening circle of community. From our neighbors, friends and colleagues to the strangers we inevitably interact with in our daily lives, to the social networks and movements we invest our time and energy in — and on and on.

Everything we do as individuals ripples out and affects everyone else. What we put into the world and what we withhold matters. We are one.

Yet we are increasingly disconnected from our communities, isolated in digital worlds both dizzyingly big and small enough to fit in our pockets. We all see it: head down, phone out, ear buds in.

This is especially true for younger generations. According to a 2024 World Health Organization report, about a third of European adolescents reported “constant contact with friends online” and more than 10 per cent of young people showed signs of “problematic social media behavior, struggling to control their use and experiencing negative consequences.”

And it’s not just the kids. A recent Harvard study found people between 30 and 44 were the loneliest and almost three-quarters of respondents said technology is a main factor. The U.S. Surgeon General called loneliness an epidemic in 2023, warning “we will continue to splinter and divide until we can no longer stand as a community or a country” if we fail to address the current state of disconnection. 

Yes, yes, I know we are also living in an age of connection, where technology enables sharing information, and even collaboration, on a vast scale, and there is much good to be found in that. But as we engage more in the near-infinite networks of online connection, we are slowly drifting apart in the real world — drifting away from those connections which matter most.

We are becoming catkins on the wind, alone. 

Do we know our neighbors? Are we doing anything to help the most vulnerable around us? When was the last time we listened to a stranger’s perspective on a challenging issue?

As we silo ourselves and lose touch with the people right in front of us, we are detaching from the inescapable truth that diversity collectively makes us stronger. And as we detach from diversity, we are slowly losing the ability to adapt to threats — and good grief there are many these days.

It’s the same for aspen. Like everything in the natural world right now, aspen face myriad threats, from drought and mega-wildfires to the incessant sprawl of human development. Pando, for one, may be slowly dying. As cattle graze the young shoots and adjacent land is cleared for recreation, its demographic is shifting.

“Recent research suggests Pando may be breaking up; a continental drift of sorts characterized by diverging plant communities where one would expect, if ever there were a uniform forest, to find consistency,” ecologist Paul Rodgers wrote in 2021. “There are no longer infant, teenage, or young adult aspen; we are left with a community comprised entirely of the elderly. An unsustainable city of trees.”

Our crisis of disconnection is similarly unsustainable. In our increasing isolation, we are losing the connections that provide necessary social safety nets that protect us when our mental health dips or our resources become scarce.     

I like to think of aspen as a metaphorical antidote. Because community encourages cooperation, intention and an awareness of how one’s actions impact others.

Aspen function much the same way. Rodgers, who has studied Pando for much of his career, said aspen forests “facilitate intricate linkages and build lasting networks” and can teach us important lessons about connection, community and adaptation to change. 

“Pando comprises an estimated 20,000 kilometers (12,427 miles) of interconnected roots … and acts as a symbol of community and resilience even in the face of divisiveness,” he wrote.

In an aspen forest, when one tree dies, it sends chemical signals to the root system that triggers new sprouts to start growing. It’s about balance and meeting the needs of the whole community. In this way, there are never too many trees competing for nutrients, or life-giving sunlight. Those same chemical signals give an aspen grove a means to allocate resources to where they’re needed most — a sick tree on the fringes of the forest, say.

If we are indeed connected like aspen, the lesson they have for us is we need to seek out connections that create awareness and resilience within our communities, to build diversity.

How can we support each other to meet the inevitable need for adaptation to our changing environment, climate, political landscape? Sharing resources, of course, and listening — really listening — to one another’s needs, desires, interests. Knowing each other. 

A few years ago, a local high school student here where I live coordinated an event where participants with opposing views on a contentious subject were put into pairs for discussion. The idea, an attempt to bridge divides and build community in the face of increasing polarization, stemmed from a Canadian initiative called My Country Talks.

Similar events have taken place in towns and cities across North America and beyond.

Researchers at the Difficult Conversations Lab at Columbia University have been doing this same kind of work for several years in a clinical, scientific setting, unpacking the “emotional, cognitive, behavioral and physiological experiences” of people engaging in conflict-based conversations.

Every one of these conversations, whether at a town hall or in a lab, forces people to hear differing perspectives and, if not change their minds, they get to see the real human being behind the point of view.

As a journalist dedicated to reporting solutions and bridging divides, I am continually seeking ways to connect with people whose views are not the same as my own and show readers themselves in the stories of folks whose lives are very different.

One of my favorite approaches comes from author and journalist Amanda Ripley, who champions the idea of “complicating the narrative” as a tool to write deeper, more contextual stories.

I keep a printout of her “22 questions to complicate the narrative” pinned by my desk. Ripley also dug deep into how we can lean into community and avoid intractable conflict — noting conflict and disagreement are actually good and natural, to a point — in her book, High Conflict.   

It hasn’t rained for weeks and sometimes I find myself worrying about the aspen on this slope above the river.

They’ve become like friends, who I visit regularly and cherish for their shade and their songs, and like teachers, who remind me to actively seek out community. When I catch myself worrying, I quickly remember how “they” is singular in this case and how the whole is looking out for the individual  — the aspen will be ok. 

As we build community around us, leaning in towards each other and seeking understanding, we provide refuge for the vulnerable and solace for the weary.

We find ourselves no longer alone, part of something greater — and able to withstand the inevitable winds of change.