Lying on the forest floor, my fingers pushed into the leaf litter, I reflected a lot on what led me there. But my thoughts rarely moved beyond Moth and our life. I certainly didn’t consider what might be happening beneath the soil’s surface. Since then, thanks to Rob MacFarlane’s fascinating book Underland, I’m aware there’s another world down there, a world of fungus. A magical, magnificent network of mycorrhizal fungi beneath the forest floor, connecting tree to tree and one species to another, transferring nutrients, water and minerals in a maze of correlation, allowing seedlings to grow in the shadow of the adult plant and unrelated species to share resources. An invisible world of natural connections that helps each plant thrive as a part of the beautiful connected whole. Maybe, with my fingers in the earth I found a connection to that network; a connection that helped me get through the harshest times. It could also be the reason why my toenails are rotting!
But writing a book has connected me to a network I am aware of, enabling me to thrive as part of a system where everyone matters, and no one person succeeds without the help and support of the whole. Without every person involved in The Wild Silence’s development it would still be just a seedling that had yet to grow.
Huge thanks to Jen Christie of Graham Maw Christie, who holds all the details together. To Fenella Bates, the irreplaceable Olivia Thomas, Jen Porter, Aggie Russell, Richenda Todd, Louise Moore, Dan Bunyard, Catherine Wood and everyone else at Michael Joseph who make working with them such a pleasure.
Thanks to Dave and Julie for their friendship and for sharing wet tents on cold hillsides. To my Polruan friends who have opened their hearts and their doors in ways I thought I wouldn’t experience again, and to Sam and Rachel for having a dream and the overwhelming generosity of spirit to choose to share it.
But most of all thank you to the Team. All three of you. For the time, space and love it has taken to create this book. Time without end, space without borders and love without restraint – the most important network any of us can have.