Your DNA is Horny for Trees: The Slutty Science of Why Your Cells Are Having Better Sex With Nature Than You Are

(Or: How to stop being a broken WiFi router when your password has literally been TOUCH.GRASS.DUMMY this entire time)

Here’s biology’s biggest practical joke: You’ve been walking around like some kind of broken WiFi router, desperately trying to connect to your power source through meditation apps, $200 crystals from Etsy, and that one friend who won’t shut up about ayahuasca. Meanwhile, your nervous system password has literally been “TOUCH.GRASS.DUMMY” this entire time.

Your body doesn’t need to find its way back to nature. It IS nature, temporarily wearing shoes and worrying about its credit score. Every cell in your tissue is already conducting a continuous exchange with earth, water, fire, and air. Your lungs are having an affair with the atmosphere. Your skin is in an open relationship with sunlight. Your feet are flirting with the ground every time you forget to wear shoes.

You are, and I cannot stress this enough, a BIOLOGICAL SYSTEM OF REMARKABLE CAPACITY currently cosplaying as someone who gets stressed about whether you liked that Instagram post from 2019. You’re like Beyoncé working at McDonald’s wondering why you feel unfulfilled. You’re Neo from The Matrix, but instead of taking the red pill, you’re googling “Why do I feel disconnected?” while standing in an actual forest.

➳♡⋆｡°✩₊⁺˳✧༚ ⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆ ༚✧˳⁺⁎⋆₊✩°｡⋆♡➳

This essay grew up and moved out. It lives in Flesh & Frequency: The Feral Science of Your Body’s Built-In Intelligence now.

The full text is in print. A book with a spine, a cover, and a body that holds the whole thing.