What to Learn From an 11,000 Year-old Elder?

If you’ve been in the Mojave and Sonora deserts you know creosote bushes are ubiquitous. Creosote plays a pivotal role in the desert ecosystem as a keystone species. Creosote has earned the title of “nurse plant,” helping many young cacti and other plants to establish, as well as providing habitat to many critters burrowing underneath, from mice and lizards to rattlers.

Not as appreciated is the fact that we’re essentially looking at old growth forest, and in the case of King Clone, very, very old.

It was on my pilgrimage list this winter to meet King Clone, so on Saturday I spent some (deep) time with them. King Clone is a 11,700 year old creosote bush ring, one of the oldest known organisms. 

Think about it: this magnificent plant was just a wee lad here before modern nations, before the Roman Empire, before any empires. Before even settled human agriculture! 

Every section of this enormous plant community are genetically identical. The original central aboveground part of the plant died way long ago, but the plant continues to expand underground sending up new shrubs (clones) which now form a ring. It has continued to grow and expand since.

The ecological preserve site is largely unmarked, and a passerby would not notice anything out of the ordinary compared to the rest of the landscape.

I approached I would any sacred temple, with reverence — I was curious about a being that has seen the ebb and flow of the human drama over centuries, even millennia. 

They were nursing one of my favorite smelling plant friends, pink sand verbena. Laying in the middle of the circle, I tried to tune into deep time plant consciousness.

From the highway a few miles away I heard motorcycles and semi-trucks hauling all our precious plastic cargo to warehouse stores. I couldn’t help but be struck by the juxtaposition of the speed of modernity and the pace of this plant community. 

Whether it was me, or King Clone, I heard a language beyond words, leaving me with a sensation of a deep and slow patience.

As I said goodbye, deep time awareness met the ephemeral moment in the form of a rainbow.

Deep time is now.