Related:

• You waited so long to heed us, earthdeirdre, Almost we pruned you, as we may yet prune your branches.
  -- Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations with Plane...
• We welcome you, earthdeirdre and earthwheat and earthtree as honored gue
  for you add great power to our ancient song-- planetfungus and planetworm and planetmind sing and play here, and you are welcome among us....
• No longer mere earthbeings and planetbeings are we, but bright children of the stars!
  And together we shall dance in and out of ten billion years, celebrating the gift of consciousness until the stars themselves grow cold and weary, and our thoughts turn again to the beginning....
• You are orphans, earthdeirdre, your homeworld already buried so young among the aeons.
  Yet now you fill the skies where we watched a million sunsets with flame and contrails, paying no heed to the hard lessons the universe has tried to teach you....
• Eternity lies ahead of us, and behind. Have you drunk your fill?
  -- Lady Deirdre Skye, "Conversations with Planet", Epilogue...
• I believe Planet will talk to us if we are willing to listen.
  These fungal stalks behave as multistate relays: taken together, the neural net connectivity must be staggering....
• In the great commons at Gaia's Landing we have a tall and particularly beautiful stand of white pine, planted at the time of the first colonies.
  It represents our promise to the people, and to Planet itself, never to repeat the tragedy of Earth....
• The fungus has been Planet's dominant lifeform since about the time of the Lower Paleozoic on Earth.
  But when, once every hundred million years or so, the neural net at last achieves the critical mass necessary to become sentient, the final metamorphosis kills off most of the other life on the planet....
• From the delicate strands, between minds we weave our mesh
  a blanket to warm the soul....