Long before dinosaurs roamed our planet, in a time called the Carboniferous, a tree was born. A seed fell to Earth, rooted in swampy soil, grew over a hundred feet tall and a hundred years long. When the tree died, its body became home to cockroaches as big as house cats, and dragonflies with wings as wide as hawks. Bacteria fed on the rotting wood, and mosses grew. Covered by Earth’s blanket, the tree’s body sunk deep, compressing into coal, a slow-motion burial. Millenia later, the coal was unearthed, heated, deprived of oxygen, splintered into plastic pellets, liquified and poured into molds, and polished into small black jewels. Tree, reborn: the keys on my computer. The stone is even older than the tree. In Precambrian time a volcano rift opened, and lava flowed from Earth’s core. Cooled by rain, the lava sunk deep, compressing into stone. Millennia later, the stone was lifted from a mine shaft, crushed and bathed in caustic fluid, liquefied and poured into molds, and polished to a shine as sharp as a knife. Stone, recast: the casing for my computer, cradle for the keys. In deep time, trees and stones are descended from stars. Tree once drank sunlight and mixed it with air, storing energy for future generations. Stone was forged in the furnace of a long-ago star which — with the cosmic clap of a supernova — dispersed itself as stellar dust, the raw ingredient of our planet. These are the ancestors of our digital devices: Mother Tree, Father Stone, Grandmother Star, Grandfather Time. Our computers, then, are made of stardust and tree flesh. Their memories live on machines whose breath warms the sky. Our digital devices are ecological, our ecologies are growing digital.