that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
--Wendell Berry
The sun is finally peeking out in the rain soaked Northwest. Eager to enjoy
it, I went for a morning walk in the forest. Every time I breathe the air of
the forest, rich with the smell of rotting fir needles and wildflowers, I know
that I am at home. I was practically raised in the forest—our little farm
surrounded on all sides by wild undergrowth, tree farms, and stands of older
trees dripping with brilliant mosses. I have always said that the trees talk to
me and I can understand them. As a child, I also developed a keen sense of
direction that only seems to manifest in the forest (I can get lost two blocks
from home in the city).
This morning, the sky was a patchwork of stunning blue and lumpy clouds,
sending shadows over the trees and casting eerie shadows among the branches. A
swallowtail butterfly rejoiced in the sunlight in its black and yellow glory,
feeding off of the recently blooming purple foxglove. Since I was walking in a
tree farm, not a naturally growing forest, most of the trees were 15-30 year
old Douglas Firs, but I was delighted to see Cedar saplings fighting for space.
The smell of a Western Red Cedar is rich and pungent and it is by far my
favorite tree. The Native tribes of the peninsula call it “the tree of life.” A
mature tree can live for centuries and it always feels like a tree full of
magic and history to me. I love to sit under them.
I am always amazed at how the cycles of life and death and rebirth are so
clearly displayed in the forest. Old stumps and fallen trees scatter the forest
floor, rotting and giving life to the mushrooms, salal, and wild strawberries.
Small saplings grow out of their base, new life sustained by the death of the
old and reborn. And the huckleberries are nearly ripe. The tiny red berries are
sour, but when they are ripe, you can taste the juicy sweetness of the forest.
They also prefer to grow out of the stumps of old cedar trees.
In the absolute aloneness and stillness of the forest, surrounded only by
the trees, birds, and squirrels, I feel in my bones that I am a part of this
place and it is a part of me. Even while away studying for the past two years,
this place—the forest—called to me. It reminds me of the power of place, of home.
We humans are meant to belong somewhere, not the conquerors of space, but part
of it, part of the landscape, of the local ecology. The love that swells within
me when I am home—in the northwest forests—is a love that people all over the
world have talked about when they talk about home.
And, yet, the past few hundred years have wrenched most of us from place
and any connection to it or to the land. Most people who were closely attached
to the land were and still are wrenched from it as it has become harder and
harder to survive, to compete with agribusiness, and to disregard to lure of
city jobs. And, yet, I believe that we all long to find home again. One of my
greatest dreams and most ardent prayers is that the American underclass—people living
on the edges, on the streets, in migrant camps—will find a way to reconnect
with the land, with home, with place.
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