Women and trees belong together; our relationships with them stretches back to antiquity. They have been our protectors, guiding us through grief and difficult times. They offer us gifts of beauty, fruits, and nuts, are receivers of prayers, sometimes speaking through prophecy. Sometimes healing springs appear at their feet. And always they are wisdom keepers, these Trees of Life. It is not surprising that women’s ceremonies were and are often enacted in the forest under a canopy of trees.
Emergence magazine recently posed three questions that I want to share because I think they might help raise awareness for women who love trees and the relatively small minority of other people who are attempting to deal with what is happening to the rest of nature during this political crisis and time of earth destruction.
Some folks who are not Indigenous still love and care for the land as a beloved friend, relative and teacher and it is to these people, both women and men, that I offer up these questions because I think they may help to keep us grounded in a painful but potentially creative way. Queries like these attach us to a larger long-term perspective that allows for a ‘both and’ approach to the future. The last question invites the reader to take personal action. Feeling that reciprocal connection between an individual and some aspect of the land s/he is attached to is a key that opens a door to deeper engagement with the rest of nature.
What follows are the three questions:
(1)What is something in your home place that is beginning to change or disappear?
(2)How does your perception of climate catastrophe shift when it’s framed as a destruction story and then as a creation story? (the underlying assumption here is that we are like it or not dealing with climate destruction on a global level)
(3)How can you offer a devotional action towards something you hold dear in your own landscape?
When I read the 3rd question, I could feel myself choke up in seconds.
Trees.
I am a woman who has loved trees all her life and one who for forty years has been witnessing the stripping of evergreens (along with hardwoods) from our mountains by logging companies for profit, to create recreation avenues for skiing and recreational use. Private properties, second homes where huge lawns with views take precedence over trees, local folks who also cut for profit are all felling trees, and then there is the story about what happened here at home.
Immediately after reading these questions, I dismissed the first two because I have been writing about them, the first for years, the second more recently, but the third one ‘caught’ me unawares because of the walk I had just taken. On my way up my pine strewn hill, I stopped to touch the red pine needled creature that I call ‘ miracle tree’ (as I often do), but today I thought about her story…
The tale began ten years ago when a cruel and violent man who unfortunately was my neighbor retired from his job and proceeded to deliberately cut the crowns and arms off every tree that lined the road part way down my hill. Mountains of slash were piled up under what was left of these trees leaving my new and kind year – round neighbors with a horrible mess.
Red pine was a seedling when he chopped off both her arms. Like all the rest of the evergreens she bled and bled, and every day the nauseating scent of pine resin accompanied me on my walk up the road.
A year or two passed. Gradually I noticed that although tree tormenter managed to kill a few trees, most were going to survive his assault. Ten years later all but one have grown new limbs and double crowns. But the most dramatic recovery was that of little red pine because she was only a baby.
I could hardly believe it when green bristles sprouted from both resin – cracked stubs about one year later. Every time I walked by after I first glimpsed life in what I believed to be a dead seedling, I fell deeper in love with red pine and told her so, over and over. I don’t remember when I christened her ‘miracle tree’ but for me she still represents what all trees can do under the worst circumstances if given the chance. Few are aware of the complex underground mycelial networking and communication that occurs between trees which allows those who are older to support, feed, and nurture one another in times of tree crisis.
On the same walk I met another tree that had recently been cut. Covered with photosynthesizing lichens the limb’s white tears dazzled me, shimmering like diamonds in the sun. I gasped, the sight was that beautiful, and that heartbreaking. I took a picture to acknowledge her dying and spoke quietly to the limb saying only ‘I’m sorry’.
These two little encounters of mine demonstrate one way of deepening relationship with all trees although I would not have framed the two stories as ‘devotional’ because this kind of behavior is normalized in me. I have spent the second half of my life actively advocating for trees (and all of nature) through my writing as previously mentioned, and although I feel that my efforts have not changed outcomes, I did do my best.
All over the United States our trees are in trouble. Strip logging decimates whole forests in less than a day. Climate chaos is creating forest fires that are totally out of control burning millions of acres at once. Our Federal lands and National Parks are under attack like never before with our current administration. Land trusts continue to ‘selectively’ log their forests. Genuine conservation organizations like the Northeast Wilderness Trust (92,000 acres protected from ME through NY) that are dedicated to leaving their forests alone by re-wilding have partnered with other organizations that will now put their forests at risk.
The only way to protect land seems to be to keep it under private ownership like Mary Mc Fadden and Larry Stifler have done with the forests they began acquiring early in the 70’s in our area (13,000 acres). Even though this land has been leased to the local land trust, thankfully the Stiflers still own it. Here in Bryant Pond the little Community Forest is owned by the town so I hope that the 600 plus acres of forest and foot trails will remain intact. The trees are in the early stages of recovery from the industrial logging machine.
If this oligarchy (some would call it a dictatorship) has its way every tree will be taken and replaced by one species of fast-growing fir, ripe for insect invasion and ready to be harvested before the trees are barely able to contribute to the carbon overload in our atmosphere. A forest is only an effective carbon sink if it offers a balance of biodiversity in which young and old species can co-exist along with a thriving understory.
I think that one aspect of women’s resistance to what’s happening needs to center itself around saving our trees because we have shared ‘herstory’ for a very long time.
I find solace in the knowledge that even in the worst-case scenario the power of nature to rebirth herself will someday result in new forests. Perhaps we shall have to start again with giant ferns or fungi, but trees of all kinds will someday re-populate the earth. After all this planet has already survived five extinctions and will manage a sixth one as well.
Earth is truly a Phoenix. S/he will rise again.