THE QUICK, SNAKY ANSWER IS, If I told you, I'd probably have to kill you. Still, I'll be back to talk about real trees, along with real life principles in the city and beyond. Remember, relationships are always better based on real nature and natural principles....and I don't mean ornamental, unnatural little computer-rendered trees and nature from all over the place rendered by computer techies who are pasty and pale and connented with falseness sold to us as real.
I'll be back..
Your post made me think of Wallace Kaufman, author of Coming Out of the Woods: The Solitary Life of a Maverick Naturalist.
ReplyDeleteIn a 2001 article he says:
'... I have dozens of trees in my forest that I know as individuals, and I visit them like old friends. I have an album with their pictures, some as they grew up. They serve me instead of pets, but I don’t give them names, and I don’t feed them. I don’t talk to them. They have become what they are without me—interesting shapes, enormous sizes, a mystery book of scars. I like their independence.
If someone were to clear-cut my forest, I would not only be sad but angry enough to shoot. Every day I look at the small patch of old growth across Morgan Branch in front of my house, and no matter how dark the mood I wake up in or that I carry into the day’s dusk, that little grove is as welcome as love... I understand why John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club and America’s greatest hiker, could conclude his defense of old forests by writing, “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools.” '
Oh my God, Fraydna, what a fantastic comment and quote! Thank you for writing it.
ReplyDeleteWorld without end....Amen,
You know, for the life of me, I can't understand why these Abe's Garden developers would buy such a beautiful old growth treed parcel of land in the city only to cut down all the boundary trees and destroy our quality of life. Seems they could have been better served buying a parcel of a v acant field off someone's farm, then built and planted their ornamental garden.
The arrogance of calling their wasteland development a 'garden' is chilling.
Nevertheless what they do with their land is their foolish choice---to put if generously---and so they have chosen a path of destruction for the natural, indigenous environment as well destroyed their once friendly relationships with their horrified neighbors.
However, what they do, have done and hope to do with OUR property---what we own and have cared for for over 40 years---is altogether another story.
Without going into great detail here and now, we are taking this dispute to a new level where it will be worked out for once and for all through a legal process.
Since former mayor Bill Purcell and his minions for Shmering and Zeitlin are hawking my blog---and have made a threat or two---I shall not now detail what's going on. But one day I will.
I am grateful for much good fortune that has arisen over the past 10 days. It has been an exciting but exhausting time.
Thank you again for your support, Fraydna, and also your occasional prayers.