A walk in the woods

All week I knew I had to get up in the trees.  I'm usually a water girl... but this week my pull was to the trees.

We are lucky to have an old cabin up in the  mountains with a forest right behind us.

 I dropped my bags and let mr h know I'd be back in a few.  

I headed straight up - my body just felt like it needed a punishing climb to beat out this toxic pulse

 that has moved from my mind to my muscles to my gut all week.

Come on in and let it go. Unhinged. Not pretty or with grace... a place I could yell exactly what I felt.

 Many of those feelings had no words - just visceral noise.

I came to rest in a little clearing, and my lesson stood before me... 

a tree standing strong against or for - the sick tree.  

And I became still and I listened with all my soul - a student of a much greater force.

Our woods have been hit by "beetle kill".  

Hit and miss trees have become sick standing right next to strong and healthy trees.  

I looked to the two trees standing before me... 

was the strong tree standing firm against or for the weak tree?  Maybe it is possible to do both.

A strong tree cannot stand in a forest that is sick 
and withstand being scarred by the demise of its community. 

Why this tree and not that one?  

What creates an environment of vulnerability that weakens the tree and welcomes in toxins?

If the tree could sense the plague coursing across the hillside

 and the beetle comes - the power and destruction is evident 

 you can see what this power does and has done

 and yet you are so in need of a resource you welcome the beetle

 and in doing so absorb the toxin that will be your own undoing.

It weakens and in time falls to the forest floor. 

 If critical numbers accumulate a force will arrive to extract the sick in defense of the overall health of the forest.

Trees verses Timber.

So here is my takeaway

 - I will strive to be a good tree,

 I will become more connected with my community,

 create ways and opportunities to come together and to know each other. 

 Seedlings strive to be trees not timber. 

Beetle I know you are here - you've always been here - just waiting for a distressed season. 

 I will stand firmly in your path and though I may be scarred

 I'll sleep under stars that know I've stood for something good. 

 We are going to take back our forest and there will be no host for you 

- you too can change dare I hope - evolve.  

If we do not save the forest... the forest will step aside to the chainsaws.... Timber.

Be a tree

Not timber

And then I return to the cabin to watch the game. The first thing on is a message from a scientist studying the beetle kill... I kid you not.  They started by studying the environment around these trees to understand if that was the root of the problem.  But they've switched to a more direct approach  and the research has moved to genetics and looking at the genetic differences between the infected verses the healthy.  With a vision of genetically altering trees so they are no longer vulnerable. 

I just breathed out "Oh No"

Chainsaws - this planet is a force that will survive - it will create what it needs to remain healthy.

Be a good tree.

Sent from my iPhone