Returning.

9/1/12 -

Over two months have passed since we held the "Radical Joy for Hard Times" ceremony down in the woods where the logging occurred.  Ceremonies were held all over the planet on that day, June 23rd, and I felt deeply honored and blessed to welcome people here, old friends, and new friends alike, to both remember and renew a profound love for this embattled place.

Around 10 of us came that day with open hearts (and raincoats) and such willingness to love the land again, after all that has happened here.  We sat in circle and spoke of the losses, the knowledge that clear-cuts continue all over the planet, and of our desire to help heal and remember those places as sacred still.  I have often thought of those of us who are survivors of assaults, how none of us are any less beautiful, any less lovable and loved, after these episodes.  I still care for this land as passionately as ever, maybe even more-so now, and know that I am one of the people, one of the many spirits, who will help it heal.  There is great beauty in that.

"Radical Joy" is about celebrating the earth, what was here, what is left, and what will come again.  We cried, we laughed, we talked and prayed and sang to this piece of scarred hillside, to the spirits still lingering after their tall green bodies have left the land.  Each of us went off on our own from the circle, some planting seedlings, some walking the landscape, each of us a prayer, each of us a calling to a Creator that sees beyond this place to a wider sky, and endless knowing.

One dear old friend, Julie Woodward, spoke of the give-a-way inherent in this taking of the trees.  Native people around the world have understood that lives are sometimes sacrificed for a larger good, and I have come to learn again that we do not always know the purpose, the reason for what looks horrific on one plane, yet may be causing ripples out in directions we may not ever fathom.  I pray to understand what I can, and to accept what I may never know.

"Radical Joy for Hard Times" has a bird as its logo, and wherever their ceremonies take place they make a bird on the land.  One member of our group, Jan, made a bird out of tree limbs and scraps left by the logging.  Here is part of our bird now, 2 months later.  I stop and pray here each time I come down onto the logging site, remembering the day the bird was made and the love and kindness that  resides and resonates here, still present for all of us.

Recently they started logging off the land adjacent to this first clear cut.   I heard the chainsaws start up over a week ago and saw a clear space opening up in the woods behind another neighbor's home.  As I walk nearby and witness beautiful trees falling once again, I know the prayers and songs and tears from our "Radical Joy" group were meant for all of the lives here and beyond, echoing down this valley to the ones leaving now, and around the planet wherever the earth is harmed.

I see the land stripped bare again.  Sadly, I hear century trees thunder into the ground, yet this time I know, beyond a doubt, that the earth is resilient, that she heals herself while we help love her back to life.  I believe this, I have to believe this as more magnificent trees are leaving.

I have walked down into the initial logging next door and found signs of this resiliency everywhere.

                                   Small little maple trees have already grown several feet high.......

A multitude of green and growing plants have returned with the help of spring rains and summer sun.  They are not the tall giants living here before, but they are a new beginning.....

Even the tracks left by gigantic machines are filling in with hearty grass and vines.  A single blade of grass looms large to a tiny insect crawling beneath its own green forest, and who am I to say this is any less a marvel than tall old firs and waving maples?

                                     What new life will come from the trunk of an old friend?

Who will come to rest and nest in the heart of fallen trees, as this decades old nurse stump still nurtures life in new daylight after the logging?

This old sentry and I will watch and listen as the trees fall again nearby.  We will shudder and pray and hold on to the belief, the knowing, that the earth we stand on, the one who holds us, roots us, revives us, will once again grow well.  Whether we are here in body to see it is unknown, but a new earthen face will emerge, one of many over eons, and the tree and I will love her always.

Thank you to Judy Todd and the women who came onto the land for "Radical Joy."  You have helped my own heart heal, you have loved the land and I am forever grateful.