The transient nature of living in the west, our uprootings happen often. We are so fast to move forward in life. It warns of how easy it is to forget that what we do for each other everyday is also what we do to the earth everyday. Yet what we do for the earth is much different than what we do for each other. Our treatment of the earth is not something we can move away from, our daily actions stick with us, they stay in our landscape, they stay in our memories, they affect how we treat each other. Conversely, old trees watch over us, they keep returning to life with new growth, they remind us not to run away, they teach us how to sink roots into knowing the land, how to find balance and stability amid the myriad uprootings of life out west. This awareness is best summed with words of Wallace Stegner:
----"For somehow, against probability, some sort of indigenous recognizable culture has been growing... It is a product not of the boomers, but of the stickers, not of those who pillage and run but of those who settle, and love the life they have made and the place they have made it in. There are many of these, too, than there used to be, and they know a great deal more, and are better able to resist and sometimes prevent the extractive frenzy that periodically attacks them."----
Influences
Green Tara, Hilary Hahn, friends, family, all music makers in downtown Oly! Also Bodhisattva aspirations, many singing teachers, learning the world's forests...Mostly influenced by who I am: 6'2' - early middle-age - underemployed - overemployed - love making art for all the senses... Increasing awareness and ability a must!
Sounds Like
Tree-like-shape says to clown:
"How ya doing?"
Clown says: "fine until you turn it all to shade
and drink all our water..."
Tree-like-shape says to clown:
"I drink lots-a water to keep earth moist. You clowns...
You devour shade-wet-life to sun-dust-wind
All our seeds fight back again. We always win...
You clowns are our own aberration,
our own root-truth-challenge-clowns the way we grow..."
Forever seek improvements in the quality of interactions with those you most love. This very same love can be shared with the land too. Our love of landscape is also our legacy of love. Our record of cultural identity exists on the land we live on; it's as close to us as our own family. As we change how we see the land we love, as we change with those we love, we must be certain to often improve our ability to love, as well as be loved.
LOVE forestpolicyresearch. org! Keep up the fantastic work & thanks so much for finding us! New old-growth forest Watchtower blockade set up in the Weld Valley yesterday! Much love & solidarity from the Southern Forests of Tasmania.
