Forests For Health

“‘I entered the sweat lodge. I made my prayers strong and clear: to turn things around . Ideas and  thoughts came , then and later . They askedto be written.
An omen signed they be published. Thus have I done.
Jeffrey Strong-On-The-Path

Forests For Health
Flint, Michigan. Where are all the trees? What happened to the forests?
I have been driving around for an hour now looking. There is a grove here and there on the outskirts of the city, left between some fields. Perhaps the
farmers needed a little wood lot. But how far must one go to find a forest,
wide and quiet, with the majesty of those elder old growth trees. Everywhere people in c a r s , mostly alone – – perhaps they are communing with something I can not understand? But I do not see smiles of contentment and rapture lighting
their faces- -certainly the inside of a car is not as awe
inspiring as those pristine and now gone forests. Why? What happened?
They called us the “termite people” on that video the other night (The
Emerald F o r e s t . When asked why, the native amazonian replied, “They (white people) come into the world and chew down all the grandfather trees just like termites . ” Yes , we did . And we worry about the amazon rain forest and would have those nations and people stop their destruction, citing the greenhouse effect and the need of trees to replenish the world’s oxygen supply. Rather technical and unfeeling, but quite correct. And yet are we simply not witnessing a repeat of what occurred here, on this continent, several hundred years ago?
Trees are rather like humans. They have roots that attach them to the earth and trunks and limbs that rise into the sky. Scientists are finding that
trees have feelings and communicate with one another. Some of us are in touch with our feelings and as our configurations are similar to trees, communion with trees is a real possibility, not just some poetic metaphor. The communion with elders and the wisdom they impart was always highly regarded. Now they are mostly
to be found in nursing homes or national parks, something we visit occasionally, if we have time. As such we have lost a spiritual link, the link to wisdom and rapture which inspire us to lives creating beauty and harmony, for the trees represent our balance on this planet, something no scientist needed to tell that primitive native in the movie.
Besides deforesting the continent, the settlers also turned under the grass- lands and proceeded to overgraze everywhere. In Okanogan County in Washington State my uncle, a forester, showed me the hillsides now covered with noxious weeds and cheat grasses saying “I don’t know how we’ll ever get it back to its natural state.” Might be a good task for prison inmates, welfare recepients, people in jail on DUI’s and the like? This is also true of the fields in the Midwest found to be “unproductive” and no longer planted. Since farmers are paid to leave some 25% of their lands fallow, perhaps some sort of land redistribution and consolida- tion could be done. Large and smaller parcels of national grasslands, parks and forests could be created. With a l i t t l e creative thinking perhaps a large parcel in the fork of two big rivers and a canal dug to create an enclosed triangle of grasslands, where buffalo could roam, again. Perhaps similarly, around and in the cities, parks and forests could be created. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to walk somewhere close by and see ducks, geese, swans, beaver, eagles . . . t o fish…  to sit in awe at the beauty and magic of creation. We need this contact with nature in our lives if we are to be healthy human beings not divorced from our environment.
The battle to save even our old growth forests goes on in the Northwest.
A four hundred year old tree is quite something — when was the last time you saw one? To be simply opponents to forest destruction is not enough. We need to turn the clock back and set an example to other nations. We need to recreate parks, forests, and grasslands, to be active proponents of forestation, not simply opponents to deforestation. We need to turn things around, right here.

Property of JDC,SSR-GoldHill,Boulder,Colorado 80302.
Phone 303-449-3797