Clearcut woodland

Julie Zenerrra:

Our group met at a clear cut forest in the Pacific Northwest in Beavercreek, OR to bear witness to the damage done to the land there. Ten of us met on a tract of private property, and talked about our feelings regarding clear cut, and how we felt about the impact it was having on our region. We then spread out across the ridge line overlooking the land, singing, praying, and just taking in the scene before us, which included piles of slash, dozens of stumps, and ravaged Earth. Afterward, we shared what we’d seen and felt in surveying the property, prayed and sang further, and thanked each other for the honoring of the land and recognition of its ability to heal. 

We came.
We bore witness.
We drummed.
We sang.
We spoke.
We saw the downed trees.
We walked the scarred land.

We honored the wounded landscape
knowing it would open us
to honoring all the pain and the joy of this time

Nan Collie: 

From “Wood’s Witness,” blog by Nan (http://www.woodswitness.blogspot.com/)

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 a 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 had 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 giveaway 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. on our small blue planet.