Listen to the Forest: Speak Grief, Create Beauty

The intention of this ceremony started as a vision of a funeral for Box of Rain forest.  Some of us were blessed to be in intimate relationship with this forest before the clearcut.  Spending time on the land, we witnessed,  documented, slowed down and paid close attention to every step we took, noticing what we might harm by just the simple act of walking.  We listened for a place on the land that called to us, observed, allowed our senses to receive the gifts of what was a beautifully diverse ecosystem.  During our ceremony, we engaged in these same practices of walking and paying close attention in a now a sadly ravaged environment.  We experienced Death as indeed present, as was Life, evolving, trying to thrive.

In contemplating how to connect with The Global Earth Exchange, the Jewish notion of Tikkun Olam arose. This is a practice of doing something in the world that will not only repair damage, but also improve what has been damaged. It is also taught that to truly repair, we must also deeply feel all the emotions that arise in the presence of this harm.

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, founder of Emergence Magazine  writes of a Primordial Covenant of Relationship. This is another way of naming what we honored during our ceremony. Each of us was invited to open to the grief embedded in actions that harm what is precious. These actions arise from stories and states of forgetfulness, from forgetting the sacred nature of creation, from the crisis of separation and forgetting the most essential nature of interconnection, from forgetting understandings and practices of reciprocal relationship that have existed since time immemorial.

To offer repair and to recognize we were in the presence of pain born in what has been forgotten, we turned towards our grief, with tenderness, with respect and with love. We acknowledged that we are also living a story of remembering, generating stories of beauty and love, stories as powerful as those of forgetfulness. As we beheld what is still alive in this clearcut forest, we invited love that seeds respect for the unknown, that generates awe, that attunes to the majesty and the mystery of what remains on this land, still fostering life.

In ceremony together, we returned to what we deeply know, to what already exists in the marrow of our bones, in our DNA. What lies there waiting, to be woken up. To be remembered. These primal, living, loving reciprocal relationships among us are often unlocked by heartbreak, by grief. The original inhabitants of this land know this all too well. And we committed to remember, to attune to deep listening, to hear the breezes and the rain as voices, the trees as relatives, the rocks as messengers, not just as background or part of the environment of our lives. As a complementary gesture to this listening, we acknowledged that we are active co-creators, offering tending, prayers, and reparation, while creating beauty with our hands and from our hearts as we stand together on common ground.

Here are some words from the eulogy written by a member of our committee.

“I feel pain within my chest knowing what has happened to this forest. Another forest, not seen, or heard; taken. I feel deep sadness for the native tribes here who are witnessing and feeling the violence to their land over and over. I acknowledge the Nooksack tribe and coast Salish peoples for your loss of this forest. I know these forests are felt as part of you and a family. Before this forest was logged, I saw it as an abundant forest with some of the tallest sword ferns I’ve ever seen. I watched my friends gallop past these ferns while it seemed that some of these ferns were reaching out to pat us on the head. I went here a few times to field check this forest. I feel sorrow that I had only acknowledged this forest under the circumstance of it being logged. Yet I could see how biodiverse this forest was and the tall standing Douglas firs and cedars that had been rooted here for so long. I got to watch Clearwater Creek flow right along the shores of Box of Rain with a light clear color and large blue and gray boulders holding pools of this water. You could see how interconnected this creek and the surrounding forests were and still are. Many of these trees were so clearly old and wise. So many very large trees stood strong holding together the ecosystem’s canopies, mothering over the forest floor. So many of these trees were so large that I watched my friends laugh as we tripped over the large root systems trying to measure the huge circumferences. We tried to stretch our arms around the large trees but we could only reach around ¼ of the entire tree. The purpose was to measure the trees but it felt more like nestling into an arm of a wise giant, giving us a hug. These trees held thousands of years of stories of death and regrowth amongst them. These trees are now a memory of this forest that will hopefully someday, recover. It’s hard to see the change now, and I feel for all these beings and the salmon that all rely on this supporting forest.

I know it feels strange and hard and sad to acknowledge how wrong the extractivism of this land is, but I do think its very important. I’ve found that growing up in this time of climate change and western extractivism has really thrown me for a loop. I feel lots of sadness and grief for all that our Earth has faced. I feel lots of guilt for how my privilege has held me above much of this destruction and suffering from the inequalities of capitalistic and patriarchal systems. Yet, it gives me a strange feeling. I know grief is important but its also important to not feel stuck in hopelessness. I hope that this grief allows us to move with it, to acknowledge it, allows us to breath in the reality of the time we live in which ironically gives us purpose. Purpose for living in this time. I feel that allowing us to see and feel the reality of this time allows us to not ignore it and not continue business as usual that perpetuates these systems. It gives us purpose to fight for what needs to be saved here. Even if it all doesn’t end as we hope with a huge heroic saving of all forests, we can be guided by living and existing in this time with something to live and fight for. To honor Box of Rain means to continue to fight and advocate for all these forests and the neighboring forests that are at threat just over there,  for Brokedown Palace.

Quote that my mother sent me this morning ironically and i think it well encompasses hope and living in this time.

Look to this day,
For it is life, the very breath of life.
In its brief course lie
All the realities of your existence;
The bliss of growth,
The glory of action,
The splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is only a dream,
And tomorrow is but a vision.
But today, well lived,
Make every yesterday a dream of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day.

Kalidasa sanskrit literatureist

Let us use this grief to allow us to move forward into a place of hope and action. As Joanna Macy has taught, through the Work that Reconnects, by seeing our gratitude for this place, then honoring our pain, we can begin to see with new eyes our future and going forth into hope for our continued fight for these places.

A moment for the other lands:

I would also like to acknowledge the many other forests, rivers, and lands that have been destroyed without such a ritual for grief. I’d like to take a moment of silence for the many other places that have been destroyed and were not fully acknowledged as the living intricate beings and systems they are.”