“Tree Sorrow”: healthy trees cut down by car rental establishment

Event Summary—Healthy, mature trees (including a native live oak) were cut down on city property by neighboring car rental agencies.

Wounded Place: Edge between interstate and housing development; city property on which three healthy, mature trees (including a native live oak) were illegally cut down by neighboring car rental establishment

Act of Beauty: RadJoy bird out of broken glass and found natural items from site

Notes about the Experience (What participants said, what they experienced, any difference you noticed about the place at the end of your Earth Exchange, reactions, etc.):

I felt the place as a symbol and microcosm of all the unattended edges that have been abandoned in between development(s). Also, as a new resident of this city I am seeing afresh how poignant the tension is between those who are tree advocates and those who want to use the land for development. The next street over had more than a dozen trees removed so that the power company could restring lines. Another huge old healthy-looking tree on somebody’s property has city notice of removal and upcoming hearing. It was very painful to sit in this place for the earth exchange. Yet we co-created a beautiful bird image and removed some garbage as a way of honoring the trees that do still stand in this edge place, and to remember the trees that were lost—at this particular site, in this city, and in the concentric rings that go out from here—region, state, country, globe. One participant discussed how four ancient trees in the U.S.’s southeast were to be removed for a retail establishment, but that he figured out how to keep the trees intact throughout the building process. Apparently, some retail businesses did not want to lease the space unless the trees were cut down (presumably for “visibility” of their site from a distance), but the lessor made the lease contingent upon preservation of the trees. This is an old, old story we see repeating itself.

Participants in the GEE discussed how to move beyond this story—the patterns, the tensions—to feel the pain, make some beauty, reconceive ourselves AS members of the natural Story. Having done these exchanges now several times, I wasn’t expecting the emotional impact of the experience. And yet, I experienced the time in this place with new vulnerability, a willingness to expand my perspective (get “bigger” than us/them, right/wrong and the other polarities that divide rather than sew together…), and a renewed commitment to seek deeper action through my own life potential. Somehow I left the place with greater compassion for the actual location (and all its corollaries, globally), for those involved in needless acts of earth destruction, and for those who are being in ways that foster a re-connection.