Treephilia

Story Info

Jennifer J. Wilhoit
Highway on Bainbridge Island, WA
2023

Type of Wounded Place

• Trees

Highway on Bainbridge Island, WA

For Treephilia this year, my friend Stefani (who I know through our interfaith climate circle work here on the island where we live) and I went to a place on the edge of our state highway. There are a number of trees lying on the roadside that were cut down for a salmon culvert project. We were not even sure if we could access the site since the road construction is still underway. But because it was Saturday, no crew was on site. As we walked along the side of the highway to get to the downed trees, we saw there was a dirt hill that led down and under a newly built cement culvert and another sand hill leading back up the other side. At the far end of that is where eight or more huge, cut trees have been lying for months. Every time I use the highway (frequently), these dead tree bodies cause me grief. They are named Red Alder and Redcedar, and perhaps Douglas Fir and Hemlock are lying there too. After walking a while, we reached the pile of trees. Stefani had brought sage and we took turns smudging one another. We talked about the conflict inherent in protecting the salmon but cutting so many decades-old trees. We shared our grief about this, as well as the many other climate-related and environmentally damaged places we’ve experienced. My friend recited and read some beautiful words about trees and the natural world from her Baha’i faith, and I read opening and closing poems by John O’Donohue, (“For Grief” at the beginning and “For Beauty” at the end). After noticing so many things about this site, including a beautiful earnest, green fern with new growth on her tips that was growing out of one of the downed, cut trees – we decided to make our bird. We had brought some nature bits from our own yards (including items that would’ve been mowed down) and we also incorporated garbage at the site. We slowly took turns creating a bird who carries vegetation in his beak (like the RadJoy logo). We photographed our bird and encouraged him to take flight. As we hiked back through the construction site, we collected a lot of garbage. Just before we left the highway, a woman stopped at the red light, rolled down her window with a grin on her face, and yelled to us: “Thank you for doing this!!! I’m so grateful that you’re picking up the garbage.” After dropping off my friend at her home, I realized I couldn’t just throw away all that litter. As I pulled it out of the back of my car, I saw that Stefani had placed a gorgeous piece of red alder bark (from the site) on top of the litter as a gift for me. (It’s now on my altar.) I sorted the filthy litter, putting aside the recyclables; when I saw how much recyclable material there was, I was glad to have taken the time to do that last step. 

Our GEX bird is made of several types of bark, twigs and gum tree seeds, redcedar sprays, rocks, clover flowers (as an aureole around his head), dandelions, lavender, leaves, ferns, lichens, & garbage found at the site (pieces of plastic, mostly).