West Magnolia Tree Wake

by Bonnie Sundance, Nederland, CO area resident

Caring for the Earth isn’t new to me. However, my strength has been in working with a local non profit, Our Sacred Earth, assisting people to deepen their inter-connection with the Earth and from there to care for the Earth in the ways they live. I observed and believed that immersing myself in the current devastation news about the Earth wasn’t my forte and in fact depleted my spirit.

However, when I heard about the event at West Magnolia, an Earth Exchange shaped after the organization www.RadicalJoyforHardTimes.org, I knew I wanted to go — even knowing I would be upset to see the Clear Cutting that had just occurred there in the name of Fire Mitigation of potential Forest Fires in this mountain area. Saturday, June 8th I actually walked the Land which had been severely cleared. I got past the old judgmental reactions enough to learn.

I have been empowered in this by my participation in a book group reading “Active Hope: How to Face the Mess we’re in Without Going Crazy” by Joanna Macy. I am encouraged with its tools to look at this kind of unraveling of the interconnected web of life and participate in efforts to shift into the Great Turning and out of Business as Usual towards Sustainable ways for the Earth through the ways we live our Lives. It is energizing.

Seeing what occurred in their logging process on West Magnolia by using big heavy ground-churning machinery for Clear Cutting, I was appalled, shocked at the devastation of the Land, the soil, the Place itself. I was relieved to gather with 8 of us on June 8th to share our relationship and stories about the place, to then fan out and walk the distressed and disrupted Land on our own, open to our feelings about what had happened. I also photographed what I saw. As light raindrops fell, I kept walking and walking, saying “I’m sorry,” to the fallen trees, “I’m so sorry,” to the plants which remained without shelter from the 8700 foot mountain sun. I’M SORRY!

I was able to look, in part, because in the introduction, Christi Strickland, who works with and represents Radical Joy locally, gave us permission to feel our compassion and to be inclusive of all the elements and people who form part of this process. We even talked with the local Roosevelt/Arapahoe Forest Service police person, Paul when he stopped by. He had been invited to join the process and stayed long enough to welcome and answer our questions.

I was able to look and feel because we were all doing it together—not as an exercise of being judgmental, but as an experience of our own of what had happened. “We have all had our own experiences of being wounded, and so it is possible to understand the wounding of this place,” Christi said.

We then came back together in a circle to share what occurred for us in this walk. Excerpts: “West Magnolia Tree Wake”

• That’s what Charles called our effort. 
• Pedro and Ruth had experienced part of their courtship up here and weren’t even sure if they recognized the right place, once it had been clear cut. 
• “I hope people will come here, see and learn from this experience. I hope they will realize that there’s a better way that doesn’t involve such disrespect and indifference to what is done.”
• “I hope children will come,” said Ruth, “and perhaps discover in their future another way.”

Charles saw the denuded hillside, “It’s potential for a lot of erosion of the soil, heavy rains likely will wash it down through the trail and into the parking lot.”

“Where clear cutting occurred, soil was disturbed and where machinery was involved to drag out trees, the soil had actually been scraped away and along with it the delicate plant life. On the edges of the clear cut, there was still less disturbed soil where bright yellow Arnica was growing and soft-leaved Artemisia.”

Harry observed, “Look at the amount of the federal budget 1/2 of it for war versus the need in this area to have up to date fire fighting equipment instead of the decrepit WW II slurry bombers.”

We then called on Spiritual Presence to support our call for healing of the Land and what remained. The clouds parted above and a great circle of blue sky broke through with bright sunlight as we called out phrases or words to gift to the Land. Christi invited us to build a Radical Joy bird out of branches and pieces from the clear cutting, a sculpted bird sending out the song of healing to the land. Extending the beak of the bird with our own bodies, sending our blessing song to the ravaged land, we took a photo to share with others.

 

That action which left in place our experience and wishes, was so healing to me as well! I felt more aligned with and connected with this clear cutting than any other such clear cut land I had seen and experienced before. It was indeed transformative! I don’t feel so helpless in the face of such an act. In fact I feel empowered to share it with others and to continue writing about it and calling the Forest Service to protect the one piece of land which wasn’t “adorned” with a slash pile and which has more soil and plant life left. /See photo of the Land at the end of West Magnolia Road/

I am more convinced than ever that Clear Cutting isn’t the Great Cost Effective Mode for Forest Fire Mitigation.

• It is an assault to the Land and to the consciousness of anyone who really deeply cares about and is connected with the Earth.
• It destroys and doesn’t strengthen a Land’s ability to withstand soil erosion and degradation and to withstand Forest Fire.
• It is a misrepresentation (aka a lie) to say Clear Cutting is Cost Effective. That idea is promoted by logging companies and bought up by people with fear of losing their own homes and towns. They are taken advantage of rather than assisted in their concerns.

This was a very empowering experience for me and through it I feel empowered to speak out and call for true Earth-caring and people-caring Forest Fire Mitigation. I will be doing another Earth Exchange/healing ritual with Women on a different, more lightly fire mitigation treated piece of Land outside of Nederland on June 22. If interested, reply to: [email protected]

See the photo of the group and the bird on the web site, www.radicaljoyforhardtimes.org. I am in the lower left foreground with the bright pink coat. We are all local Boulder County people / most from the Nederland area, including a news reporter, a career Navy man of 20 years and a PhD scientist, and another who came from outside Boulder Co. who is involved in Wilderness Rites of Passage.