Aleta,
Welcome aboard. There are some fabulous folks in ENTS. As you have gathered, b ackgrounds are very varied. While some of us (me in particular) are stuck in the mathematics of tree measuring, we are always pleased when someone ta kes the reins and steers us into the emotional and spiritual side of forests and trees. W e want to hear from all our members who hold special feelings for trees. Two of our relatively new members are artists in every sense of the term. Sarah Belchetz-Swenson and Phoebe Weil. Sarah has a website. Please visit it. You can Google Sarah. I'll soon post some of Sarah's photography that she sent me following a visit to a special forest. Both Sarah and Phoebe are outstanding photographers. More on both in a coming email. BTW, loved your poem. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aleta" <[email protected]> To: "ENTSTrees" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2009 12:24:30 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [ENTS] Tree Grief As a newer member of ENTS, I have been browsing many posts, and have been heartened by the blend of science, spirit, insight, and aesthetics I find here. It suits me just fine. I have been loathe even in the day to day grind of field science to let go of the wonder and euphoric consciousness that fills me as I move through forests. It is apparently not a unique sentiment. In the spirit of the Aesthetics Project here, I wanted to share a poem I wrote about a tree and also its foreground. I had the experience as a child of a particular ancient and marvelous tree in my life, and to this day I feel that it befriended me, versus the other way around. It was a massive white ash, more than 3 feet in diamter and 80 feet tall, and one of several phenomenal trees left by the developer of our 1950s neighborhood, a mass of ranch style houses that has obviously been chopped out of a very old forest. I suppose I was lucky to even have such trees around my suburban home. I became aware of the uniqueness of these trees at a very early age, maybe seven or eight, when the following encounter began. The giant ash began appearing in my dreams, and from that I began to focus on it, wandering to it almost daily, sitting beneath it but also some distance away where I could see it in its entirety. In each observation, I felt it speaking to me, not in words, but in a vision of my life and with a great flow of encouragement, love and inspiration. From that single childhood friendship, with a single tree, grew a lifetime work and personal mission, culminating in a passionate career in ecological restoration and forest ecology. I returned to see it as an adult in my thirties. Where it had stood, there was only the manicured turf of a lawn. Each of the other old trees was gone. Stricken with grief as if a person I knew had died, I wandered away, and from that grief came a poem. Dream Tree Pain begins the seeing, bare the former place of life No solid strong sage to hopes or dreams rises there no loved ancient Lifter of eyes and heart Only a scalped scene- Like a historic battlefield The calm lawn belying life cut down In the prime of vigor and beauty And solitude for the one befriending those thought removable, objects, annoyances, by others. Aleta McKeage --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org You are subscribed to the Google Groups "ENTSTrees" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
