> How many of you can drive by a clearcut area and NOT feel the pain?
I recognize that pain as well. I've lived in the Seattle area since
1980. During the first few years, I can recall several times when my
partner and I would have to stop driving and take a few moments to walk
through those severed forests -- sharing a moment of mourning for the
loss of life and recognizing the lingering violence implicit in the
manner in which those trees (and their inhabitants) died.
I grew up where the prairies once ruled. After my move to the Pacific
Northwest, I noticed similar reactions to the clear-cuts in others,
particularly strong in friends of mine who came to the Northwest to visit
me. They talked about the feelings of violence, violation, and rape that
they felt while seeing naked hills and stumps.
These reactions lead me to re-examine my feelings toward the land where I
grew up. I thought about the lost prairie, as complex and majestic as any
forest. I discovered the same sense of violent loss for the prairies as I
felt for the forests. Somehow it is much easier to feel the pain of our
culture's exploitation of the earth while wandering through someone else's
backyard than in your own. But I now find the same sense of loss and
grieving when I see a Dakota wheat field or a Weyerhauser "forest." I
also find that the economic web that binds us all together in dependence
upon the fruits of the earth goes a long a way toward healing that sense
of loss for the primordial habitats. It also gives us a source for
strength to defend what remains of those dwindling primordial spaces.
Now I have lived in this region for 15 years and my partrner & I have a
7-year-old son. We still take the time to stop at clear cuts from time to
time, to explore together our feelings and look for meaning and healing in
those tortured landscapes.
[X] Michael Boer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9504 Ravenna Avenue NE #103 Home: (206) 523-4273
Seattle, WA 98115 Work: (206) 543-8262
