Wild
Nature
“It’s
not by accident that the pristine wilderness of our planet disappears as the
understanding of our own inner wild natures fades.”
Clarissa
Pinkola Estes, Ph.D
A
fungus called Dogwood Anthracnose is killing the dogwood tree in my front yard.
It is one I dug up as a sapling from the woods in Shelby County and brought
with me when we moved into town. It’s 30+ years old, but dogwoods can live up
to 125 years, so this one is young. Also, many maples in this area have died
from Verticillium Wilt, including one in the traffic island just down the hill.
I live in an urban neighborhood, not a wilderness area, and I hate to see trees
go. In a town like Birmingham, where the summertime temperatures are routinely
in the nineties, we need every green leaf we can get.
A woman
moved into the neighborhood a few years ago and her first act was to cut down
six towering trees in her yard. The whole neighborhood was appalled. People who
are not earth-conscious cut down trees because they want to change the
esthetics of their property. There are “house flippers” who are buying up every
possible property in this neighborhood, doing a quick redo, and selling for
twice what they paid. The first thing they do is cut down and drag out the roots
of every mature tree and shrub on the property, then, when they are done with
the house, they plant tiny shrubs around the borders regardless of the time of
year or the needs of the plants. Half of them die. When one has eyes only for
the payoff one does not care about the fact that plants are living beings. They
are considered “replaceable.”
It
seems to me that in this age of technology—of cell phones and 24-7 television
and computers—we have lost our wildness. I don’t mean the wildness that crams
the beaches at spring break, or that fills the breweries around town. I mean
our innate relationship to all other forms of life on this planet. When we do
that, it is only a matter of time before we decide that we don’t need that
wildlife at all. We can cut it down, shoot it, poison it, and that’s all fine,
because it’s a just a nuisance. Nothing changes until we hit critical mass and
then we begin to have problems with our air and water, with fires and floods,
with mosquitos and mosquito-borne illnesses.
Jungian
Analyst, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in the foreword to Women Who Run with the
Wolves, wrote, “We are all filled with a longing for the wild.” Just
as we mistake long guns for masculinity, and excessive make-up for femininity, we
mistake wildness for reckless behavior. Until we wake up and realize that that our
yearning for wildness is because of our total dependence on this earth, and all
other life, we will continue our unconscious journey of destruction. We must
wake up.
Today,
find at least one living thing in the natural world that you identify with,
that you love, that you do not want to lose, and give thanks for it.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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