Big Yellow Taxi

Paving Paradise

“Don't it always seem to go

that you don't know what you've got

till it's gone.

They paved paradise

and put up a parking lot.” Joni Mitchell

I loved this song back in the day; could be heard singing it loudly in the shower. At 20-something, I didn't think too much about its meaning, other than that her man was leaving her in a Big Yellow Taxi. I just liked the catchy tune and sing-along lyrics. It was only later that I learned the song is also about actual events in Hawaii. The pink hotel is the Royal Hawaiian that boasts more than five hundred rooms, and the tree museum is Foster Botanical Gardens where it now costs $5.00, and not $1.50, to see the trees. We humans have a way of seeing beauty and wanting to improve upon it, or to capture it somehow and turn it into a profit-making venture.

People tell me, 'we have to live, Jane, we can't just climb a tree and call it home', and I know that's true. I only wish we could find a way to live gently on the earth; to be respectful with our presence here and keep our damage to a minimum. Many people equate the line in Genesis 1, that says, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it,”to mean take charge and rule over it. Actually the meaning is closer to “fill the earth and take care of it". The creation was already deemed 'very good', after all.

I once knew a woman named Willa, who was a physician at a prestigious teaching hospital in Florida. Willa chained herself to a tree that was about to be cut down to make way for a road near her home. Everyone thought she was crazy—even I thought so at the time. All she got for her trouble was arrested, and the tree was cut down anyway. Now, I think that at least she had the guts to stand up for, or in this case, chain up for her convictions.

Don't worry, I'm not going to become a nutty tree-hugger. I have had to cut down five enormous trees in my own yard over the last twenty years. Trees that died because of lightening strikes, drought and beetle invasion. It makes me sad every time. It feels like losing a good friend. I go out as soon as the ground it restored and plant another tree. Maples this time instead of oaks. I like their autumn colors.

I send a tribute out to all of you who love trees enough to stand up for them. I encourage you to work to increase green space in your area, instead of paving paradise and putting up parking lots.

In the spirit,

Jane