A Gaping Hole in the Canopy
Notes from the Forest's Edge October 6th, 2024
There's a gaping hole in the canopy. I managed to get into our dear forest days after Hurricane Helene swept through. The trail is covered with green pine needles and leaves forced to let go before they were ready. Their vibrancy stands in contrast to the already dead leaves, brown, yellow and crumbly from the previous dry spell. Rounding a corner on the trail I see a still living oak laid across the tight sloped valley of a small creek. Its leaves barely wilted, acorns still clinging on. Its rutted trunk is hefty and straight, forming now a squirrel bridge to nut-topia.
Glancing up I'm stunned by the cavernous sky aperture left by its fall. Its place in the canopy so much more vast that the trunk holding it up. I'm instantly aware of the ongoing gaping hole in our ruined infrastructure - roads, sewage and water systems, buildings, fragile electricity wires, and cell service. These pieces of the human-made world we have come to take for granted, now blown away by a giant puff of wind and water from the ocean, leaving millions struggling to survive. As of today we know of over 220 people who lost the struggle this week.
The hole in the canopy allows me to catch a glimpse of the helicopters that have been flying for days now - looking for those still stranded out in a remote holler somewhere. Meanwhile people are busy fixing, rebuilding, patching back together what we had, trying to find the positive in the debris piles. I know that this newly lit up patch of earth will regenerate in the spring, new life that would otherwise not have been able to survive under the mature oak will start to vie for space. I feel unsure about what will grow from the hole in the human world.
As I sit on the ground sensing the gentle movements of the forest around me my mind lurches across the mountains. To those who have lost a loved one, or don't know whether they've lost them or not. To those who have lost their homes and livelihoods. To those in teeming emergency shelters. To those who fled. To animals confused and hurt. To humans confused and hurt. To the relief effort. Those who came to help. Those who have picked up their own lives enough to try to help. Those that feel paralyzed with fear and shock. Those alone.
My drive to get up and do something "useful" is strong. My need to sit still and listen pulses in my body. There's more here than my maddening mind, remember? I close my eyes, open my ears and relax my jaw.
The golden, autumn sun is gentle on my skin, the breeze soft in my hair, the earth warm under me. I let my breathing slow, to quiet my mind enough to hear beyond it and the next wave of helicopters.
"We're here. We're always here." They say. The ancestors, those who survived long enough to make it possible for me to be here now.
"What do I do?" I ask out loud.
"What you always do.
Keep feeling, keep loving.
Breathe deep.
Let your body tell you when it's time to move.
Move with kindness.
Keep going.
Sit still."
It reminds me of lines from a Rilke poem:
"Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself loose me" as God speaks to those just born.
So I sing my prayers to the creek, the breeze, the earth that holds me and later to the fire I hold in turn. Sitting in vigil for those still missing, and those who left this realm before they were ready.
Dear one, what helps you keep going?
Notes from the Forest Edge is a bi-monthly exploration of the liminal space between human and forest consciousness, rooted in a small farm in the Southern Appalachian mountains.