We’ve all been in a parking lot, and we’ve all been in a forest, or at least in the shade of trees.  Contrasting these two experiences is the only climate science I need.  The world is nicer under a tree, and much nicer under lots of trees.  We have paved, plowed, and mowed too much land, and that’s period.  It was a bad idea.  Let’s all get to work unpaving and planting trees.  We don’t even have to actively plant if we’re just that lazy.  Trees will do even this for us.  If we could unpave and refrain from mowing, the forest would arrive at out doorstep, free of charge. 

This plan is called leave trees.  It’s called let the Earth do her thing.  It’s also called sit back and enjoy the ride.  We busy ourselves fighting nature in our own backyard and then want to fly to Costa Rica to see a forest.  We mow everything that’s not a blade of grass and are up in arms when someone in Brazil does the same.  We deforested most of this continent, and still clear cut trees for toilet paper and junk mail, so who are we to talk?  If we’re so concerned about where the forest is going, welcome it into our lives.  I feel so bad for anyone who has not met a forest and fallen in love. A forest should not be something that any of us has to drive to.  We need forests everywhere so that rural, suburban, and urban kids can know them and love them, and seek to protect them. Being afraid of the forest is so medieval.  Many of the people with the most wealth and power have lost their connection to the forest.  Love some trees.  Get over grass.  Get over beef.  And get on with the good life.

We talk so much about “human-caused climate challenges.”  It’s actually “adult-caused climate challenges.”  We adults are the ones making the decisions.  Greta Thunberg is so right to be pissed.  And if she ever gets unpissed then she’s right there with the adults who are dumbfounded and defensive about being called out.  The kids have so much to teach us.  It is our turn to listen and open to what they know.  I’d be such a primitive version of myself without my daughters midwifing my old straight ass into this millennium. And I considered myself a pretty self-realized sensitive guy before I met them.  I’ll just say that I’m better every year that I open up and listen to the youth.  We should all try it sometime, all the time.  I feel terrible for some people who are not fortunate to have young teachers in their lives, and even worse for parents who have teachers they are not listening to.  Please make sure that this is not you.  For example, my daughters have had several friends who are one name and gender in our house, and another at home.  To not listen to and open up to your child is to not know her or him.  Because your daughter cannot tell you she is not Jim and not Dave and not Tony, not the son you thought she was, does not change the fact that she is not the son you thought she was.  And she is not the son you persist in thinking she is, no matter how hard you persist.  Who loses because of your fantasy?

This sounds like a tangent, but it is brought to you by our tired delusions about these climate challenges, and as Greta put it, our “fairy tales of eternal economic growth.”  Isn’t it an interesting twist the the adults are the ones believing the fairy tales?  The strength of our stubbornness and delusions does not make the delusions real.  I’m so happy that the strongest, clearest message is coming from the youth.  There is definitely some kind of calculus at play here- the kids have nothing but future, and adults have nothing but past.  Their eyes and minds are fresh and open while ours can be jaded and calcified in obsolete patterns and beliefs.  I remember how aghast I was at 18 when I began to wake up to how wrong our systems are.  I screamed about it and changed what I could in myself, but eventually got very used to the systems that disgusted me. We adults seem unable to afford to admit that these systems did not, and do not work.  We have seen so much of the past that we are crippled in our vision of the future. We are so heavily invested in our comfortable way of life that we refuse to change course. 

I know that I am preaching to the choir, so I need not go on.  Since we are the choir, I suggest we sing.  Let’s celebrate the youth and get behind them and next to them in any way that we can.  Let’s make sure that their voices are amplified and respected.  Let’s make sure that they do not acclimate and inure to broken systems.  Let’s get out of the way. 

More information:

Field Temple - Every Sunday at 10 am for the past few years, a group of people meditate in this field with ordained Buddhist teacher Sarah Addae. In snow and heat, spring, summer, fall and winter, they are sitting together.  Until there is a building, there is this..... sitting together in nature...... understanding inner nature through sitting quietly....sharing and studying together....

The field of consciousness is vast, as vast as the outer universe.  Meditation helps us to pay attention to our own mind. In this act of paying attention we are also able to recognize and shape patterns of thought.   With meditation we have a tool for traveling within, finding the field of compassion and cultivating it more fully. Field Temple invites you to walk through the land at any time.  The "Red Thread of Desire" is one path running through the grounds, it asks one to stay attentive and balanced. The other path, the Nkenge Zola Forest-gazing path, invites people to soak in the energy of the forest. It invites close noticing and stillness. This path is wheelchair accessible.

Arboretum Detroit - A small group of Detroiters started this non-profit that is dedicated to building and maintaining an Arboretum for Detroit. Arboretums are specially designed tree gardens. They may have themes such as native trees, or they may be designed to give the feel of a grove in a forest. Among their goals are educating us about the role of trees in our world, and providing visitors with shade, lungfuls of fresh air, relief from the concrete of the city, and a balm for the spirit. Arboretum Detroit is looking to plant trees as well as find already grown stands of trees and secure their place in the landscape of the city, to connect green spaces throughout Detroit neighborhoods, and connect people through the stewardship of trees. This celebration is marking the completion of the first “tree garden” project: Treetroit 1. It is four city lots across the street from Field Temple. We need trees. So help us help trees help us.

You are invited to celebrate the Fall Equinox with Arboretum Detroit and Field Temple on Saturday, September 21st, 5-11 pm. There is so much to celebrate, among them is the completion of the first Arboretum project: Treetroit 1. Field Temple and Arboretum Detroit, 5333 Elmwood and 5300 Elmwood, Detroit, MI 48211

Everyone welcome

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The next few months we'll be preparing for, and implementing the Neighborhood Tree Nursery project, supported by a grant from Detroit Future City. You can read more about this project here.

We have set regular workdays for the first, second and third Tuesdays of each month, 6-8pm. This could mean picking up bricks and throwing them into a pile, pruning trees, picking up garbage, measuring distances, brainstorming ideas, and who knows yet what else. This is just the very beginning, since we have finally received the legal go-ahead to get started preparing the land.

Below is the approved design for the Nursery. We are hoping to be planting trees by the end of October."

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Before and After - Reflections from Michigan’s Old Growth Forest

Kinga stopped to take a picture of the massive nurse log that we climbed over.  It was covered with moss like most things in a mature forest. In the hole of a long gone branch she spied the tiniest of Hemlock saplings.  It was so fresh and tiny that it could have emerged days ago. I came to look and said that it would be a nice picture to use for the next blog and that we could title it “before and after.”  I thought this would capture something about the cyclical nature of life in the forest.  

Kinga said, “which is before and which is after?”  This question more accurately captures the cyclical nature of life in the old growth forest.  Nuances of understanding like this enter the mind like osmosis when we spend ample time in the forest.  There is a completely different sense of time and importance.

Yes, logic tells us that because the tiny Hemlock sapling is green and new, and that the trunk of the old Hemlock is horizontal and moss covered, that the tiny sprout is “after.”  The fallen giant is “before” because it lived likely 300 years before it fell to its current position perhaps 20 years ago. However, this giant, itself, once looked exactly like this little sprout, which in its turn will live a few hundred years before becoming horizontal and nursing the next tiny giant to be.  In short, there is no “before and after.” This is part of why spending time enriches our spirit and soothes the soul lest we think that there is a “before and after” for us. Seeing that a long fallen Cedar still has one green branch or that a mossy nurse log supports more life on the forest floor than it did standing remind me that death is a lie.  There is only the timeless flow of energy, circulating among the many beings here. 

Entering a forest is entering a soup of flux. We step outside of time and into a reality that is not constructed but just is.  Man-made landscapes and contrivances are wrung out of us like mopwater. Concrete and the grid of streets and strip malls, bright lights and sirens, cell phones  and television are wiped from the mind like ink from the whiteboard. Here we see with the whole self. We lose our “selves,” and breathe in reciprocity with the trees, back and forth connecting right at the source.  Enter tree time.

We are so fortunate to have a place like this in Michigan.  Although it is barely in Michigan; did you know you could drive for 12 hours and still be in Michigan?  Yes the Porcupine Mountains State Park is at the far western edge of the upper peninsula. Don’t let the drive scare you off. It’s worth it every time.  The park is about 60,000 acres of forest, half of which is old growth. There are about 100 miles of trails to hike, and 23 miles of wild Lake Superior shore.  And the trees just keep getting older, and younger.