Page 76 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

to navigate the piles of slash. I kept moving until I became hopelessly entangled in this human-induced

wreckage. Then I collapsed in a heap. Death rose up from the ground. The severed trunks and limbs

wept, the smell of pitch was nauseating. Why in god’s name had I come here? The question hung in

dead air. A great hole had opened in the sky where the trees once stood. I staggered back to the car

scratched and bleeding. The sight of such mindless annihilation was impossible to process.

Coming home to my sanctuary didn’t erase the image of tree devastation that seemed to have

imprinted itself on me; I was haunted by the images of dying trees and the wrenching grief I had

experienced standing on that piece of land. That night I had a dream.

I am standing in the middle of tree destruction overcome by a profound sense of hopelessness. A

transparent image of my land seems to superimpose itself on the logged land, floating down and

settling over but not obliterating the hideous slash. I can still see the wreckage below but the upper

transparent layer of my land is tranquil.

When I awakened from the dream I was

free from the horrific imprinting and looked

around with a heart bursting with gratitude

for clear waters rushing over stone, for

leafy green maples, oaks, beech, birches,

wild fruit trees, alders, witch hazel, pine,

balsam, cedar, hemlock, and spruce. I

wondered if the dream was suggesting that

although I might be powerless to stop the

logging, I could help the Earth and my