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For three years my partner and I rented a small house on acreage that adjoins a heavily wooded area owned by a local school district. Every morning and evening we ran our dogs in a large field behind our home. Sometimes we would enter the woods and follow a natural path that took us through them and out the other side to an old logging road. Once in three years I met another human being walking along the road. It was a man carrying a shotgun. He was, he told me, looking for a mountain lion which someone had seen in the vicinity. Even though it was , he said, illegal to shoot it, he wouldn't hesitate if he thought it was going to hurt his cattle down the road. I sent a message to the mountain lion to e careful and watch her back. Better yet, I told her, stay away. A few evenings later as I walked the field alone with my dog, I heard a very strange sound coming from the edge of the woods. I heard it only one other time and I'm fairly certain it was a cougar. I later learned that one had been captured at a home not far away. It was released in the neighboring mountainside. She was safe. Many early evening we were greeted by hawks and an occasional eagle. I remember one evening we were discussing where such birds dropped their feathers and wondered how some people went about finding them. We thought of all the feathers parakeets lose in their cages; where do all the wild feather go? Just then, a hawk swooped down to the tree above us and rapidly flew off. We watched, open-mouthed in amazement, as one of its feathers floated down and gently landed on a tree branch just within our reach. We felt particularly blessed and were appropriately humbled by the experience. There were coyote living in the woods. At first all we knew of them was the occasional howling sometimes followed by the blast of a shotgun as our neighbor tried to scare them away. The first time I saw one I was in the field with my German shepherd, Magic. She was running and sniffing and having a grand time while I was simply being with the trees and watching them dance in the wind. All of a sudden, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Slowly turning my head, I fixed my gaze on a beautiful coyote just barely showing the front part of her body out of the woods. We stood and looked at one another for a very long time until Magic saw what was going on. My dog immediately gave chase, barking at the top of her lungs. As if it had been a mirage, the coyote melted away and disappeared. I decided to stay still and see what might happen next. whether or not coyote would return. I continued to watch the gushes that outlined the entrance to the woods. Sure enough, she returned a little way farther down. She would stick her head out, looking at me and Magic. My dog would take off, coyote would disappear, only to reappear in another location. She was playing with us! This went on for a good half-hour and I felt very blessed by coyote medicine. Thus began a new stage in our relationship with the woods. Coyote began appearing regularly, playing with Magic but never letting her get close enough for problems to develop. I found the major trail the coyote used to cross the field and their primary entrance place into the woods and began leaving apples for them, especially in the winter when it got the coldest and food was less plentiful. The deer, too, became our friends, frequently standing still and looking at us as we approached, leaving only when they felt the dogs were coming too close. They, also, played games with the dogs. Like coyote, they taunted the dogs, waiting until the last minute to run into the thick brush where they know they would not be seen. Sometime they would come down to the house and eat apples from the apple trees. Once a fawn got separated from her mother and came to the house frightened and panting. We were able to encourage it to run off in the right direction were Mama would most likely be. Some evening at dusk, we would be in the field and hear owls hooting in the woods. We took turns answering them and sometimes had quite a conversation going about between the four of us. Only once did owl show himself to me, early one morning when he flew down out of a tree over my shoulder and back into the woods. The woods and I had a particularly strong relationship. As a unit the woods was its own entity with the animals and birds being part of its entirety. Many times I would stand facing the woods and have long conversations with it. We gave each other love and sustenance as only friends can. During our recent search for a home to buy, knowing I had to leave my beloved woods, the deer, coyote, owls, hawks, rabbits, eagles, etc. was the most difficult part of it all. I asked the woods to help. I asked it to help find us another home where we could continue to have a deep relationship with nature in as pristine a condition as possible. As the wind blew the tree tops I sent my prayers and visualizations for a new home out asking the trees to spread the word to help us locate it. Knowing we would move in a few months, I began saying goodbye to the deer and the coyote whenever I saw them, explaining that we would be moving away. a week before we moved we had one last very special moment with coyote that I'll never forget as long as I live. We had walked up in the field with the dogs and had seen two coyote run off into the bushes. Before long, one of them thrust her head out, threw it back, and began howling. Our dogs stood silently beside us and we began howling back at coyote. We took turns. The coyote would how and stop. We would howl and stop. Back and forth it went for at least five minutes. Our dogs respected the communication going on a didn't attempt to play their usual game of chase. We said our goodbyes to coyote, knowing we would see him or his brothers and sisters again somewhere, sometime. The week after our move to our new home, we went back to the field to run the dogs. I can't help but cry even now-months later-when I remember what I saw. From a distance we noticed that the line of treetops into the woods looked different. It seemed sparser. As we walked closer we were shocked to discover that the woods had been killed, chopped down. All that was left were tow or three skinny little trees and slash as far as we could see. Someone had some in and violently cut down all the trees, some of them quite old. I wondered if coyotes dens had been destroyed and if any p8ups had been in them when it happened. Where did our fiends go now that their home was destroyed? I felt an emptiness that was and is almost unbearable. A few weeks before the killing of my tree friends, there had been an issue put before the voters asking for more money for schools. It had been defeated. When the school district needs more money and can't get it from the public, it logs off some of the woods. Because most people didn't want to pay a small amount of extra money in property taxes every year to educate their own children, an entire wooded area with all of its inhabitants is gone. It will take many generations to re-grow what was cut down in a week. If coyote or mountain lion are forced to come closer to human homes because we destroyed their food supply, I hope they realize they might be killed. If they are lucky and are caught, at least they will be relocated. Would you like to be moved to another city-away form your family and friends-just because you were hungry and tried to get some food after someone had stolen all of yours? More and more I realize there is only one way to get humanity to stop seeing nature as a thing not be used however we see fit. Legislation helps but many people ignore laws and do what they want. Log-sitting and other forms of protest help to raise awareness. but unfortunately don't reach into a person's heart where the change must take place. The change has to come form inside each person. People need to begin having a personal relationship with nature. That is what will change minds and hearts. Once a person cares about something, perhaps even loves it, it becomes impossible for them to hurt it. We must find ways to help people, beginning with ourselves,m have personal relationships with nature. It can begin in your backyard. Get to know your trees, your grass, your plants and bushes. Feed the birds and begin talking with them. communicate withe the squirrels-they have a lot to say if you're willing to listen. Go to the parks and lake and ocean. Spend time communicating with nature; get to know her in all her seasons and moods. Nature is not an it. Nature is an entity of which we are part. If we begin to know and respect her, our consciousness will begin to affect others around us. It is a sow path sometimes, but a necessary one. Someday, schools won't have to destroy an entire region of nature because they need money to teach the children about her. What an irony. Fortunately, the woods carried my prayers well and I have begun a relationship with another natural area. We personally steward over 50 trees who never have to worry about being killed for men. Every morning we spend time with the untamed Skykomish river and are learning about her moods as the seasons change. Twice now an eagle has flown by in blessing and twice coyote has run past in front of us. laughing and playing in the woods. Heron are starting to show up and perform in the sky overhead. We've seen one deer with her fawn stop in the road in front of us, saying hello before climbing up steep cliff where they stood amongst the trees watching us pass. Although I loved my old home, I am glad we moved when we did. I can't imagine running the dogs every day and having to see only bits and pieces of my friend left. I can't stand wondering how coyote, deer, hawk, eagle, and all the rest of them are making out. There are still wooded areas left and I assume they moved there. I know that in the ultimate picture they will be fine, especially coyote-studies have shown that the more humans try to control and limit coyote, the more he multiplies. I's funny to me that humans think we have the final say on this planet! Anyone who thinks that hasn't spent enough time with nature in all her awesomeness. Go stand at the foot of an enormous mountain or beside a roaring river and see who you think has "dominion." The mistake we humans have made is in thinking we have control of nature. What we have is a responsibility of respect, steward, and co-create with her. There is a big difference and the sooner we humans comprehend that the better off the entire planet will be-and the greater the chance at the expense of nature will have some of her left to love. |
An entire group of my friends
has been killed, slaughtered, destroyed. Some of their neighbors.
who were also my friends, lived through the attack, but were
heartlessly thrown out of their homes. I've only visited the
drilling field a few times because I can't stand the pain that
shoots through my entire body. I'm still in shock that this has
even happened Let me tell you about it.