Reading this I was reminded of a dance protest that I was in a few weeks back in front of the Legislature protesting the Fairy Creek issue as well as old-growth forest logging in the province. Fifty people, all six feet apart and masked, danced a specific routine to Bruce Cockburn’s song, If A Tree Falls. It was so uplifting to be part of a protest where I was actually involved in the action, not standing and listening to people speak about what I already know. The event was covered by the media. Over the past few days, since reading the attached piece, I have been thinking how exciting and powerful a group of 50 people, masked and distancing, singing to the trees around the Legislature could be.
Grieving the Trees
by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, “Love Every Leaf” from
Rooted & Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis
>In times like these, our prayer may need to be expressive and embodied, visceral
and vocal. How else can we pray with our immense anger and grief? How else can
we pray about ecocide, about the death that humanity is unleashing upon Mother
Earth and upon ourselves? How else can we break through our inertia and
despair, so that we don’t shut down and go numb? . . . .
I’ve taken to praying outdoors. I go outside, feel the good earth beneath my feet
and the wind on my face, and I sing to the trees—to oak and beech, hemlock and
pines. Making up the words and music as I go along, I sing my grief to the trees
that are going down, and my grief for so much more—for what we have lost and
are losing, and for what we are likely to lose. I sing my outrage about these
beautiful old trees being cut to the roots, their bodies chipped to bits and hauled
away to sell. I sing my fury about the predicament we’re in as a species. I sing my
protest of the political and corporate powers-that-be that drive forward
relentlessly with business as usual, razing forests, drilling for more oil and
fracked gas, digging for more coal, expanding pipeline construction, and opening
up public lands and waters to endless exploitation, as if Earth were their private
business and they were conducting a liquidation sale. I sing out my shame to the
trees, my repentance and apology for the part I have played in Earth’s destruction
and for the part my ancestors played when they stole land and chopped down the
original forests of the Native peoples who lived here. I sing my praise for the
beauty of trees and my resolve not to let a day go by that I don’t celebrate the
precious living world of which we are so blessedly a part. I’m not finished until I
sing my determination to renew action for trees and for all of God’s Creation.