Wilderness Artificiality

The other day my wife and I went for a run. The challenge was to run six miles outside. It was a rare feat for both of us.

We chose to run in downtown Jefferson, Georgia. We started near a park which has a Boy Scouts home on the premises.

This park is a tribute to wilderness artificiality. It holds, in esteem, a conference center, boys and girls restrooms, a baseball field, and, as its central focus, a stocked man-made pond. The ducks who live on it are invasive and mix-bred. The trout are born on farms and sold to the city by the lot. The trees are young and scarce. There are not enough oak to provide squirrels with summer storage, which leaves them to gnaw on unripened pecans until their bitter center is breached and they are tossed aside.

This is where boys learn skills, understanding, and civility through connection to the “wilderness.”

As we ran on the uneven streets of what once was known as Thomocoggan my mind began to wander. At the artificial pond, full of artificial fish sought by artificial pioneers, a father’s day weekend fishing rodeo was being held. Families trickled in with coolers, bait and tackle, and lawn chairs. Signs from major sponsors were hanging on field fences and music played loudly from a local radio station mobile unit.

I was caught in the middle of a fight between both sides of my heart.

I missed being young and doing similar things with my dad. Nostalgia and self-serving sadness coursed through my veins and arteries.

I also mourned the loss of our nation’s collective innocence. We are innocent when we are closest to our youth. The difference between knowing better and not is time and effort. Over time we have grown apart from our natural innocence. As 21st century Americans, we do not know our wilderness heritage. We do not remember our youth. We do not remember where we came from. We have no clue where we are going.

In our youth we fished from holes in the earth which were naturally made by a tremendous amount of water and pressure. We did so to provide and survive. We did so with whatever tools our culture provided. In our youth we sought species for sustenance which existed in a single community for millenia without manipulation by man. Species which depended upon theirs and other kinds to survive. A community without breach in which every part had a complete and equal role to play in its overall survival and prosperity. A community so unlike ours that it scares me.

I swear to you now that when plucked from their original habitat, in our youth we feasted upon larger, and most likely better tasting, species of trout than what currently resides in man-made ponds in the center of wilderness artificiality.

Whether we admit it or not, we are a part of a greater community in which every part is to play an equal and complete role to ensure the overall survival and prosperity of the whole. Like an overworked mother or father, a piece of plastic, or chewing gum, we are being stretched too thin to fill the roles we have adopted. Roles which once belonged to species which left or were forced out by our ancestors.

A Magnificent Oak

It is the most magnificent oak tree I have ever seen.

On the route from my home to the gym is a homestead featuring a wooden house painted yellow with a very old brick fireplace. Directly in front of the house is a stump at least nine feet in diameter. I want to stop each time I see it to count the rings and mourn its passing.

A tree’s rings are like wrinkles, they not only tell age but also give evidence of times of abundance and struggle. If the rings are close together it may indicate a period of drought. Similar to how the wrinkles on our foreheads may indicate stress.

The stump’s still thriving kin surround the house. At its northern flank stands a noble oak. Judging from my estimation from a moving vehicle, it seems to be as many as a hundred years old. Its limbs grow high and wide and reach down toward the road. I want to place my hands upon it. I want to smell its earthiness and notice its details. I want to watch how it dances with the wind and speaks through a storm. I want to place my ear upon its bark with the hope of hearing a breath. Like a father or sage, maybe it will tell me the secrets to being alright with all that I am and do.

A tree this old and elegant, without damage and prospering, gives me hope. In a county over two centuries old, it is the oldest I have seen. It is from the generation after that which fueled the Industrial Revolution. It survived when most others fell by way of the axe to fuel furnaces, make room for human priority, and build nearly everything. I want to preserve it like Mount Vernon and promise to add but never take anything from it.

A Tree in the Wind

A tree’s life is about balance.

Its soil needs moisture but too much can make it fall. It needs the wind to carry its seeds with hope that they will prosper. If the wind is too strong a tree may break. What a tree needs most is to be left alone by man.

Imagine if every seed were allowed to grow. Oaks would flourish if  acorns, which the squirrel dutifully buries, were not mowed over twice weekly.  If pine cones were not gathered for bird houses or craft projects they may just do their job. If the disturbance and piling of earth did not create erosion, the soil would not be ripped from under a tree by a simple downpour. We stand in the way of nature. Yet, we are of nature.

The wind holds and protects the tree. They dance at night while the cardinals and the squirrels sleep. Leaves flutter, bark bends, and the sinews which hold trunk to earth allow slight movements creating a rhythm unlike any other.

A tree may fall by the hand of the wind. When the soil below it can no longer bear its weight. When it reaches an age where it no longer bears seed to carry. When its leaves are a memory and its center is splintered, the wind will come and be a friend–in the end.

The same friend which danced with the tree in the night will lay it to rest. May at least one seed have flown, from the branches of an elderly oak, to a soil fit for the growth of its legacy. May man leave it alone.