elegy for the felled

They've started cutting down the oak trees in Memorial Grove. Just within the last hour.

It's like being punched in the gut, to witness or even imagine a tree being toppled by a chainsaw.

There's an ache to it. Yet somehow the ache is spread thin, as if any decent, silent moment the heart might seek in order to grieve the loss of such a formidable elder is drowned out by progress' tinny victory march. It's a uniquely modern ailment. Another great tree falls, another great creature is lost -- and we just sigh, shake it off as best we can and smile bravely into another day. But the loss doesn't escape us, no matter how removed we might feel; something inside us still flinches, still stumbles under the weight of every plummeting 600-year-old trunk, every newly-erected power plant belching soot, every wanton gesture of crazed consumption.

My law firm represents one of the plaintiffs in this case. We raced to assemble a Supreme Court appeal and file it on time. Attorneys were running down the hallways and the secretary was fielding press call after press call (as well as calls from one of the tree sitters, Air, whose voice was low and urgent. "They're cutting!" We know. "Did you file yet?" We will, by 4:00 p.m.). We enlisted two of the neighborhood copy shops to prepare the final versions of the documents. Four of us fanned out into the City to file at the various courts and serve the documents on opposing counsel.

At 3:45 or so I found myself in a big law firm's climate-controlled waiting room on the 20th floor of Two Embarcadero, a gleaming chrome and glass high rise in the heart of downtown San Francisco. I waited for the receptionist to return, gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows framing the panorama of the Bay, flanked by two bushy potted palm trees. The industriousness in the building was palpable. I felt like such an unkempt hippie, somehow out of place, and still so thankful that my contact with the world unfolds at ground level.

The lawyers here toiled for months on this case, introducing very promising novel legal theories and waging a remarkably refined fight on behalf of the oak trees. And the tree sitters climbed up into those branches nearly two years ago. All of that work sure bought a lot of time. But despite our best efforts, here comes the machinery, once again clearing the way for taller, bigger, stronger, more.

My mom always implores me not to let things like this affect me. "It's not your pain!" she says. But it is. We're all inextricably interwoven into this community of life -- what impacts one, whether one is a mighty oak tree or a little brown moth, impacts us all.

Nonetheless, the sadness does not serve. All that can be done is to continue.

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone, therefore we must be saved by love." -- Reinhold Neibuhr

softening

That was Zelig's assessment last night, while we sat and talked on his couch, before I walked out into the warm, dark evening to witness the honey-colored new moon hovering over West Oakland. "You look great," he said. "Clear." And, "softer."

(This was after five of us sat, cringing, gasping and laughing, through Sarah Palin's speech and the attendant camera-pans over the legions of rapturous, button-wearing idiots. Now, I never had very many bad things to say about Hillary; to the extent that I believe that federal government is worth the powder to blow it straight to hell, I thought Hillary was a viable and interesting candidate for the presidency. I loathed the easy and off-handed dismissals of her as a "bitch." Hillary is a tough, smart lady, with a great deal of experience and some wise ideas. In her case, behavior which, in a male colleague, might have been called "strong" or "no-nonsense," was derided as "bitchy" when coming from her. I despise that.

. . . Sarah Palin, the Killa from Wasilla? Bitch.)

Anyway, my dear friend's take on the state of my being feels, at once, totally out of left field, and wholly accurate.

Left field: because I'm up against one or two of my most persistent demons at the moment, with not a lot of breathing room, it feels like. I see the old, tired techniques I'm using to handle it, and at some moments it feels like nothin's gone nowhere.

But more than that: wholly accurate. Mainly because I'm practicing something I've never practiced before in any kind of sustained way, which is compassion for myself. Oh, compassion. I can dish it out with all the juicy mama-energy in the world. I can usually receive it from the folks I love. But self-directed compassion? Who knew it would turn out to require such a massive expenditure of energy! Nonetheless, it is a project I have undertaken, and it requires much focus, clarity and dedication. It's an effort to silence judgmental, angry, cruel voices, and in their stead, to speak to myself in tones of kindness, patience, and forgiveness.

What I find most compelling is the voice of faith: that the truths I remember about my being, which arise most clearly when I am out on the land and in deep, heartfelt connection and in moments of creation -- those truths abide, and can be like a lighthouse for me when I am feeling lost and cut adrift. Staying connected to those truths requires a leap of faith, I am finding, and it is a leap I am convincing myself to take, more and more.

It's pretty nice!

I attribute much of these shifts to the time I've spent in communion with the earth this summer. I just got back from a yoga backpacking trip in Yosemite, which was phenomenal. (Earth said to me, "you are my beloved, and I miss you when you're gone from me.") And my experiences in Mt. Shasta, and the Trinity Alps, and Mojave, and Western Shoshone land, and even the Santa Cruz mountains have all yielded new peace and awareness. Sometimes, in these happy moments of realization, I feel energy moving in my body like glaciers calving and breaking apart.

I'm about to go out of town for three weeks, to facilitate this journey in the Southwest with an amazing group of women attorneys who will connect with Native American women environmental justice leaders. Then I get to celebrate Rosh Hashanah in Albuquerque (complete with a dawn ceremony in Petroglyph National Monument), hang out with my most beloved Reiki teacher who lives in Santa Fe, and then officiate the marriage of my dear friend and colleague. A lot of powerful experiences, and I think I'm able to show up for all this -- my life -- in a way that is entirely new. The bonds of fear seem to be, well, loosening, and boy-oh-boy does that free up some space! I tell you what.

So here I am on my path, one foot in front of the other, not sure what to make of it all, but committing to practicing non-judgment every step of the way. You may not hear from me for a while, but when you do, I promise I'll have some fine stories to share.