Cortes Island is the site of great change in how we humans understand the magic of trees. In times past we mostly saw the magic of trees as they fell to the ground, their thundering death meant lumber and fuel; work for the many and riches for the few. Now we understand the magic of leaving trees standing in their moss deep, rain sparkling patches of intact forest. Perhaps this is because we are slowly remembering how to be intact ourselves. We are remembering how to leave more than what we take, how to manage other-than-human-life as a responsibility instead of as a commodity, how to determine value by considering something more than gain.
When we remember our own intactness—we can honor the integrity of the land that surrounds and supports us. When we kneel before a giant tree to give a gift of our breath; of food made for spirit with our hands, we rise up to the full height of our human purpose and beauty.
I understand that most of us rural folks live in wooden houses, and use wood for fuel and in a thousand, thousand other ways. Yet when a sense of shared “ensparkedness” pervades our relationship with the wild, this feeling generates community, and within community we find family. Here on this island, and everywhere, may we ask the plants that we grow, and eat and work with—to adopt us.
