Strong Webs of Life and the Wisdom of Trees

Midsummer, traditionally marking the beginning of the harvest season, has been filled with food, family and close friends, as well as the continuing beauty of the Earth. Rose of Sharon and Butterfly Bushes are blooming, bringing bees, butterflies and hummingbirds to enjoy their sweet nectar, returning the gift of the flowers by bringing new life for the shrubs. In the hollow, many more rabbits have emerged than in past years, quietly grazing on green grass and resting peacefully under evergreens we transplanted from live Christmas trees. Our annual harvest of onions from the garden has gone well, with over 150 bulbs dug up and placed in the hot sun to cure before being stored for the winter.

At the produce auction, row upon row of corn, tomatoes, muskmelons, watermelon, peppers, onions, potatoes, squash and much more are offered by local growers, providing the community with abundant sources of food in an area marked by poverty, malnutrition and addictions. The food club has been paying rock-bottom prices for the wonderful produce, a gift of the season of abundance. As regular buyers at the market, the food club is appreciated for the steady demand we give in exchange for the excellent food; we have been repeatedly thanked for our attendance at the auction.

In years of abundance like this, when our region’s crops have been plentiful, I worry that we are paying too little for this gift of life. Unlike typical buyer-seller relationships, we do not necessarily wish to get the lowest price possible; rather we want to pay our fair share, to provide a good deal for our members while sustaining the livelihood of the growers who we depend on. We want the communities of producers to thrive and sustain themselves in exchange for sustaining our community of consumers.

As midsummer approached, our refrigerator and kitchen table was full of food from the auction, the farmers’ market and our garden. We contacted our family and suggested we bring a midsummer meal to the home of the parents of our family’s newborn child. The parents agreed and soon a meal was planned with the uncle, aunt, the aunt’s daughter and the daughter’s partner joining the new parents and their baby. We brought a meal including local dishes of veggie patties with marinara sauce and cheese on top, sweet corn, two kinds of beet and potato salads, and much more.

After over an hour of visiting, we ate the meal while the baby slept briefly. The young one awoke and cried out to join us. She was sat in her high chair and fed while we continued to enjoy our meal. Afterwards, we went to the living room where, as times before, the newborn entertained us with her love of life and zest to move around, play and explore the world new to her.

During a pause, the young Mom brought books on pregnancy she had to her niece, who is pregnant with her first child. They chatted briefly and the pregnant young woman took the books to prepare herself for the time to come. This small, simple act of kindly family consideration is at the heart of the traditional women’s culture and speaks volumes of the value of family and love.

After a full day of visiting and celebrating the gift of family and life that we have received, we returned home, remarking on the beauty of the day. The newborn’s uncle said that he thought his sister was the happiest she has ever been and we agreed, thankful for the gifts of good health and love we have all received.

As midsummer continued, we opened an IPA brewed for the hot weather of August, enjoying the light taste in the summer heat. After years of brewing beer, we have found recipes that we enjoy for each season, with the lighter beers of Pilsner and IPA for the summer and dark beers such as Porters and Stouts for the cold of winter. Like the seasonal food, we choose our beer in harmony with the time of year.

As the midsummer continued, we also shared a seasonal meal with a boy who my wife and I babysat several years ago whose family has since moved away. As part of a week with his grandmother, the eleven year old, his grandmother and a friend joined us for a meal of ratatouille and pesto with other dishes. The mélange of tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, onions, and garlic seasoned with fresh basil and parsley—all from the produce auction or our garden—was a filling meal to share. With his grandmother the young boy made a bread pudding and watermelon salad for desert, returning our gift of food with his own offering.

At the end of the visit, we wandered down to the hollow to show the young boy the place he’d played and sledded in years before. With trees growing tall and rabbits in the field, the abundance of the Earth—created by the good works of trees and other plants and animals bringing forth life from the inert soil—was evident. The hollow provides food, beauty, a place for children to play in and adults to enjoy nature, all in exchange for us allowing the Earth to peacefully re-create life with as little interference from the human world as we can allow. As time passes, the Earth makes the hollow a more sustainable, richer and stronger web of life, through simple, joyful acts of butterflies and bees gathering nectar and birds, rabbits and others mating and raising young.

Even as midsummer reaches its peak, the signs of fall and the cold season of Earthly sleep are appearing. The leaves of Black Walnut trees are turning yellow and falling, soon to be followed by Box Alder and others. Sweet autumn apples are ripening, as are grapes in local orchards and vineyards. The time of sunlight is fading, soon to be replaced by rapidly growing darkness.

As the elders in our families, we are privileged to share in the beginning of new life with younger family and friends, providing us true joy as we become more aware of the shortness of our lives. I take comfort that I can see, for all my failings, some of my actions as a family member, a friend, an activist and a member of my community has helped strengthen the web of life that children around us—whether human, rabbit, trees or others—are born into. Regardless of my isolated, personal fate in some other, unknown realm, helping to create a stronger natural and human web of life is a gift that my faith in good works has helped provide. For the next generation, that is what is important.

Across the street from where I work, a natural field of grass and trees, some decades old, has been razed and turned to dust, with earthmovers destroying the natural community to provide buildings for the university’s medical college. The natural community, based on gift-giving of life by plants and animals, is being replaced by lifeless concrete and steel, soon to be followed by roaches, mice, and other urban members of the industrial human community that is based on consumption.

Our region needs skilled medicine, but the destruction of the natural community and the many people I know who have found remedies to health problems that providers of western medicine could not solve makes me wonder how much wisdom will be taught in the near-lifeless hallways of concrete and steel. Will it compare with the wisdom of trees and flowers offering their gifts and good works to insects, birds and animals? How much can humanity itself learn, were we to turn away from urban, human teachers and consider other sources of knowledge in the abundant, joyous Earth?