An acquaintance sent this article on the small forest preserves in Ethiopia. The video is less than 10 minutes and well worth watching. The pictures in many ways tell thousands of words. Interesting to me: many of the visuals remind me of parts of north and central California where the trees and shrubs were removed to make way for cattle grazing - the visual effects I think are best captured by the late great radical novelist Edward Abbey's description of a "cow-burnt west". Deforestation in Ethiopia was also driven by agriculture to a large extent as well.
Now these forests are occupied by a handful of eremites. Their lived experience in these patches of natural oasis lends toward a wisdom that we seem to have lost in our industrialized and bustling commercial existence: "“In this world nothing exists alone,” he said. “It’s interconnected. A beautiful tree cannot exist by itself. It needs other creatures. We live in this world by giving and taking. We give CO2 for trees, and they give us oxygen. If we prefer only the creatures we like and destroy others, we lose everything. Bear in mind that the thing you like is connected with so many other things. You should respect that co-existence.” As Alemayehu explained, biodiversity gives rise to a forest’s emergent properties. “If you go into a forest and say, ‘I have ten species, that’s all,’ you’re wrong. You have ten species plus their interactions. The interactions you don’t see: it’s a mystery. This is more than just summing up components, it’s beyond that. These emergent properties of a forest, all the flowering fruits—it’s so complicated and sophisticated. These interactions you cannot explain, really. You don’t see it.”"
In my mind I see these eremites like Zosima in the Brothers Karamzov: "Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect." Of course I may be romanticizing these good people's experience in these forest patches - I've never been there and never met any of the eremites that do.
And yet, as the author notes: "The trees’ fate is bound to ours, and our fate to theirs. And trees are nothing if not tenacious." For these Ethiopians, at least, a tree is tied inextricably to their salvation. But isn't it true that for all of us the tree is a source of life and ought to be honored as such?
Now these forests are occupied by a handful of eremites. Their lived experience in these patches of natural oasis lends toward a wisdom that we seem to have lost in our industrialized and bustling commercial existence: "“In this world nothing exists alone,” he said. “It’s interconnected. A beautiful tree cannot exist by itself. It needs other creatures. We live in this world by giving and taking. We give CO2 for trees, and they give us oxygen. If we prefer only the creatures we like and destroy others, we lose everything. Bear in mind that the thing you like is connected with so many other things. You should respect that co-existence.” As Alemayehu explained, biodiversity gives rise to a forest’s emergent properties. “If you go into a forest and say, ‘I have ten species, that’s all,’ you’re wrong. You have ten species plus their interactions. The interactions you don’t see: it’s a mystery. This is more than just summing up components, it’s beyond that. These emergent properties of a forest, all the flowering fruits—it’s so complicated and sophisticated. These interactions you cannot explain, really. You don’t see it.”"
In my mind I see these eremites like Zosima in the Brothers Karamzov: "Love to throw yourself on the earth and kiss it. Kiss the earth and love it with an unceasing, consuming love. Love all men, love everything. Seek that rapture and ecstasy. Water the earth with the tears of your joy and love those tears. Don’t be ashamed of that ecstasy, prize it, for it is a gift of God and a great one; it is not given to many but only to the elect." Of course I may be romanticizing these good people's experience in these forest patches - I've never been there and never met any of the eremites that do.
And yet, as the author notes: "The trees’ fate is bound to ours, and our fate to theirs. And trees are nothing if not tenacious." For these Ethiopians, at least, a tree is tied inextricably to their salvation. But isn't it true that for all of us the tree is a source of life and ought to be honored as such?
