Sacred to me, anyway.
The trees around here are not large and magnificent. They’re scrub oak, and I’ve heard people speak about them very disparagingly. But there’s something magical about an oak grove, even scrub oaks. In fact, I have come to love the scrub oaks; all you have to do to appreciate them is scale down your expectations from the larger oaks found elsewhere.
The scrub oak are highly variable. Many of them grow up, and then send their branches sweeping back down to the ground, creating a sheltered space. Others send low branches out almost parallel to the ground. And some reach for the sky–at their own scale. They have their own kind of beauty and magnificence, but you have to be looking for it to notice it. Over years of walking among them, I’ve learned to look.
This is what I used to call “my settin’ spot”.
It was at about the 35-minute point of a one hour walk–just right to stop and take a brief rest. Here are some more shots taken at different times in and around the grove.
The tree in the middle in the above picture is the the actual “settin’ spot”. The other pictures are what one sees when sitting in that spot. Here’s one of the dogs in the settin’ tree.
This was the entrance to the grove.
There was something about this space that was very restorative to my soul, even in the summer, when it was dry and brown. I often went there when something was troubling me, or I just needed a moment to reconnect with nature.
When my littlest Shiba (that sounds like a book title, maybe for a children’s book–“The Littlest Shiba”) died three years ago, I carried her body out there for one last visit. This is a picture of her taken in the grove on the last walk she ever took, just before she was diagnosed with the cancer that killed her.
I thought about burying her there. Now I’m glad I didn’t.
I set out this morning to take a walk that would take me by there. I was looking forward to resting and communing briefly with the trees when I got there. But this is what it looks like now:
Here you can see the contrast between the natural and the bulldozed land. The grove used to be just to the left of the fence in this picture.
Imagine Joni Mitchell singing “They Paved Paradise” in the background. This isn’t paradise, and they aren’t putting in a parking lot–I understand it’s going to be a housing development–but that’s the way it felt to me when I saw the fence and the bulldozed land.
Here are some more pictures taken on the now-bulldozed land. All this is now gone.
These previously-posted shots were also taken in the area they’ve bulldozed: Surreal, Essence of Poodle, Tree Dogs, and the bird shots from the Walk Photo Gallery. The dogs are in my actual settin’ spot in Tree Dogs, and a couple of the dog shots from the Walk Photo Gallery were also taken from my settin’ spot.
The signs of coming development have been appearing for a few years now, and I know people need housing, and I know this area is short on housing, and I know it’s selfish of me to wish I could have stopped this from happening (to say nothing of absurd to think I could have). But still. It makes me sad.
Someday, in the foreseeable future, there will be no more sacred groves left anywhere in the world, unless something intervenes. In the larger scheme of things, the loss of one scrub oak grove hardly qualifies as a tragedy. And yet–I can’t help but feel that something sacred is gone, that there was a spirit about that land that has simply departed, and that this is a loss worth taking note of. I wish I were more eloquent, so I could do it justice.
Here’s the last picture I took out there. I was sitting in crotch of the settin’ tree, trying to capture the effect of the branches framing the sky.
it’s nice to be under the shelter of trees – a warm, protected feeling, coolness even in the hottest of midday sun. Trees are such wonderful companions – living a long life, patiently seeing out all sorts of weather conditions, there for birds to sit on. I think I’m waxing a bit lyrical, but I think of trees as gentle creatures, alive. They deserve more respect than we give them.
ggw
LikeLike
I like lyrical–I just can’t do it.
Thanks for the comment.
LikeLike
I agree with you and ggw, trees deserve our respect. As a child I always wanted to see the giant redwoods. I finally got to see them and spend some time among them and it was an experience I’ll never forget. I was awed by their size and the feeling I had being in their presence. My Beaner cat and I hiked the trail for several days and camped in their shelter. She enjoyed the redwood forest as much as I did. I was sad to leave.
LikeLike
[…] 23rd, 2007 at 4:23 am (pets, photography, Photos) I’ve been in a bit of a funk since my last post. I’m coming out of it now, but blogging will have to go on a back burner for awhile–the […]
LikeLike
Oh, how sad! Those trees were gorgeous.
I was raised in Phoenix, so I have an almost holy communion with trees (and water). The death of one tree breaks my heart, but to lose a mature grove that that! So sad.
If you waxed any more lyrically, I’d be weeping.
LikeLike
Can there be such beauty?
I didnt think it could exist.
LikeLike
when we desrtroy such a sared place, we distroy not only beauty, but we destroy a informationchannel for the development of our consciousness… and thats a human tragedy, born out of ignorance and greed.
LikeLike
[…] was started years ago–it’s what my sacred grove was bulldozed to make way for–but then stalled in the economic downturn–you know, the one before the national one, […]
LikeLike
I wrote a post about trees gone by way of development and was looking for a picture of a piece of bulldozed land and came upon this post of yours. I hope that it’s ok I used – and credited, of course, your first image of the bulldozed grove. This post of yours makes me as sad to read it as mine did to write it. My post is scheduled to go live tomorrow. Let me know if you don’t want me to use your image. Cheers.
LikeLike
[…] THIS IMAGE IS FROM ANOTHER BLOG, FROM A POST CALLED “Requiem for a sacred grove”: https://addofio.wordpress.com/2007/02/18/requiem-for-a-sacred-grove/ […]
LikeLike