Because I know you all understand

[Persephone]

I didn't know of an appropriate place to put this, so please move it to the appropriate place if this is not it.

Near our apt there is this field. I have been taking walks over there for 3 years, since even before I got pg. Chris and I would walk along the old railroad tracks, and imagine taking our unborn baby there one day, and showing her the wonders of nature. I imagined taking a walk out there in the middle of the night in the bracing cold during my labor. I have used that place as my refuge when I couldn't stand to be in the apt for one more second, the concrete of the city closing in around me. I learned from nature there. I watched the oaks standing guard over the entry, the squirrels gathering the acorns. I made the glorious discovery of mulberry trees- tons of them, including one white mulberry tree, and managed to gather enough to make a quart of jam! I tried the next year, but the birds took every last one. It's ok with me though, it's an important source of food for them. As is the giant poke weeds. The goldfinches use the giant thistles to feed from, and feather their nests. The bees use the thistle, and the goldenrod, and the countless other unidentified wildflowers for their food. The butterflies use the goldenrod, and the thistles, and the milkweed pods for their food. This place is a stopping point on the monarch's migration route. In early fall, you can see them flitting all over the red clover, eating their fill. This is a place of healing herbs, like teasel, plantain, horsetail, and burdock. Once, I took newborn V over there on a walk, and startled a river otter. I guess he's the source of all those empty mollusk shells on the shores of the creek. Crawdads and minnows live in the water; ducks and turtles feed there. We go to look at the creatures, skip stones. We had our Tashlich ceremony there this year. I had a special relationship with a feminine weeping willow. I used her branches as shade in the summer when we needed to be outside. Every year, the red winged blackbirds would race Chris when we ran over there. They sat as sentinels, chirping the warning that humans were there, and following us to make sure we behaved. A dead tree served as home to a family of downy woodpeckers and bats. This land is priceless. And it's gone. I'm sick to my stomach. I haven't even been to look; I can't look. The owner cut it all down, all the shrubbery, healing herbs, homes of all those animals, gone. The weeping willow tree, gone. I weep. I'm the only one weeping there now.

[Persephone]

(The minnows are hard to see there, but you can see their little shadows)

[crabapple]

Oh, honey, I'm sorry.

If it's any comfort, remember that the seeds are all still there.
_________________
Rebecca Hartman
Crabapple Herbs: http://crabappleherbs.com/
The Herbwife's Kitchen: http://crabappleherbs.com/blog/

[Bear_Medicine]

big hugs, persephone, I've been there, and damn, it hurts.
_________________
~*~ Kiva Rose
Anima Lifeways & Herbal School http://animacenter.org
Anima Healing Arts Health & Herbal Clinic:
http://animahealingarts.org
Traditions in Western Herbalism Conference: http://traditionsinwesternherbalism.org

[dreamseeds]

awwww....I am so glad you shared your feelings about this special place. Yes we do understand.
Rebecca shared soem words of hope. I know it does not replace what has been taken exactly for those poor animals and the beautiful escape you and your child had.

And to share a deer the other day ran into my car. I was devasted not because he tore my door up (my daughter was fine) but that it is not fair that we have taken over all the land. ANd the deer was jsut being a deer.
I cried for days and made a monument in my yard for the animal. It does hurt
_________________
~Kristena~
http://www.dreamseedsorganics.com
Dreamseeds Organics Blog

[jim mcdonald]

one of the nicest patches (wasn't so especially big) of woodland I've ever seen in SE michigan, and certainly the most amazing topsoil (black and deep) exists today as a highly manicured subdivision. I watched the whole of the transition, from the tagging of trees to the cutting if trees to the plowing and leveling of soil. there was a creek that squiggled through the woods in the curviest of curvy ways, and one day I arrived to see that they had plumbed almost the entirety of it into big sewer pipes and buried it, building instead a squarish "lake"alongside where it once ran. My heart still aches for that land. It was one of the few wooded areas in the area that was so mature, and the only place I've seen wild goldenseal in michigan. It was carpeted in trillium, geranium, blue, red and white cohosh (baneberries), mayapple, trout lily, violets, bloodroot... oh, so many woodland beauties...

What I did, to make what good of what I could, was to rescue and transplant as many of the unique species as i could, spreading them round to other parks, friends properties, and such as I could. Many of these are still alive & kickin today. Some are thriving, some perished, some are holding their own but haven't spread much (soil conditions? pollinators?).

Not sure if there are any roots you can dig and move, but if so, do so. even if its a cocklebur or other weedy species. It'll feel good, and the plants will remember it and bless you.
_________________
jim mcdonald
~herbalist~
www.herbcraft.org

[Persephone]

Jim-

Thanks for sharing your story. I read it and went away, but I came back because I couldn't stop thinking about it. My first thought was, "I've heard that story before." Meaning, its the same thing that happens time and again to so many wild places. We moved to an older subdivision when I was in Jr High, and I watched the farmland and the wild places, and a historic one room schoolhouse get torn down to be replaced by a drive thru, a Target, and several restaurants. Ugh. But I just thought, why couldn't they have preserved as many trees as possible, along with the creek, and built around them? That would make the land more valuable- to advertise a "mature" subdivision with mature trees, right from the start? People want that! I don't know anyone who likes their McMansion with a twig in the front yard. Sigh.

I don't know if I have the courage to go back to my wild place, but if I do, I will see about transplanting something. Maybe the poke is still there. And I'd get a certain satisfaction from spreading around some horsetail. *evil grin*