Eco feminism – Feminism and Religion

Our Children by Annelinde Metzner

How do we bring our children along? How do we share with them all that is best about being human? All too often, I hear of events in children’s lives that no one should ever experience. Children are being subjected to trauma that will reverberate through all our lives. We are all one people, and all children are our own. These poems are just a few simple meditations on how to bring children along with the best we have to give. My own son passed on in 2004, and I honor all that we taught each other.

The Poet Walks the Woods

“That’s what I’m here for!” says the poet
to the young family,
gazing downward beside the trail.
“The Trillium- they’re called ephemerals
because they don’t last long!
They bloom in spring
just before the leaves are on the trees.
Three petals, three leaves, three everything.
So, Trillium.”
The littlest girl stows away a note
in some memory pocket.
“…When I’m an old woman,
I’ll walk the woods
looking for Trillium…”

Missing Trees by Beth Bartlett

The gap in the trees is a painful reminder of the one that is missing. This past winter an ice and wind storm late in the season brought down the aspen that had sheltered our deck. Its absence is more than a hole in the canopy – it is a hole in the heart. I miss its friendly presence, its shelter, its shade. I suspect I never fully appreciated it until now. It is just the latest in a long line of missing trees – trees lost to disease, insects, climate change.

The paper birch were the first to go. When my dad first bought our family cottage in 1964, paper birch trees arched delicately over the cottage, framing it in white branches against the blue sky. Another large birch stood as a landmark on the top of the hill, and another by the lake was the centerpiece of the circular bench built around it. Several more lined the path down to the lake and dotted the hillside.

When we bought our home in Duluth, paper birches graced the yard on all sides. In the woods out back I’d befriended several of the birches, naming them according to their distinctive shapes – there was the “Mama” birch with its bulging pregnant belly, the three then four-clump birches that I’d named after our music group – “Wild By Nature,” and the glorious “Tree of Life” – a magnificent clump birch of at least twenty connected trunks that served as a talisman for me during the most difficult days of my illness and for many years after my transplant.

The Glorians written by Terry Tempest Williams, discussion by Sara Wright

The Glorians: Visitations from the Holy Ordinary is an astonishing book written by internationally acclaimed writer Terry Tempest Willams that is predicated on the necessity of bearing compassionate witness to all beings during these troubled times. It is a book about family, friends, earth and dreams, the later of which inspired the title. The volume is composed of a series of essays, only one of which I will discuss here.

Terry, who teaches at Harvard Divinity School, writes about the Divinity Tree, a two-hundred-year-old red oak that was removed from the Commons. Listening to this narrative as a ‘Tree Woman’ was/is excruciatingly painful. My stomach roils in misery, but I am compelled to listen, over and over, because this is my story too.

I came to the mountains because I was in love with trees and bears discovering an evergreen paradise or so I thought until the dreams began. In my night stories all the trees were being slaughtered and there was nothing I could do. Since I was surrounded by fragrant forests that stretched from horizon to horizon, I could make no sense of these terrifying warnings and let them be.

Roots in the Air by Sara Wright

I am a plant woman, that is a woman who has an intimate relationship with plants. As an ecofeminist writer I believe that women and plants have a ‘natural’ connection to one another. We see this mythologically as women turn into trees, hold ceremonies under trees, listen to them for wisdom, take comfort from them in distress.

Why do we look to the stars for direction and ignore the urgent messages about interspecies communication that trees and plants convey to us here on earth?

I think this is a very important question to be asking when our planet is facing ecological collapse.

What follows is one woman’s story.

Mountain Mother by Sara Wright

When I picked berries in the mountain field that first summer, I could sense wave after wave of feeling rising up – seeping into my feet from the ground below. The sun spread blue heat over the hills, and I bathed in summer’s glow. For the first time in my life I felt visible, witnessed for who I really was and accepted: I was loved –unconditionally loved by a Mother. That She was a mountain field didn’t seem odd at all. I loved her back – fiercely. I marveled. To be in love with my goddess, the one that lived in this field, brook, young forest, the one who inhabited each of these rolling hills and mountains seemed so natural. Remarkably, She celebrated my presence not only by gifting me with a love that ran like a great underground river beneath me but because She created a palpable sense of belonging. I belonged to Her. She loved me just because I was. I couldn’t get over it. My gratitude knew no bounds. All I wanted to do was to serve her…

She was visible in so many ways – in the riot of purple and green jack in the pulpits that sprung out of the sphagnum moss behind the camp in the moist valley that often filled with water, through the solitary pink lady slipper that appeared by the bridge that crossed the brook, the tiny white swamp violets, the blue fringed gentians and pearl-white turtleheads that popped up in the meadow fed by it’s own spring in the center of the field.

I glimpsed her face in the cedar that sprung to life in the rich wooded soil that bordered the brook, she sang to me from the wild apple branches that bowed over rippling water, she blinked through each firefly night, burst into a “high” when thunder and lightening churned up the waters and the brook overflowed – White Fire crackling out of her clouds and slamming into me.

Broken Roots? by Sara Wright

I write to
find out
who I am
becoming
and when
I implored
Sedna
to take
me back
to the sea
I came
to know
my roots
to Place
were
broken
by age
by betrayal
by loneliness
by advocating
for a planet
animals, trees
by people
who do not listen
by people who
will not see

like Mother Pine
moaning
outside
my door
I too
moan
Unforgiving
Ice and Wind
Treachery on every path
Trees encased
in White

At the Bottom
of the Well
Water Murmured
accept
this Break

Underground
Mycorrhizal
threads remain
your Guides

Sedna
rises
meets you
on
dry land
for the second
time in
one year

A Goose Tale by Sara Wright

It’s the last day of November and small groups Canadian geese are still drifting around on patches of open water. I saw two small groups on North Pond. Although many skeins have flown south along the Atlantic flyway – they can migrate south as far as Mexico and South America -some geese spend the winter along coastal areas in Maine if food resources are available. It’s hard to know whether these groups are migrators from Canada who have stopped over to rest or a few that winter over nearby on the Kennebec or elsewhere along the southern coast of Maine. With warming temperatures Canadian Geese migratory patterns are changing.

Soon after their arrival the female disappears to lay 8 – 10 eggs in her nest that is securely hidden in the reeds while her mate stands watch. When the goslings are born both parents escort them through the water, one parent in front, the other behind. If threatened the male becomes aggressive, a totally appropriate behavior from my point of view. When the little ones are big enough these birds join other families for the rest of the summer and some will probably migrate together. These are such community oriented birds. They make it a habit to get along. Geese are omnivores that will eat almost anything and they mate for life, returning to their designated ‘home’ places to breed year after year. Even before the chicks arrive geese are drawn to some of the 400 million lawns in this country (especially those that are close to water) much to the dismay of some.

Requiem? by Sara Wright

A requiem for the seasons is an act of living remembrance for what is vanishing, be that long-cherished seasonal moments, forms of celebration that once tied us to nature’s cycles, and to more than human species – some that are going extinct.

Cheeping twittering birds awakened me at dawn. The first snow of the season cast a spell over the landscape last night and this generous dusting brought in the wild turkeys… I wished all good morning as I scattered seed under the crabapple. A couple of very friendly individuals followed me back to the door. My little dog Coalie is spellbound. She loves these birds.

I noted turkey hieroglyphics on the doormat as I came in but otherwise took no pleasure from the white shrouded landscape. I used to love snow but because each of the seasons is warming, we are getting mixed precipitation on a regular basis beginning in mid – November. The first snow opens an icy door to winters that are dominated by continuous freeze thaws. Last year I considered myself fortunate to have been able to snowshoe as long as I did.

The Echo Makers 25 by Sara Wright

When I first heard the ‘trumpeting’ and ‘brrring’ it was less than an hour before dawn, but one aggregation was already on the wing headed west, away from the fields. Because their direction led away from the fields, I feared we would not see the Sandhills at all. It was All Saints Day, a time to give thanks to those creatures and people who have helped us along the way. (Sandhills have been been a beacon of Light in my own life). A bloody red sky turned deep rose as the sun shattered the charcoal outline of distant mountains, turning them carmen red. The wind was fierce as I walked up and down the sides of the open agricultural fields listening intently. Gunshots rang out and I wondered where these might be coming from. In Maine it is illegal to shoot migrating cranes. The sunrise was spectacular. Clouds spun themselves out of ruby, slate, and violet hues. Indescribable.

Although snow buntings, red winged blackbirds and two harriers were scrying the skies around the fields after dawn I only had eyes for sandhill sightings!

Witch Hazel, a Tree that Belongs to Women! part 2 by Sara Wright

Part 1 was posted last Tuesday. You can read it here.

Like all flowering plants, witch hazel must be pollinated to produce fruit and seeds, and for this, it relies on insects. These include late-flying gnats and flies as well as forest-dwelling owlet moths, all drawn to the scented flowers and sweet nectar. On warm days like the few we have had this week while surrounded by an annoying cloud, I hoped these flying gnats were also busy pollinating lemony witch hazel ribbons.

The owlet moth is a nocturnal pollinator. These moths remain active after most other pollinators have died or are missing in action. Biologist and naturalist Bernd Heinrich first documented the relationship between witch hazel and owlet moths in 1987 in an article published in Scientific American.