Sara Wright – Page 24 – Feminism and Religion

Of Women and Wildflowers by Sara Wright

Women and plants have been in relationship since the dawn of humankind. Women were the Seed keepers. Women created agriculture. Women learned what herbs to use for healing. Women noticed wildflowers, loved them, grew them and painted them, created poems about them. Some women and plants still share a deep bond, and as an herbalist I am one of these women. My relationship with wildflowers stretches back to the first word I ever spoke – “cups” for the wild buttercups I loved and gathered as a toddler.

Recently, I joined a wildflower identification site online because wild flowers are so dear to my heart. Every spring I am drawn into the forest glades to meet my diminutive friends that burst unbidden, unfurling from moisture laden rotting leaves. So many are fragrant!

With the summer solstice on the horizon and abnormally high temperatures, we are living a withering drought, and my intrepid little wildflowers are fading, their annual cycle completed earlier than usual. Even in a good year this wildflower season is never long enough for me.

From the Ground Up by Sara Wright

As a 76 year old feminist who lives alone (except for animals) I have been struck by some recent experiences I have had with kind men, men that I would call “Mothers’ sons”. Overall, throughout my life I have had negative experiences with males beginning, of course, with my own father, which is why I eventually made the choice about 30 years ago to live alone.

These Mothers’ sons seem to have little or no interest in power or control but appear to live by another code, one that is not predicated on domination. As this prose poem indicates one such man is replacing the rotting timbers in my house, a difficult and labor – intensive job for one person. He is working alone, not out of choice, but because he cannot find one person who isn’t busy building million dollar houses for outrageous sums of money that are sprouting up like weeds in Western Maine. I have been looking for someone to do the work for five long years without success, and with a growing sense of desperation. Because it is men like these that we need to help restructure our toxic culture my burning question for the readers of FAR is how do we help create and support men like this one?

Lessons From the Mother Tree by Sara Wright

Picture of Sara Wright standing outside in nature

Last night I was reading Forest Scientist Susanne Simard’s new book “Finding the Mother Tree”. She was writing about how uncanny it was that her personal life has paralleled that of trees, the forests, the plants, the fungi, the mycorrhiza (underground networks), she has been studying for more than thirty years. This weaving of Nature’s ways through human lives has also been my life experience, although I am a naturalist and not a scientist. (I capitalize the word “nature” to accord her the Sovereignty that is missing because most humans see Nature as a “resource” to be used – not a Living Being). I take note of the fact that so many of these tree advocates are women.

I observe and listen to Nature by paying close attention to weather patterns, to flourishing or withering leaves, bowed or broken trees, to wind, to parched ground, to birds, to animals, to water, to fire, water, earth and air, and by being emotionally present to whatever is happening in my own backyard while scanning earth and sky for ‘signs’ of what’s to come. I receive the answers I need if not through a bird sighting, a porcupine, a clump of moss, a dying tree, then through dreams. For months now I have been threatened by the immanent loss of our forests by way of dreaming.

‘Mother’ West Wind and Mary’s Gold by Sara Wright

One day last week it almost drizzled. When I stepped outside that morning I was engulfed by fragrant mist. Rarely does light fog give the thirst- driven forest a temporary reprieve, greening needles, and encouraging tiny leaves to unfurl. With this destructive weather pattern in place the next round of west wind hits the following day, graying out the green and cracking open the earth, perhaps bringing down another round of trees. The Cloud people continue to withhold the precious gift of water…

We have been suffering from drought for so long now that every tree, bush, and plant appears without an emerald coat. Harsh northwest winds, unseasonable heat, cold, and air so dry my lips are cracking have stunted most spring growth. Wildflowers have shrunk to half their size, and in places the woods are bare. High ground is parched. Lowlands are dry, and frogs, toads, and salamanders have few vernal pools in which to lay eggs. A glaring sky that denies the earth healing rain month after month brings on deadly headaches, my body’s response to endless frustration and longing.

Bears and Radical Ecology by Sara Wright

As an eco feminist I am deeply concerned with the loss of the animals I love. One of these is the Black bear whose visits are becoming more and more scarce as the forest around me disappears. The bear in this poem is unlike the bears I used to know in that he is terrified of me. When I first fell in love with bears it was because they embodied the soul and body of the Great Mother in a way that was meaningful to me. It is no accident that Black bears were honored as great healers by Indigenous peoples around the globe. The first images of them appeared on cave walls approximately 50,000 years ago.

Visionary Night

A furry
shadow –
ever dimming vision –
did I imagine
him?
The woods
are needled –
Bare twigs
stick out,
pine spears
behind Her.
Mother Tree –
She who
sheltered his kin.
He thinks
rough elephantine
arms will
provide
protection from
his greatest threat –
human supremacy.
I cry out in desperation:
“I am not one of them”.
(this woman who loves bears)

“Finding The Mother Tree” by Sara Wright

Susan Simard received her PhD in Forest Science and is a research scientist who works primarily in the field. Part of her dissertation was published in the prestigious journal Nature. Currently she is a professor in the department of Forest and Conservation Sciences at the University of British Columbia where she is the director of The Mother Tree Project. She is designing forest renewal practices, investigating the ecological resilience of forests, and studying the importance of mycorrhizal networks during this time of climate change.

Susan’s research over the past 30 plus years has changed how many scientists perceive the relationship between trees, plants, and the soil. Her intuitive ideas about the importance of underground mycorrhizal networks inspired a whole new line of research that has overturned longstanding misconceptions about forest ecosystems as a whole. Mycorrhizae are symbiotic relationships that form between fungi and plants. The fungi colonize the root systems of plants providing water and nutrients while the plant provides the fungus with carbohydrates. The formation of these networks is context dependent.

Wood Frog Mother by Sara Wright

Dead Cedar
Week after week
heat, wind, sun,
shrinks vernal pools.
Ditches are dry.
Denizens
of wet forest,
masked gold leaves,
seek shallow depressions
fed by Spring.

One night the
heat wave breaks
I smell rain,
hear hoarse croaks.
I stand there
swallowing sound
inhaling fragrant air
Lamenting absence –
so many voices stolen
by drought.

Broken Mothers by Sara Wright

I awakened under clouds
feeling respite from fierce
heat in April that
forced maple, birch,
beech, and poplar
to bud and burst.

First we planted
Balsam seedlings;
He climbed birch
to saw off
dying trunks,
some broken
beyond recognition,
wreckage from
the ice storm
a winter holocaust
that stole my peace,
my trust in white,
deep restful sleep.

Vigil by Sara Wright

Preface: I am submitting this story for publication because it occurred during the Christian Holy Week and because it involves me, a woman who follows her dreams… That I did so in this instance was important in ways that I cannot comprehend rationally. But I know that it involved creating space for some kind of passing over from one way of being to another. Every word is true.

Roy comes Home

In the dream I’m creating a ceremony to welcome Roy home – it’s very elaborate – yet fluid – it’s fine when I make mistakes – I am creating the space for his death but also welcoming him home. I am also asking for gifts that are expensive. Someone, I think it’s Roy, says humorously and with kindness, “You don’t want much do you?” I laugh. He is teasing me. I finish the ceremony, and I see Roy in an old dented truck pulling on his ears – he can’t hear me but we have made contact. There is such Joy in his heart that I know All Will Be Well….