On Forest Fires and Eco-Grief

Reflecting on the grief that we’ve felt this week as we huddle around filter-fans and watch the smoke paint the sky orange, a bittersweet yet comforting memory came to me.

When I left my rural upbringing to attend college, I felt completely unprepared for the outside world that I also so desperately wanted to see before it was gone. Whenever I was hurt or confused or overworked by life, I’d go sit in the center of Stump—an enormous walnut trunk in a small grove on campus that was big enough to curl up on—and look at the clouds or the stars. I’d imagine the great big world ‘Out There’ and soothe my soul with promises to myself—and to the Earth that I was more than aware was dying faster than I could save the dollars to see. 

Then one day, for no reason other than it was an ‘eyesore,’ they turned Stump into sawdust. 

A friend came running to tell me but I arrived at the scene too late to do anything but glare. After the workers finally left, I kicked off my shoes, gathered my skirt around my knees and sat on top of the mountain of woodchips, not caring how treehugger or hillbilly I looked.

And then something beautiful occurred—a student whom I didn’t know came up and said “I was thinking about you when I saw them, I’m so sorry.” Then another arrived to say something similar and to share how they also sometimes came to Stump for peace. A teacher came over and told me that he’d often taught his classes from Stump. Then another. The group grew and the hours passed as people continued to come pay their condolences to the sawdust and to share memories of its impact on them.

I still have a piece of Stump. I kept it to remind me of the arboreal family member that supported me through so much, but today it reminded me of something more important. 

All those times that Stump soothed, encouraged, and strengthened me and so many others—she was already dead. 

I’ve spent half of my life dreading the dying of the world, watching it die with my own eyes. I’ve seen the ocean vomit plastic, forests burn, beaches wash away, deserts form where once were marshes, rivers turn orange, tree roots cram through attic windows—this is my inheritance. I’ve always known that.

But even after all these years, Stump persists as a reminder that life is the most relentless force on the planet. It exists in the darkest parts of the ocean, the deepest caves, the highest mountaintops, and even the dust of the dead and dying. We can’t stop so much of the destruction we’ve put into play, but what is left to us is still far more than we can grasp now. As much as my heart bleeds daily I don’t want to spend the rest of my finite time with Mother Earth in mourning. I am learning to love her through it all—her shriveled balding head, her wrinkled toothless grin after yet another painful racking of her body, her voice in my ear saying “hush child, you will be ok. Isn’t life beautiful?” 

It hurts. I can’t sugarcoat it. But that there is still Life in the dying. There is still beauty, there is still space for feeling the ecstasy of existence. We have to hold onto that.