Speaking for nature and healing the disconnect
We are at a crossroads in humanity’s history. Remain on our current trajectory and we face extinction, taking countless species down with us and leaving behind a polluted and scarred world. Alternatively, we can choose to alter the destructive course we have set ourselves on, heal the disconnect we have created between us and the natural world and learn to live in balance with each other and nature.
My belief is that in order for us to find the wisdom and courage to do this, we need to learn to quieten our human noise and listen more carefully to the signs that nature is giving us. As Robin Wall Kimmerer says in her beautiful book, Braiding Sweetgrass:
“Paying attention acknowledges that we have something to learn from intelligences other than our own. Listening, standing witness, creates an openness to the world in which the boundaries between us can dissolve in a raindrop.”
Only when we listen to nature and understand properly our place within it will we have hope of restoring a healthy relationship with the natural world. This relationship is at the heart of a balanced coexistence of humans and nature. Some cultures have never stopped listening and striving for this balance – ours has simply forgotten. Can we tune our ears once more to hear nature’s voice?
I recently attended a vigil for the M32 Maples in the St Paul’s neighbourhood of Bristol. There were banners encouraging passing motorists to “Honk for the Trees!”, people waving flags and music playing out of a sound system strapped to a bike trailer. The M32 Maples are – I should say were – a line of trees standing along the left side of Lower Ashley Road in St Paul’s, as you drive towards the main automotive artery in and out of Bristol, the M32. When we held our vigil on the 4th November, there was only one maple left.
At the crack of dawn the previous day, the developers had come and chopped two more down, where there used to be five. When locals arrived to oppose their actions, the tree-cutters retreated and left behind two felled trees lying half-suspended, their bows entangled with the structures built by the tree-occupiers. To me, it looked like an act of callous destruction, with no sense of respect for the trees or the people trying to protect them.
I chose to attend the vigil because, as a recently arrived inhabitant of St Paul’s, it felt important to witness and participate in such a local act of civil resistance. I also wanted to take some time out of my day-to-day routine to acknowledge and appreciate the presence of these trees, before the scars left by the removal of their stumps disappear underneath tons of concrete and brick. Once they are removed, they will be lost, forgotten, voiceless.
One of the elements of the vigil was a Hebridean mourning ritual. We collected beautiful autumnal leaves from the fallen maples and placed them in a circle on the floor, singing a Hebridean chant – “Na hei, na hei!” – as we did so. While we sang, the woman leading the song instructed us to strike our chest with our fists, making our voices tremble from the impact. Those of us in the circle complied with more or less enthusiasm, feeling a little awkward and unused to such a demonstration of grief. There was something quite evocative about the gesture, however – something deep and ingrained from grief rituals performed in the past, perhaps.
In any case, as we closed our eyes and sang this song, striking our chests, we created a simple and touching moment for the maples. When I let go of my rigid sense of “behaving properly” in a public space, I felt the rage and intense sadness well up in me as I beat my chest, at the thought that these beautiful beings had been senselessly and irreversibly torn down. Who speaks for the maples? We did, in a small and awkward way, that evening.
Soon all traces of these trees might disappear because city planning, in its current form, does not value trees as much as the houses, offices or shops that will be built in their stead for our human needs. Good quality, affordable housing is undoubtedly needed in Bristol, and in St Paul’s in particular. But how consistent is cutting down trees with this need? As we encroach upon nature in our cities, do we pause long enough to understand what we are losing? Do we listen to the voice of the trees telling us why they are here, what purpose they serve, and what right they have to simply exist alongside us?
For some time, we in the West have grown deaf to our impact on the world and the role that nature plays in our very existence. We live in a system largely disconnected from nature ‒ our source of food, energy, health and materials. We tend to forget that all we consume and own comes at a price, one paid by human labour and planetary resources often far removed from our sphere of awareness. This price is now becoming too great: our societies are fraying at the edges and our planetary systems are showing worrying signs of strain. Deafness is no longer an option.
Acknowledging the voice of nature is central in our journey towards healing our relationship with the planet. We need to learn to respect the other beings and elements that inhabit this planet if we are to live in equilibrium with them, an equilibrium without which we simply cannot survive. Indigenous cultures the world over can teach us these practices of respect and care for the land. We urgently need to learn these lessons if we are to turn the tide on the climate and ecological emergency we have caused.
So, let us slow down, pause and recognise all that the Earth provides for us on a daily basis. If we learn to once more look around us and understand that everything we are and have is from the Earth, then continuing along our suicidal and ecocidal path will become an impossibility. We can heal the disconnect that we have fallen into.
Once we do this, we will be able to incorporate nature into our town planning such that the M32 Maples need not be felled and we can bring the natural world back from the margins into the heart of our cities where it is much needed. When we do, nature will respond in the only way she knows how. She will continue to thrive, give generously, and provide us with all that we need. The trees will clean our air and our water and will share with us their beautiful autumn colours year on year.
As the campaigners fighting for the last M32 Maple are doing, let us learn to speak up for nature and strive for a world where nature’s voice is heard and honoured. Nothing short of this will suffice, if we are to turn our path away from the precipitous cliff humanity is heading for.
Note: the last M32 Maple has been felled since this article was originally written. It was cut down early in the morning of 1st March 2021, even as one of its protectors slept in a cabin up in the tree. The development of the site is now well under way, with no trace of the formal majestic Norway Maples.