Activism with Heart
As I learn about trees and what is happening to them, other concerns and thoughts come together: trees, global warming, effects on the soil and on animal life and on the most vulnerable people on the planet (impoverished women and children—especially girl children), as a result of corporate emphasis on short-term bottom lines, and my own collusion through what I eat, buy, and do. I come to a mental discomfort zone in myself that is familiar. With consciousness comes choice, with choice comes responsibility to do something. There is so much to do, so many causes and appeals. Just as the seed for this book was the destruction of one tree that was special to me, ripples of thought associations result from what I learn about what I could do, what others I know are doing, and how doing something rather than nothing does feel better. Also, whatever any of us does, if it comes from the heart and, I'd add, from a depth of feeling for what needs help and therefore from who we are, then what we do and how much is the next right action for us.
In 2006, Rebecca Hosking was horrified at seeing hundreds of bird carcasses dead from plastic bags lodged in their stomachs, went to her hometown of Modbury, England, and persuaded all of its forty-three shopkeepers to agree to a plastic-bag ban (Adams, “Rebecca Hosking: Banning Plastic Bags,” Time, 2009, p. 52). One appalled and compassionate woman led the way; by 2009, eighty other towns in the United Kingdom had followed suit. In 2007, San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's proposal banning plastic bags and requiring recyclable or compostable sacks passed to make San Francisco the first city in the United States to do so. Where I live, the grocery checkout line becomes a moment of choice: paper or plastic? (Trees or birds?) My solution, a large colorful and reusable bag that proclaims: “I used to be a plastic bottle.”
Ever since I wrote Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, I've been a message carrier out in the world, saying, “Mother Wants You!” But consistent with the individuation work I do as a Jungian analyst, I speak of how important it is to take on what you recognize as being your particular assignment, and not something others say you ought to do. I think that when an assignment comes along with your name on it, you can recognize it by your answers to three questions that only you can answer: “Is this meaningful?” Every good cause is meaningful, but is this one meaningful to you? “Will it be fun?” Not to underestimate that it will be work, may take courage, and may mark you as weird, but to make the point: will you be in good company, are these people with whom you can laugh and cry, work through difficulties, and stand shoulder to shoulder? Fun also has to do with tapping into your creativity and using who you are for a cause close to your heart. And last, “Is it motivated by love?” Love of what or whom you care about and want to help or save generates energy; success is measured by your heart in the small stories as well as in achieving goals.
You may not feel a strong, inaudible call to your activist soul when the desire to make a difference and ways to do so grows slowly, one step at a time. Many activists began as volunteers, recruited from the sidelines. When help was needed, they showed up. Activism often begins by doing one thing, and then the next right thing. It may begin with emails that raise your hackles or your consciousness, or calls to your compassionate heart. The first active step may be the petitions you sign and the donations you make. It may lead to going to meetings or a conference. One thing leads to another and you find your assignment. However you get there, once you recognize and commit to your assignment, it will likely take more than you expected and give more in return.
The Naturalist Who Became a Writer-Activist
I came across Joan Dunning, who exemplifies just this, when a title in the used book section at my local bookstore, Book Passage, caught my eye: From the Redwood Forest: Ancient Trees and the Bottom Line: A Headwaters Journey, which she wrote. Joan was asked by a friend, “Will you just come to a meeting?” She said yes simply to get her friend to stop nagging, thinking it would also be token support for her local ecosystem. Joan was a naturalist who studied birds and was asked to read from a chapter she had written on the marbled murrelet, an unusual, robin-sized seabird, which should be a ground nester like the rest of its family but instead makes its nest in the tallest living things on Earth. High in redwood forests, the marbled murrelet incubates one glass-green egg in a depression in a bed of thick lichens.
As Joan read, she became aware of all the emotion behind the observant naturalist that she is. The assignment she took on was this book, written for “the millions of parents who take care of every aspect of their children's lives but one: whether the Earth itself will survive.” Her guides were the young people she met, mostly in their twenties. A young man who spent nights and days in a small hammock suspended high above the ground attached to the trunk of one of these redwoods was one of her teachers. He gave a firsthand description of what he witnessed as these ancient trees are felled, beginning with the creation of the fall-bed to cushion the fall so the massive tree won't splinter, to how just before it falls, it begins to vibrate, tremble, and then shake as if it were still alive, then, slowly at first, begins to lean. Others have said that they sometimes hear a sound like a shrieking cry at the point that a great tree starts to fall.
When she looks up at old growth trees that are still standing, Joan thinks about him and what he willingly did. I like how she described the young activists whose efforts would be only partially successful: “They stand . . . with the majesty of old-growth redwoods . . . straight and tall like the few stands of old growth that still remain” (From the Redwood Forest, 1998, p. 4).
The Tree Sitter and the Passerby
On Vancouver Island, in June 2010, Hilary Huntley, a young Canadian artist, suddenly became a tree activist when she learned that three majestic Garry oaks (Quercus garryana) were to be cut down for a sports field and took immediate personal action. She climbed into one of them, determined to thwart the tree cutters, and became the center of a spontaneous community effort to save them. A day after Hilary climbed into her perch, Clare Peterson was taking a morning walk on a trail nearby when she heard a loud voice calling “Hello!” Clare looked around, didn't see anyone, but responded with a hello right back. The voice said, “Over here!” which took her to the foot of the giant Garry oak and to Hilary, who said, “Did you know that they are planning to cut down this tree on Tuesday morning? They will have to take me with it. I'm staying right here and am not moving.”
Clare told me that as she walked away, she asked herself, “Why would I get involved? What could I do?” And as she wondered, “What would I sit up in a tree for?” she suddenly heard herself say, “I must support any woman who will sit in a tree for what she believes.” Energized now, she tapped into her organizing abilities, and networks that were already in place went into action. A tree vigil formed. Everyone did her bit, from phoning powers that be and the baseball clubs, to bombarding city council members with emails and phone calls, to alerting local media that covered the story. A ten-year-old girl was told by her mother to skip school to be with the tree people and learn something. Four days later, the trees were saved. Hilary stayed in the tree until the mayor called her on her cell phone saying the trees would be preserved. “Great!” she said. “Once I have it in writing, I will get down.” The official document was delivered within an hour. And, since a phone tree had been organized, “The trees are saved!” went out all over the valley, very quickly.
After it was over and Hilary came down from the tree, Clare, who is a Millionth Circle convener who with Anne Caldwell and others organized Gather the Women–Canada, wrote, “One of the most valuable things I saw was that everyone who gets involved and is present to the actual event notices how each person holds a piece of the solution. Passion brings people out and that passion ensures that each particular skill contributes