Ice storms and tornadoes over the last six months have made a mess of many of the woodlands around us. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Bob Hamma suggests that there is a resilient beauty in the forest that is something more than orderliness:
Transcript
Ice storms and tornadoes over the last six months have made a mess of many of the woodlands around us. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Bob Hamma suggests that there is a resilient beauty in the forest that is something more than orderliness:
A walk in the woods along the bank of the St. Joseph River reminded me of what an unkempt place the forest is. In this rare stretch of old growth forest in park land spanning Indiana and Michigan, one readily finds what John Muir once called a “wild storm culture.” A huge oak stands snapped at midpoint, the pieces of its crown scattered like rubble. The once stately tree clings to life. The remains of decaying logs crisscross a field of milky white trillium flowers like a ransacked sampler. Below them a thick mat of last year’s leaves blankets the rich loam of the river’s shore.
It strikes me that it’s not at all the way I would have arranged it. No one clears away the debris to let the beauty of the flowers show. No one takes down the ruined trunk and plants a new sapling. No one straightens up nature’s mess.
But then, this is not a garden, it’s a forest. Gardens inspire admiration for the way the gardener has crafted and arranged the natural beauty of flowers, shrubs, and trees. A forest inspires something else again-that sense of amazement that life flourishes amidst the chaos and destruction of the “wild storm culture.” It is, I think, a sense of awe. Amidst the remnants of the storm’s chaos, beauty blooms. The broken and the shattered stand side by side with the enduring and the strong. The delicate petals shine against the rotting leaves.
Its perfection is not in symmetry. Rather, it strikes a chord with dissonant notes. It is an acquired taste. Ansel Adams once wrote. “We all continually move on the edges of eternity.” Take a walk in the woods and discover what he meant.
Host Tag: Bob Hamma is the author of “Earth’s Echo,
Sacred Encounters with Nature,” published by Sorin Books.