The Tree of Life is one of my preferred visualizations and methods of grounding. Often, I’ll consider which large trees are close by when doing it, and use their shape and form to assist the visualization. Old willow trees are a favourite, especially trees that reach high to the sky, and low to the earth with their weeping branches.
This love of trees, and nature more generally, is one of the things that sets pagans apart. Our relationship with nature often develops early in life. Many people describe their discovery of paganism and/or the Goddess as a homecoming, forged in childhood memories of babbling brooks and forests and farms. Our sacred spaces are often marked by natural phenomena. Some temples, marked simply by groves of trees, form circles reaching above and below - as in the mystery of all things.
So when the corporations who clear-cut our forests start interfering in politics, pagans need to get involved as well.
That’s what is happening right now around the Biodiversity Act, proposed legislation that is designed to help protect wildlife and plants that are increasingly endangered as a result of climate change and unsustainable harvesting practices. The corporations who clear-cut our forests are opposed to this legislation because they want to continue their destructive practices.
The truth is that this legislation doesn’t go nearly far enough. It is a start, but even with this legislation, we will continue to see a major loss of biodiversity as climate change accelerates. Even with this legislation, clear-cutting and destroying forests will still be legal in Nova Scotia.
But the weakness of this legislation has not stopped the clear-cutting lobby from telling lies and half-truths about it. The so-called "Concerned Private Landowners Coalition" isn't a real group. It is a front set up by Forest Nova Scotia, who represents the clear-cutting industry. They do not speak for the thousands of tiny and small woodlot owners, or small farmers, who make up the vast majority of people that own rural land in our province.
Our forests have become so degraded that they are growing back much slower, with much less biodiversity. The impacts on our natural environment are easy to see. The impacts on human health, emotions, state of mind, and spirituality, are as intense, but more difficult to see.
Consider: Our native Beech, Elm, and White Ash trees are dying off due to disease and the impacts of climate change and globalization. Our Sugar Maples and White Birch are also threatened.
This is not to say that we can't have a forestry and lumber industry. With time, sustainable harvest practices and higher-value forestry much are still possible. To get there, we need to press pause, and allow our forests time to heal and grow. We need to make a shift as a society toward saying that extractive industries like clear-cutting are unacceptable - whether on public or private land. Ecosystems do not respect property lines.
For pagans, and everyone who cares about our forests, the intense campaign against the Biodiversity Act should raise alarm. Even a fairly minor attempt to support a more sustainable future is being vocally opposed by the clear-cut lobby. The only solution, that I can see, is to be equally as vocal. To say that we must go further. To say that we cannot allow any further destruction of the earth. To say that the land, trees and animals are sacred and that they have usefulness beyond human greed.
So please, take a moment to call your Member of the Legislative Assembly and ask them to support this legislation. A phone call to their office, even in evening hours when it will go to an answering machine, is much more effective than sending an email. Speak out against the lies of the clear-cutting industry.
Then, close your eyes, breathe deep, relax your muscles, and form in your mind the vision of glorious, mature, diverse forests from Yarmouth to Glace Bay. Dig your roots deep into the crust of the Earth, draw up the earth-fire, let it flow and grow and crescendo, then let it sink back to the Earth itself, and let us weave the strands of a different vision.
Another world is possible.
Learn more about the so-called “controversial” parts of the legislation: https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/local-perspectives/lisa-mitchell-nova-scotias-new-biodiversity-bill-is-reasonable-not-radical-565284/