Dear Cooper Mountain Nature Park...

Have I told you how much I love you?

I whispered it softly, as I walked in the thick warm air this midmorning. The smell of wet grass, damp soil and soddened foliage filled my senses with their deliciousness. Clinging to my skin like clothing, I hoped to carry you home with me.

It seemed to me and that stranger I stopped to chat with, that your birds were more playful today. They flitted, swooped and twittered just in front of us on the trail. Oblivious to us humans, we enjoyed their frolicking.

Your wildflowers always delight my eyes with their vibrant colors, delicate formations and abundant varieties.

I love you in all seasons, Cooper Mountain Nature Park…

During the cold, dark winter rains, I find more solitude as the humans tend to stay away.

Years ago I carried my grandson on my back while holding an umbrella overhead, just so I could introduce you to each other. Fat worms wiggled along the path and I bent to pick one up, so he could see its brown, wet, ringed skin as it squirmed in my palm. Some of your trees are naked then, because they slow their sap and rest.

In fall, your smoky, burnt wood smell fill my lungs, after the controlled burn the rangers provide. It opens and refreshes your prairies and clears hazardous underbrush. The blackened logs and scorched tree trunks add distinction. Your poison oak is bright red, climbing up and down the scrub oaks, dotting the grassy fields, always surprising me of its prevalence.

In the spring, new life and color spreads out among the flowers and grasses: multiple shades of pink, purple, green, blue, yellow and more. Many of them are impossible to describe. The rangers form collaborations with cattle ranchers and work diligently to restore you to your native plants.

In the late summer, your bleached out grasses sway in the hot sun, while grasshopper music fills my ears. A dusty, earthy, hay smell delights me.

Today, like many days before, I planned to walk my six miles around your outer trails.

As I came around the lower bend in the fir and pine forest, my ears were assaulted with the noise of giant, yellow machines. I looked through your trees, just past the edge of your boundary, where I witnessed the carnage.

There is nothing as ugly as a clear cut. Every tree slashed down, plants, bushes, flowers, destroyed. A scar upon the land. I can only imagine what the animals feel, their homes annihilated, smashed and buried.

Violence in exchange for another new housing development.

Someone once told me this is progress, but I think greed is a better word.

I am shocked, I pause and place my hand upon my heart.

I remember how tree roots in a forest form a community, how they communicate, sharing nutrients and minerals with each other, even helping a weakened or ill tree if need be. I wonder if I listen deeply enough will I hear their cries of anguish?

(Read The Secret Life of Trees by German Forester, Peter Wohlleben)

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/09/26/the-hidden-life-of-trees-peter-wohlleben/

In my mind’s eye, I zoom upwards past this tiny speck of green, above this county, further up above this state, this country and this continent until I see this entire planet.

Ancient peoples called her Mother Earth and I understand why.

She continually gives: birthing, growing, creating new life. Her feminine essence surrounds us.

Yet, we steal her resources, thinking they will never end. We push toxins and poisons into her watery veins and spew it out into her lungs, which is our atmosphere. We treat her as if she were our own personal garbage can. We destroy what she gives us, with our heavy equipment, to build our homes, to pave over her surfaces, to make way for our selfishness.

But, no matter what we do to her, she seems to continue loving us by creating new life.

And I remember a man, who walked this Earth, claiming to come from God. His scriptures tell us he gave to all, loved all, and forgave all until we humans tortured and killed him, exposing our violence.

His scripture stories show us, another way to live, another way to be in this world if only we were brave enough to try.

And I remember I am human. A word which comes from the latin root humus meaning Earth and Ground.

And I remember, I am of the Earth. I am 90% water. I am oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus, Earthly elements.

My heart moves me back down to this tiny speck on Mother Earth again, this place I love: Cooper MountainNature Park.

I lower my hand from my heart and walk again, heading home, too weary to finish my last three miles.