Conversations with Trees by Stephanie Kaza

Author:Stephanie Kaza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2019-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

Lineage of Fear

DUSK. A SPOOKY SILENCE SETTLES OVER THE FOREST. I am here alone, or at least I think I’m alone. The creeping darkness slips in through the trees, wrapping its fingers around each craggy bough and fallen branch. Evening shadows thicken, stealing the space between trees, taking over the forest, taking over the path I walk on, erasing the distant perspective.

When I entered the forest earlier, the late-afternoon sun still penetrated this dense stand of Douglas firs. It had taken half a day’s drive to find this small fragment of ancient forest. I had only a few sentences in a guidebook to direct me to this new territory. Despite years of childhood exposure to Douglas firs, I had never seen a stand of old trees. My Oregon tree education was limited to suburban plantings, Christmas trees, roadside scenery, and forests in a few state parks. No one ever mentioned the treasure heritage of great trees—not in biology class, not in church, not in scouts, not in camp, not at home. Nobody told me about this central feature and evolutionary gift of the Northwest landscape, the great conifer belt on the west side of the Cascade Mountains. No one introduced me to a single Douglas fir elder in my childhood.

So now I am catching up, trying to make up for lost time and meet the Douglas fir forest properly before any more of it disappears. In this short snatch of time, I am asking this two-acre piece of untouched history to tutor me. Other fragments are much less accessible, requiring long drives on winding logging roads through clear-cut country. All the lowland forests have long since been cut and milled for timber. I consider myself lucky to have this small chance to learn about my native bioregion.

The light of late summer does not linger. Once the sun drops out of sight, the forest edges begin to soften. The uneven canopy casts ragged shadows over the forest floor. I follow the trail to a single old fir. Its swirling, oversized branches dominate the space, reducing the possibility of any other trees growing to large size underneath. Delicate vine maples and hazel dance in the light that slips through to the understory. Thin stems of vanilla leaf and inside-out flower poke through the brush.

In the dimming light the tree is a bit spooky. Compared with redwoods and other tall conifers, old-growth firs do not have clean lines and perfect symmetrical forms. The trees drip with hanging mosses that seem to rot their branches out from under them. Even before they hit the ground, the decomposed limbs have lost their twigs and needles and are well softened by insects and fungus. The broken edges of fallen branches give the forest floor an untidy appearance, as if the trees were self-destructing. The satisfaction of a crisp, dry, orderly ponderosa pine grove does not exist in this moist temperate forest. The place is messy.

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