I've never considered myself a tree hugger but last week, just before our first winter storm, I think I may have crossed into their ranks. While out on a winter walk, Terry and I came across a new building project that we knew had been in the planning stages for the past two years.
There, before our eyes, was a four acre parcel of land, once the tree lined ninth hole of the Thornhill Ladies Golf Course, now an enclosed parcel of land for bulldozers and graters.
Another condo in the works!
I couldn't help feel a profound sense of loss for the greenery that I've grown so accustomed to over the years. At least one other person shared my sentiment, the words tree killers spray painted repeatedly on the plywood fence around the site.
If it's true that in restoring the land, we restore ourselves, it's equally true that in depleting the land, we deplete our spirit. For some, removing trees is the price we have to pay for progress. For me, it comes at the higher cost of our disconnect with nature and with ourselves.
Robin Wall Kimmerer says it so well when she writes, "If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy we become."
I fear we are getting poorer by the day.
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