Ordering Trees

Leone and I just got done placing an order with the state DNR for tree seedlings that we'll plant up at the farm as soon as we can get a shovel into the ground. Poplars, highbush cranberry, Norway and white pine, pincherry, yellow birch, etc. etc.

We've been putting it off for a while and I've been worrying that the trees would be sold out again, meaning still yet another year's delay in reforesting the land. Money we don't have, work to plant them, the deer will browse them all off, the spring will be too dry and they'll all die.

Up against that is imagining how it will be to walk the land years from now and see the results. Or enjoy the exquisite astringent sweetness of the highbush cranberry sauce. Or warm ourselves by a fire from wood we planted.

Leone's dad must have had much the same conflict half a century ago when he planted the Norways that are now ready for harvest, and will probably be used for a home for us some day. He didn't live to see that with his natural eye but I know for sure he could see it with his spiritual vision.

What it comes down to is you get to pick the vision you want to have. In so doing, you pick the results you'll get and the future you'll experience.

Copyright 2012 Leonard Snyder

Make a Difference

If a human being takes an action, the soul takes an action… the soul … does nothing if you do nothing; but if you light a fire, it chops wood; if you make a boat, it becomes the ocean. (Robert Bly, Iron John)

Robert Bly’s words, as so often happens, came to me at exactly the right time. I first read them several years ago and I’ve been studying them ever since. If it sounds odd to be so taken with a few sentences, go back and read the quote again. Do you see more the second time through?

Believing that change can happen is necessary but not enough. If you want to see change, act. Your action is the proof of your belief.

The size of your action does not matter. Whether you give someone a mansion or some mittens, it’s all the same. A circle has no beginning or end.

Involve someone else in your action. Act for someone, not against something.

Act as close to the individual as you can. If you want people to be fed, give someone a sandwich. If that isn’t practical for you, find the people who are doing the work, and support them. But don’t confuse organization with results. An individual raindrop probably doesn’t worry about “the big picture” and yet somehow oceans form; the contour of the land takes care of that. Give your neighbor, or a stranger, ten dollars; if she isn’t behind on the mortgage, she knows someone who is.

Copyright 2012, Leonard Snyder