The edge land between the tall, stately pines across the way and our own carefully tended grounds and gardens, is a special place. Containing maple, box elder, wild cherry and cedar trees, native red willow, bloodroot, lily of the valley, heirloom lilacs, garden phlox, Queen Ann's lace, wild honeysuckle and a lovely little stand of stag-horn sumac, it is a magical microcosm filled to the brim with life and vitality.
In this wondrous unkempt tangle a chipmunk stores his hoard, a robin cares for her eggs of blue, bumble bees sip flowers, an endangered ribbon snake goes on the hunt, and a life-bonded raven pair keep watch. In the tree tops an eagle has perched, humming birds hum, and bright orange monarchs and yellow tiger swallowtails dance their way through the passage of cycles, days and seasons.
Yet this spring things changed. Right in the middle of my husbands intense struggle for his life due to a severe series of strokes, this precious and beloved acreage came under attack. Did the perpetrators choose their time with fully conscious intent? Waiting for a moment of distraction? In their eyes, a sign of weakness?
Yes, just because they have easement through our beautiful three and a half acres to get to their forty acre 'playground' in back of us, certain parties are now aggressively and relentlessly pushing forward with plans to scrape, slash, cut down, kill and violate all that lives, breathes and exists in our lovingly owned and carefully preserved edge-land.
The gravel drive is already wide, straight and well maintained, can easily accommodate even a loaded dump truck or large tractor. The militant determination to turn our beautiful living lane into a super highway dead zone and destroy the little peace, privacy and land we have left is utterly mind-boggling and surreal.
The justification being what? The trees are an inconvenience? The wildlife a nuisance? We just a useless and crippled old couple deserving of harassment and contempt, so that the chronically empty can feel powerful and temporarily satiated?
Is bringing in massive, way over sized, dual tired equipment to cultivate, seed and poison one small, poor, waterlogged field worth more than honor and respect, and even lives?
But it seems that enough is never enough for some. The sort whose greed and cold-hearted, lack of empathy and compassion, whose irrevocable belief in the illusion of separation, evidently knows no bounds.
Red faced bellowing at a sick and fragile man just home from the hospital. Belligerent gestures and threats about killing all tree beings on either side of the drive to make way for unnecessarily huge mega-tractors, giant poison spreaders, forty foot harrows and God only knows what else. For a twisty, swampy seven acre field? Somehow this is acceptable in the small, sad confines of selfish, uncreative minds?
Even weeks later, aggressive posturing, infantile acts of contempt and cruel harassment continued toward us.
And all because we dared say "No" to the rape of our precious edge-land.
If there is one thing I have learned in life it is that truly narcissistic individuals are relentless in their drive to control, dominate and punish. The more beautiful, sacred and out of reach something or someone is, the more they desire to either possess or destroy that someone or something.
Why? It seems in their own little hollow self-serving universe they are utterly convinced they're better than, smarter than and more deserving than anyone or anything else in this extraordinarily rich and abundant world. In the narrow prison of such a mind it seems the values and rules set out for the rest of us simply don't apply. And once a decision is made, they will never, ever, ever admit to being wrong.
But there is something that can never be possessed or owned. Something pure, sacred and full of grace. It is hidden in the wing beats of the smallest bird, rises up in the delicate scent of a rose, flows unhindered in every eddy and current of a river, shines in the eyes of an innocent child.
It is the great un-containable love of the Creator. Made manifest. Residing in every ray of sunshine, in every drop of rain. In every tiny leaflet, solitary blade of grass, wide expanse of sky and sea. It is the love blessing a courageous heart, directing the course of a noble life, as well as the power watching over every precious edge-land, or uniquely irreplaceable, small, blue, egg . . .
Deepest respect and honor,
for friends and givers,
doers, lovers, protectors,
and all with the courage to stand and say, "No More."
Gratitude, Love, Blessings,
SvG
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