memory of trees
Nov. 29th, 2005 02:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chelidonI just finished moving a cord of dry wood into the chicken coop/wood shed out back of the house. That's cord #2 this winter, and now that we're solely on wood-fired heat, I'll be curious to see just how much wood I'll be going through in a year. So far I'm guessing somewhere in the range of 5-8 cords (a cord is a stack 4' x 4' x 8', 128 cubic feet) One thing for sure -- there's nothing like hand-carrying a cord or three of wood (not to mention chopping and splitting it!) to motivate one to get to insulating and caulking and such, to make the house more heat-efficient and use less wood. It makes it all much more direct and immediate than, say, paying an extra $50 in oil or electricity, versus lugging many many heavy hunks of dead tree.
Just like hunting or "harvesting" (i.e., slaughtering/butchering) animals makes the cycle of life and what it means to consume meat significantly more real than purchasing some sanitized bits of styrofoam-encased and plastic-wrapped animal parts at the supermarket, cutting and burning my own fuel for heat makes that part of my energy use much more immediate and solid. Soon I'll know just exactly how many trees it costs to keep me and my extended family warm through the winter, which is an odd, but refreshing way to look at it. I appreciate being able to give thanks for the life-force of those trees, to know (at least for that wood which comes off of our land, which should be 100% next year), what kinds of trees they were, where on my land they came from, honoring the sacred gift of life they give me and my family and loved ones. The level of sacred connection with the spirits of those trees is a benefit I hadn't consciously thought of when deciding to replace the oil boiler, but I find it's very significantly different than the relationship I had with the oil -- delivered often unnoticed to my house by the oil company trucks, after who knows how many steps of industrial production from a well (probably in the middle-east) to pipeline to supertanker to refinery to trucks to tanks to other trucks to my house. Usually my most significant connection to that oil, the dead decayed bodies of countless ancestor plants and animals from millions of years ago, taken from deep in the earth, often after injecting massive quantities of sea water and other chemicals into the ground in order to force up the oil more quickly, was the paper bill I received in the mail every month, telling me how much money I owed the oil company.
It makes me think -- that which becomes...industrial, impersonal, we no longer honor. Whether talking about manufactured goods, or even the education industry, the food industry, the entertainment industry, when the focus is on mass production and consumption, on maximizing efficiency or profit, clever packaging and penetrating targeted market segments, it inevitably loses the critical sense of sacredness.
Slowing down is a key to sacredness. That allows more time to listen, to pay attention, to notice, and to honor. To slow down, to step off of the relentlessly industrial model of life into which we have been born, means, surely, that we will have less, but what we have and do will mean more. Less stuff, more things that matter. Less rushing around, more time with people that matter. Less quantity, more quality. And yes, less energy, more work. Or, again, less stuff -- less outwards trappings of wealth, more actual riches in our lives.
Chop wood, carry water. I think there's something to that.
Just like hunting or "harvesting" (i.e., slaughtering/butchering) animals makes the cycle of life and what it means to consume meat significantly more real than purchasing some sanitized bits of styrofoam-encased and plastic-wrapped animal parts at the supermarket, cutting and burning my own fuel for heat makes that part of my energy use much more immediate and solid. Soon I'll know just exactly how many trees it costs to keep me and my extended family warm through the winter, which is an odd, but refreshing way to look at it. I appreciate being able to give thanks for the life-force of those trees, to know (at least for that wood which comes off of our land, which should be 100% next year), what kinds of trees they were, where on my land they came from, honoring the sacred gift of life they give me and my family and loved ones. The level of sacred connection with the spirits of those trees is a benefit I hadn't consciously thought of when deciding to replace the oil boiler, but I find it's very significantly different than the relationship I had with the oil -- delivered often unnoticed to my house by the oil company trucks, after who knows how many steps of industrial production from a well (probably in the middle-east) to pipeline to supertanker to refinery to trucks to tanks to other trucks to my house. Usually my most significant connection to that oil, the dead decayed bodies of countless ancestor plants and animals from millions of years ago, taken from deep in the earth, often after injecting massive quantities of sea water and other chemicals into the ground in order to force up the oil more quickly, was the paper bill I received in the mail every month, telling me how much money I owed the oil company.
It makes me think -- that which becomes...industrial, impersonal, we no longer honor. Whether talking about manufactured goods, or even the education industry, the food industry, the entertainment industry, when the focus is on mass production and consumption, on maximizing efficiency or profit, clever packaging and penetrating targeted market segments, it inevitably loses the critical sense of sacredness.
Slowing down is a key to sacredness. That allows more time to listen, to pay attention, to notice, and to honor. To slow down, to step off of the relentlessly industrial model of life into which we have been born, means, surely, that we will have less, but what we have and do will mean more. Less stuff, more things that matter. Less rushing around, more time with people that matter. Less quantity, more quality. And yes, less energy, more work. Or, again, less stuff -- less outwards trappings of wealth, more actual riches in our lives.
Chop wood, carry water. I think there's something to that.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 07:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 05:43 pm (UTC)But to geek for a minute, it also really makes me realize just how very energy-dense oil is. A full cord of seasoned hardwood is supposedly roughly equivalent to 130 gal or so of No. 2 fuel oil (according to one source, anyway, I keep meaning to confirm the figure elsewhere, though by the end of the season I'll have my own data, knowing how much oil we used last year and how much wood this year). And of course, there's a lot more personal labor involved in the wood.
Knowing that fact intellectually is different from physically knowing it in my body, I find. I do sympathize as to why we've become so bloody dependent on oil and petro products...
no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 12:29 pm (UTC)No seriously you make me think, remember things and pay more attention - I like that. Thankyou!
no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 09:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-30 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-01 09:10 am (UTC)(ok I know, I know!)