“I volunteered to do community service and was ignored, perhaps because my views on health fall into a nebulous category some might call “holistic” or something closer to what our last generation would have utilized, out of practical necessity. The old roads here are quiet and forgotten, while people shelter in place. The eerie silence in the back country is heart-stopping, and odd for those of us used to activity in the forest. My heart goes out to anyone in fear, or anyone in isolation. A close friend admitted he was not doing well, having lost his job & lost his income, while I’ve known him to weather any adversity without complaint. He served as chief of a fire department in Central Vermont. Such a huge gash cuts the best of us. Such an abnormal muffle, stifling the honest words of the best among us. Quietly, we succumb to avoid being identified as subversive. But up on the ridge, no one is demanding consensus. The old gnarled trees think for themselves, the fungi and moss stand erect, messaging integrity. If we were somehow not cognizant of plants, I’d say that putting moral virtue onto them was just delusional. But, hey, I’m into plants. They don’t think that they’re asleep or mercifully outside of this scenario. It might be their misfortune to stand there for decades unable to muster up the where-with-all to tell us what’s going on. But that’s not really their job. It’s ours. We’re not measuring up very well. If you’d walked up the hill with raspberry canes grabbing your pants, then sat on a rotting log to look at coltsfoot more closely and been dumped into the brook, I might trust your judgment better. As is, you’re all mostly failing my test. You don’t want to take the time. You just want to do things you feel will preserve your world and safeguard your clan. I totally get it. I just can’t do it anymore. I was kicked out of that club a long time ago.”
