Peace of the Pine Forest

I’ve been crying a lot lately—not for me and my station on this good, green Earth, but for other people. I cried for the victims of Putin’s war—the mothers and children who fled their homes, the fathers and brothers who stayed behind to fight, the old and infirmed who couldn’t flee and were bombed to death, and for every lost life and destroyed city. The tears escape my eyes when I watch the news or see the headlines—it is my knowing that what I am witnessing is antithetical to Goodness. Last week it was for the grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York who were targeted and killed because of their skin color. This week, the tears flowed again for the young students and teachers at Uvalde, Texas. It could literally happen at any school at any time. Even the mass shootings happen so frequently that the mourning for the one before has hardly begun before it is ‘lost’ to the coverage of the newest one. Not to mention all the other, pervasive deaths by violence. Not to mention the perverse political rhetoric around the ‘reasons’ for the deaths. It is soul-crushing.

I know for sure that the fallout from each one of these violent losses of life is far-reaching and will be long-lived. Many of the victims, the families, the first responders, and the witnesses will carry the burden of trauma with them for their lifetime. The price we as individual persons and as a society pay for violence is unbelievably staggering. In the midst of a political culture that is not doing all it can to help prevent such tragedies, an individual person can feel overwhelmed and impotent in the face of it all. What do we do? Let me begin with a story that presented me with an important lesson.

Seventeen years ago when my father-in-law died, my brother-in-law sent a message to us that ended with “Peace be with you.” I was already in a state of activation—death, grief, loss, change—and I remember exclaiming rather indignantly to Chris, ” How can we have peace at a time like this?!” I did not understand at the time that my brother-in-law was offering a gift to each of us individually—that in spite of our loss and grief, we could have the comfort of peace. I did not accept that gift at the time—I didn’t know how—but since that time, I have not forgotten that offering. I have tried again and again and again to find peace within myself in the midst of my own pain and loss and of that of the world’s. A substantial part of finding peace in a time of crisis or a reaction to it, is learning to calm down our activated bodies—and when a person has an ingrained trauma response, it takes lots of practice to change. One of my practices to calm down and find peace is to go to the woods—I did it intuitively as a child, and I do it intentionally as an older adult. I find peace in the Pine forest.

So we went to Warner Lake County Park where I left Chris and his healing hip to sit beside the lake. He could see the Pine forest across the water. He was in the midst of the noise and exuberance of young adults who were already free for the summer and were anxious to sunbathe and swim in the chilly lake water. I tried to appreciate their exuberance even as I gladly walked away from their noise. Come walk with me into the forest.

According to florgeous.com, Violets symbolize honesty, protection, dreams, healing, and remembrance. May it be so. Peace of the Pine forest be with you.