Ram Dass
his life gave many blessings and
it is good when such a life as this is now complete
with thanksgiving for the many gifts
and we are born from womb unto womb unto womb in an everlasting cycle of universal service
— db —
from
Ancient Forests of the Far West
The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder
How curious it would be to die and then remain standing for another century or two. To enjoy “dead verticality.” If humans could do it we would hear news like, “Henry David Thoreau finally toppled over.” The human community when healthy, is like an ancient forest. The little ones are in the shade and shelter of the big ones, even rooted in their lost old bodies. All ages, and all together growing and dying. What some silviculturists call for—“even-age management,” plantations of trees the same size growing up together seems like rationalistic utopian totalitarianism. We wouldn't think of letting our children live in regimented institutions with no parental visits and all their thinking shaped by a corps of professionals who just follow official manuals (written by people who never raised kids). Why should we do it to our forests? “All-age-unmanaged”—that's a natural community, human or other. The industry prizes the younger and middle-aged trees that keep their symmetry, keep there branches even of length and angle.
But let there also be really old trees who can give up all sense of propriety and begin throwing their limbs out in extravagant gestures, dancelike poses, displaying their insouciance in the face of mortality, holding themselves available to whatever the world and the weather might propose. I look up to them: they are like the Chinese Immortals, they are Han-shan and Shi-de sorts of characters—to have lived that long is to have permission to be eccentric, to be the poets and painters among trees, laughing, ragged, and fearless. They make me almost look forward to old age.
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