I am probably going to sound like a whiner but.....

[DaNcInG_WiNd]

I just watched my neighbor cut down her tree in her front yard. Why does this bother me? A few years ago it wouldn't have but now it makes me want to cry. I guess I have developed a deeper sense of respect for ALL living things. Or maybe it's just my body's way of telling me it's time to get myself balanced and cleanse my chakras too...I dunno. I know this sounds crazy maybe but when they started to cut it I felt a pain in my heart, almost like I could feel the pain of the tree physically. Ok, I must be insane...just had to unload...:wah2:

[SphinYote]

I know how you feel. When I see a tree go down it does hurt in a way. Or when they leave it up but virtually rip the poor ting apart trimming it. That hurts even more. It makes me so mad on campus when they trim things so poorly, they don't quite get a branch cut all the way, so they just break it off. I can't really see why they do it, either. I mean, if they are trying to beautify the campus, they're doing the worst possible thing by leaving jagged ends of mangled branches on the trees.

I have always wondered to what extent the trees feel it. Granted, no equivalent (that we know of) to nerves, but who says nerves are the only things that are pain receptors...? And various plants respond to being damaged by insects be releasing chemicals to try to drive off the insects. They seem to "sense" the damage somehow, whether or not its pain as we concieve of it...I'm not saying its a conscious reaciton on the part of the plant, its probably more like how we have blood clotting agents that move to the site of an injury, nothing conscious behind that, but at the same time, I do wonder...

Just a general observation, ever notice how plants, particularly trees and other branching plants LOOK like giant nerve cells? The branches end in leaves which sense sunlight (among other things), and bark on trees is kind of like the myelin sheathe on nerve cells...no I'm not saying they are giant nerve cells, but simply that there's a similar appearance.

I agree with you though, it does hurt in an almost physical way to see them cut down, anymore....particularly when you know the wood is likely just going to be discarded and not used for anything....:(

I someimes get the same feeling with regards to old buildings, when they are torn down. SOmetimes the buildings themselves seem to acquire a life of their own, and it hurts to watch them fall into disrepair and be torn down....or worse when they tear down a perfectly good building b/c they want to build something else on that lot...

[DaNcInG_WiNd]

Amen sista...I hear ya! LOL I agree and it does sadden me. But I made something useful come out of this...I asked my neighbor for the wood so I can use it for something worthwhile. The tree wasn't cut down and discarded, not this time. My dad works with wood carving so maybe he can give it another life...here's hoping.

[Lewen]

When I lived in Louisiana, the area around my house was all lovely and wooded before they started tearing down the trees to build like twenty houses all around me. Broke my heart to see the beautiful trees torn and shredded as well as our friendly owl had to find a new home and lots of wildlife had to go away or was killed. It then pissed me off after the mass raping of the land around me to find them planting new little trees that ended up dying anyways because they were placed in the wrong area etc. etc. I never understood why they had to tear down a perfectly good tree only after building, place a new younger tree IN THE VERY SAME SPOT?!?!?!?!?!?

*shakes head* I feel for the tree too. Thanks for sharing. Had to get that off my chest too.
*goes to hug a tree outside her apartment building today*

[Aelfoak]

I just watched my neighbor cut down her tree in her front yard. Why does this bother me? A few years ago it wouldn't have but now it makes me want to cry. I guess I have developed a deeper sense of respect for ALL living things. Or maybe it's just my body's way of telling me it's time to get myself balanced and cleanse my chakras too...I dunno. I know this sounds crazy maybe but when they started to cut it I felt a pain in my heart, almost like I could feel the pain of the tree physically. Ok, I must be insane...just had to unload...:wah2: I know how you feel, in the area where i live the tree surgeon's have been round "Pruning" the tree's, but they have more or less massacred them and i don't call it "Pruning" for one bit, i don't think lopping off huge thick branches from the tree that have taken maybe 20 years to grow pruning it.

What you could do Dancing Wind to make up for that tree's suffering is maybe buy a young tree from a garden centre and plant it in your own garden, or somewhere in a park or nature reserve that means something to you, just an idea?

[SphinYote]

Amen sista...I hear ya! LOL I agree and it does sadden me. But I made something useful come out of this...I asked my neighbor for the wood so I can use it for something worthwhile. The tree wasn't cut down and discarded, not this time. My dad works with wood carving so maybe he can give it another life...here's hoping.


Good for you. I'm glad that in this case you were able to at least make use of it and not let it be wasted for nothing....

[greenwitch]

this is one of the reasons I hate new york city. the only trees that are here look incredibly unhealthy and no one cares why. and I always hate it when I see a beautiful area being slowly ripped down for more housing or apartments or a new building of some sort, my heart rips in two. and when they're cutting branches for the sake of the power lines- they mutilate the tree so it doesnt even look like a tree at all. :wah2:
I used to live in washington state, in a small town called Sequim, and we had a fairly good sized property, our view from the kitchen was on one side the olympic mountains and on the other the rockies. and on the olympics, I remember one summer watching the mountains one day as a clearing kept getting bigger and bigger on one of the slopes. It hurt so much because I knew I wouldn't be able to hike there anymore, on account of the houses that were going up there.

[DaNcInG_WiNd]

I talked to my neighbor and she said the reason the tree was cut down was because it was dying. It was being turned into termite food and she didn't want it there like that. I didn't know it had stuff in it so I gave back the wood and asked her to do something with it that would be meaningful. She understands my viewpoint and said she would do what was appropriate with it. I kept a piece of the wood that wasn't diseased and am planning to say a blessing and then bury it...corny as it may sound. And I am planning on buying the neighbor a new sapling to grow there. So it's not all in vain. It still hurts to see something get cut down like that though.

[halfwaynowhere]

i had a beautiful ash tree in my backyard, it was huge, and the roots were going crazy, starting to crack the neighbors pool, and our foundation, so it had to be taken out.. but it was my friend, and i tried so hard to convince my parents to keep it, and i was incredibly upset when they took it down... sow all thats left is the stump, the roots, and a few logs...

[lia_amberwolf]

i know exactly what you mean. i live in florida and after the hurricanes a black olive in my back yard was damaged and my mom had to take some of the branches off (and not the little ones). I was helping her and i started to cry so hard that i couldn't see. she let me go inside after that. i know it was damaged and for the best and all but i couldn't help myself.

there was another time when our gardinia bush got sick and mom said the only way to make it better again was to cut all the brances off. i cried for a day and didn't talk to her for a week. the branches and everything eventually grew back and now there are flowers again :flowers:

i think as pagans, we have a deeper understanding, and therefore connection to nature than the cowens do. we know that everything is connected and we can "feel" the energies around us ebbing and flowing. when something happens to that energy we cannot help but feel it.

and to all you cowens (aka. muggles, non-magick folk) out there (i know we have a few on this site), keep in mind that you are affected too. you just may not feel it on such a deep level.

[ap Dafydd]

Always saddens me to see trees cut down, even if they are dying ones. One of the big things that grieves me is when they are building roads and cut down huge swathes of trees and bushes just to cover the ground with asphalt.

Dead trees are very important for the ecology anyway. Having a pile of dead logs or branches in your garden is one of the best ways of improving the lives of the local wildlife.

gwyn eich byd

Ffred

[Ichabod J. Crane]

its all a matter of us being nature lovers its perfectly normal i think we all have these feelings about it and im a guy too so you know youre not the cry baby :fpeace:

[Kyra Kismet]

Its the reason im becoming an enviromental scientist!