When The Boughs Break-Requiem For Trees
Written by: Rev Kaleel Sakakeeny, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Slaughtered Trees like slaughtered farm animals have no mourners. We're losing about 10 billion trees a year.
Who weeps?
Where are the mourners?
Imagine an area of forest the size of a football field disappearing every second: This is the rate of deforestation.
Swaths of the sacred Amazon, the “lungs” of the earth, are cut for cash to satisfy the greed of wanton developers.
In our own neighborhoods and towns, tree-filled spaces, habitats for the animals we share this planet with, respites from the “madding crowd,” are replaced by tasteless, characterless condos and malls.
How do we grieve for life cut down when the body doesn’t lie in a funeral home or in a flowered field, but in a pile of desiccated sawdust.
It takes hundreds of years to grow a tree. Leafy boughs that arc and sway in the breezes.
That provide homes for birds and squirrels and owls.
That give us shade and dappled sunlight, and the gift of blazing autumn leaves.
Gone in minutes in the manic howl of blades and grinders.
Trees have given us a language.
We speak of “turning over a new leaf and branching out; ideas blossom and bear fruit. Our momentum is sapped, our resolve is deep-rooted…(Cathy Newman).
And in her book, The Wisdom of Trees Lita Judge tells us that trees are rich with life: they talk, share food, raise their young, and offer protection.
Trees thrive on diversity, learn from their ancestors, and give back to their communities. Trees not only sustain life on our planet―they teach us important lessons about patience, survival, and teamwork.
The death of a tree is the transformation of one of nature’s crowning glories to inert lumber. Life becoming a commodity
When once in its glory it swayed in the breezes as though angels played among the branches in a celestial dance, it’s now trapped tightly on trucks and sold on open markets.
We can’t afford too many more blots on our souls.
We already hunt majestic elephants for umbrella stands, and kill lions and wolf cubs as trophies.
And we encourage children hunt and kill animals in “killing contests.”
If we can not stop the killings, let us have the decency to hang our heads in shame and become mourners, witnesses for the dead.
Rev Kaleel Sakakeeny, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Kaleel (Rev K) is one of the country's few ordained Animal Chaplains, nondenominational Pastoral Counselors and Credentialed Pet Loss and Grief Counselors. His work in the field of Loss and Grief, especially Pet Loss and Grief, has earned him recognition from The Washington Post, People Magazine, New York Times and other media. He is a “thought leader” in the emerging field of the animal-human bond studies, and a practicing therapist.
