when god was a tree

Today I worked in the woods making a trail, woods buffing and talking about god with Margaret. It’s hard, but satisfying work - work that’s in my blood. This is what our ancestors did: made easier ways to move through the forests, gathered fallen branches, cleared future fire hazards to heat their homes, and talked about god.

Un-buffed Woods

Our ancestors knew no wilderness; they lived and worked in the forest. They shaped it to meet their needs, and it shaped them - heat their hearths, became handles and spindles, wattles and wickers, a place for pasture and picking nuts, a place for gathering mushrooms and herbs, a place to make love, a place for shelter, but most of all a place to worship.

When god was a tree, all of the trees, the sky, the wind, the rain, the water that flows through our bodies, when god was everything, there was no wilderness. We were at home in the forest, and this is what we did: we buffed the woods, cleared the dead and dying branches to cook our meals and warm our nights.