Ecosystem Notes #17 Splintered

Social Leadership Daily - Day #839

The storm had felled a number of trees on track from Standing Hat Enclosure through to the Frohawk Ride. This trail is set up for accessibility more so than adventure, and it’s not my favourite, passing predominantly through pine and fir plantations, with only a little ancient forest along the border. But after weeks of rain, and with both children in tow, it’s one of the few places where the track is reliably dry, and you can do a whole five mile loop on gravel.

The violence of the tree falling had, in places splintered the wood, leaving clean bright flashes against the otherwise somewhat drab palette. Wood holds a tension within it, and the twisting, wrenching movement of falling releases this tension, and reveals the underlying whirls and knots of the interior structure. It lets you see the wood not just as one thing, but as an interrelated system, tangled, connected, dynamic. Strong, not simply by resisting movement, but through movement.

One tall fir, easily eighty feet high, had been caught in the fork of it’s neighbour, both seemingly content in their new embrace. Indeed, several long fallen trees thrive in their now horizontal setup, with some roots still intact, and simply throwing up branches from their prone position. A recalibration of the forest from the dominant vertical perspective.

This idea - of splintering - of releasing tension - should sit somewhere within culture too. To release tension, to expose something previously hidden. Aspects of circularity and storms.

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I’m into the second month of this work, and it’s harder as it progresses. The seemingly simply notion of documenting Ecosystem Notes assumes I will not run out of language or ideas. There can be a formula, but it requires distortion, divergence, a fluid gaze, within it. Next week I will start to pull together parts of this work: to lay out the pieces and see what stands tall.