I spent part of Saturday up on the roof of our shed. The view from there was surprising. From the midst of a Sugar Maple’s branches
and leaves I could see the roof of our house and the upstairs window of the
house next door. It gave me an idea of
the squirrels’ point of view. The view
felt new and fresh, like I’d never seen our yard and house before. I was just eight feet higher than normal and
it felt brand new.
The shed roof had been leaking through the press board that
the original builder had used for the roof.
We had to pull off the old shingles and remove about forty square feet
of wood. Parts of it had rotted right
through. We threw all the old and broken
pieces over the side into the wheelbarrow below so that we had space to add new
wood and shingles. Handling all that
asphalt made me wonder about the way we build structures in this part of the
world and the short term view that we take for long term buildings.
We used perfectly good recycled wood from a friend’s old
shed to create a new roof, then added tar paper and new shingles from the
discount pile at the lumber store. I had
to be aware of where my body was and how I moved while climbing the ladder and traversing
the low-pitched roof top. I had to wear
gloves to protect my hands from the roof shingles and be careful not to fall
through the open area before the new wood was in place. Dismantling and rebuilding requires care and
concentration.
I got to thinking, later on when I was safely on the
ground, about repairing the water damaged roof.
The rotted wood had to be removed before dry wood was put in place. Sometimes dismantling is an important part of
repairing. I thought about dismantling
systems we have in place in our society when we discover that they are beyond
repair. We could have put new shingles
over the wet rotted wood, but it might not have withstood the snow load in the
winter. Some of our damaged systems are
not able to withstand the load of the pandemic.
Our next door neighbours had two huge century-old Sugar
Maples on their front yard. Last year
one of them, after showing signs of ill health for years, died. The neighbours were trying to sell their house
so they had the tree cut down and removed.
Now, a year later, we have had a lot of rain and mushrooms have sprouted
up from the dead maple roots. Little
white fungal markers in the green lawn show where these roots are now
rotting. This does not pose a problem. The fungus will help to break down the wood
and it will be reabsorbed into the Earth, sharing its stored nutrients as it
does so. The trunk and branches exist
only in my memory but what was always invisible to my eyes is now marked by
mushrooms. The underground world will
dismantle this part of the tree and new growth will emerge from the Earth in
its place.
And then a friend shared this video called Tending the Wild (above) with
me. Traditional knowledge keepers share
the practices of cultural burns to keep the forests in California healthy. Their understanding is that fire suppression has
led to forests with dead trees that are the fuel for wild fires. The change in worldview from seeing forests
as resources to seeing forests as home is the key. You know when your home needs cleaning up,
they say. Fire, death and dismantling
are all parts of life that allow for new growth and health. This is a change of story for the mainstream
Western worldview. But we have teachers
all around us and we can tell a new story.
No comments:
Post a Comment