​Did the smell of dry maple leaves bring up that memory of jumping in leaf piles? Is it time to bring out the fall sweaters? Has it been like this for you? Here on Pine Hill, it's been all the usual fall stuff: stack firewood, give grassy areas one last mowing, try not to be bummed out over the shortening days.

​Despite the melancholy of another summer gone by too fast, there’s also excitement about what lies ahead. The Game of Logging courses we added are rapidly filled with a mini cross-section of people… young to old, novice to pro, Gore-Tex to flannel.

A lot of Game of Logging classes are taught to more homogenous groups, like a class of tech school teens or a utility company’s service crew. Pine Hill offers open enrollment workshops, meaning we get the most diverse class composition possible. I love watching the connections flourish.
 
For a day or two together, we get to cross-pollinate with a new community… some folks who are quite different from us, others more familiar. We hold that space for each other kindly. We cheer for each other’s little successes. If we’re lucky, someone brings maple candy or crisp apples to share.
 
We train people to get closer to mastering the physics of felling. That is the advertised bit. And though the “game” in Game of Logging is meant to be playful and spur you to improving technique, working with living tissue is somehow more than a game.
 
I am often asked “Why are we cutting down this tree?” I consider it part of my job to be able to offer a credible answer. The answers vary, but they are always sincere. Our classmates might not realize that I’ve been in those woods before getting it ready for the teaching.
 
Getting ready means bringing down hazard trees while being mindful of the importance dead trees have to wildlife. Getting ready means knowing the landowner’s forest management plan so we enhance the wellness of certain trees. Getting ready means clearing underbrush that poses too much tripping hazard. Getting ready means flagging trees for students that have a low likelihood of hanging up. It means thinking about where people can sit for lunch. Where will they go to pee? What might the weather be and can we still keep working if the wind comes up? And whether you believe such things, or not, getting ready means discussing our training work with the forest itself and saying thanks for helping us, and for watching out for us.
 
A lot of intention goes into getting a stand ready for teaching. And for my part, a lot of loving tree communication. And these practices are the essence of our Honorable Tree Felling workshop coming up on November 1st. Looking from the outside, it might seem that we humans are in charge, the protagonists, the top of the forest food chain.
 
In HTF, as we call it, we look at the role trees have played in wisdom traditions from around world. We practice a little yoga and a little qigong as they relate to trees. We look at the forest as a community of beings that we collectively call the More-than-Human. That community is made of trees who have archetypes, genders, personalities, and healing properties.
 
I like to notice the differences in how our little cross-section of attendees considers trees. Some will talk with awe about trees as living and breathing, conscious in some tree-way, how they smell or what sort of pulse they have. Some might talk to trees, hugging or thanking them. Others will express none of this. Trees are firewood. Trees are lumber. Some trees are pests and some are treasures. As I see it, it is not a binary choice. Trees are all of this. To co-opt a popular phrase, “It’s all wood.”
 
On some level, everyone who works with trees has a deeper connection, however they express it, or don’t. And just like a forest made of all sorts of trees, our training groups are made of all types of folks, and for little while, they make a special grove of themselves. I’m inspired by the promise of renewal that autumn provides. What better time to review and renew the ways in which we work with forests?

​Even the greatest gale
She is but a whisper
When Earth revolves
Beyond the speed of sound
 
Sometimes trees shatter
Waves surge and swash
Our hair backwards blown
She’s not quite glued to gravity
 
Vanilla vetiver pheromones
Pine resin wood smoke
Caramel of marshmallow
Wind-borne scent remembrances
 
So it is on this hill
White pines top the canopy
Nature’s breath comes on slowly
A gentle wash of kelp against rock

               -----

When the beech and maple are bare
Her twirling Noreast shivers
Incite buzzing swarms of twigs
Too early for tree frogs thrumming
 
Summertime the green world
Breezes twinkle the poplar leaves
Light dances in the understory
Synchronous shadows depose balance
 
Geosmin rules the rainy perfume
Until lightning’s ozone owns the petrichor
With humidity the fungi fester
Perspiration like tidal pools
 
Dry autumn breezes
She signals school and funerals
Leafy mosiac tapestries shimmer
Arboreal cathedral calm for a time

               -----

End of day end of season
Memory filling
Wind on the hill
Transience was never as permanent
 
Scattered black feather hoodlums
Break the calm of dusk
Murderous calls mete out justice
Upon one in their thieves band
 
Darkness lowers its late grey curtain
She holds her breath once more
Then turns about cool now
Flowing presently down this hill
 
There she sleeps
Fitful sleep of gasps and withers
Until with the morrow sun
Wind resumes her erstwhile ways

​
© Matty Adams, 2024