Grief is Love

I’m walking on our little spot of earth, in what, only 6 years ago was a thriving ʻōhiʻa (O-HEE-YAH) forest- one of the healthiest in the area. The ʻōhiʻa lehua is native to Hawai’i- it the first tree that grows on a hardened lava flow. These trees have been here for a long time- the oldest tree is four thousand years old, and in the last decade, over 100,000 of the 850,000 estimated trees have died, from a previously unknown fungus. I sit here and remember how it was 6 years ago, while looking at the spindly bare tops, and wonder what it will be like 6 years from now. There is no cure for the fungus, the rot, the concordant beetles- nor apparently for the human unwillingness to wash their cars or their boots or tools before moving from one grove to the next.

They are said to represent the quality or core frequency of the ancient Hawaiian culture, the spirit of aloha, loving cooperation, resilience. The local medicine woman say the trees will die unless the people come back to the frequency of Aloha, stop the violence, fighting, drinking, abuse, and return to love.

So today, I’m grieving for the ʻōhiʻa lehua, for what was and what could be. While it feels hopeless to save a forest or an entire species, we do what we can: we plant uninfected seedlings, we quarantine the tools, we speak with other land stewards.

I try not to feel disconnected, or to bypass my feelings and just assume that other trees will grow here. In meditation, I try to feel the trees and listen to what they are saying, and find that they don’t actually have an emotional quality: it is more of Amor Fati.

While they prefer to live, and are developing their own defenses, if their time is over, they will give way.

#ohialehua #rapidohiadeath #rapidohialife