incohesive

“Ecosystems are so similar to human societies—they’re built on relationships.  The stronger they are, the more resilient the system.”—Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree

we keep dividing
designating
a hierarchy
to pull what we share
apart

and so each
of us is missing
parts
each of us is
incomplete

why do we cling
to our separation
our isolation
who we think we are
alone?

the foundation
is faltering
and still
we hold
on

collapsing
into
the deep
hole
of ourselves

During a presentation Suzanne Simard made, early in her career, about her research into the interrelationships between trees and other species in the forest, and how all were necessary in order for the forest to thrive, she mentioned also the threat to climate from disrupting these systems. “Climate change means nothing in Canada” one of the audience said afterwards.

For earthweal.

33 thoughts on “incohesive”

      1. I put 5 bodies and faces together last night for the last of the POPO cards. Will finish them and get them out by next week. I’ve learned some cool tricks (techniques) from you!

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  2. I love your artwork so much! You reminded me that everybody has a dog these days. I’m sure it’s partly because people are lonely. We are mammals who need connection with other mammals, and with the earth itself. We can’t live in isolation. Pixels just don’t do it for us!

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    1. They don’t. Dogs, at least here in the city, also foster connections between humans. Even the goats they released in the park to eat the poison ivy have got more people talking to one another. Life is much better than the screen.
      Thanks Sarah.

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  3. I read this past week in several places that contemporary disease is isolation and that people who are isolated are more apt to embrace authoritarians, who only reinforce isolation with fringe thinking. A merciless cycle, this forest becoming lonely trees. Each with a dog. Nice work. – Brendan

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    1. Thanks Brendan. It is a disease, made more intense by both Covid and our ubiquitous screens. Although since we’ve been freed from staying in our apartments in the city, I do see more people just out walking, no phones in sight. I hope it will last. I don’t even mind the dogs.

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  5. You have made a poem out of something that I feel very deeply. This fragmentation of society from humanity into different ‘groups’ of people with their rights and demands, jostling one another with their rights to be different, and of course, to be the top of the differences. Respect for other people has become respect my right to opt out of every social structure except the one I claim as my own.

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  6. Powerfully said. I am struck by the quote “climate change means nothing in Canada.” One would certainly think so, listening to the legislators spouting their empty words that never address the crisis we are in. In B.C., right now burning, Horgan’s advice as to the heat waves we can now expect going forward, that people buy air conditioners. Oh. My. God. People near the fires say they can hear the animals screaming. This just does me in. As does the evacuation of people, leaving their pets behind.

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  7. So true – life is all so beautifully and intricately woven together and yet we insist on sentencing ourselves to lives of loneliness and separation by declaring our uniqueness and superiority to all that lives. Beautiful art.

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