Ceasefire

fire scar on a white pine

Here in the tall pines, contentment gathers like the snow that laces the branches. The snow softens our footsteps, muffles our noise. We know where we are, more or less; the compass leads the way. The woods may look wild, but we are safe here. We are at home.

I skirt the big trees and I think of all the people who do not have this blessing of safety. Who cannot disappear into the arms of the forest. Whose homes have not just been taken away but obliterated.

I look up into the high, fisted needles above me, and I pray for a ceasefire. Here, in this place that seems so far from human violence. May all people find safety today. I’m thinking particularly of the Middle East, yet the long arm of violence trails into many places. May everyone find peace.

A car rumbles by in the distance. A second one follows shortly after. If you are listening for the whisper of the wind through pine needles, you will have to search for that sound mixed amongst tires on blacktop, perhaps half a mile away but still audible across the river and the wetland and the forest.

It’s unrelenting, the traffic, the subtle background noise here in this so-called “wilderness area.” It makes me weary. Can’t we have a ceasefire not just from war, not just from the bloodshed humans inflict on each other, but on all forms of human violence? What about a ceasefire on fossil fuels, a ceasefire on climate change, a ceasefire on extinction?

Give us one day a week where no one drives a car or flies an airplane or fires up their freaking leaf-blower/lawnmower. Give us one day of blessed, sweet silence, silence so deep we can actually hear the world breathing, finally, again. First world problems, you say? Maybe—but in the case of climate change, first world problems become problems for all.

Let us pray for a ceasefire. Release us from the cycles of violence and dominance—against each other, against the earth and the plants and animals who live here with us. May we all recognize all beings, human and otherwise, as possessing inherent rights and dignity that must be respected. Let us wake up to the ways in which we perpetuate these cycles ourselves—and let it happen in time to save lives.

May we all find peace; may we all feel safe. May we all find a forest to wander in, where we can hear the wind whispering in the trees.