Last week two trees lost their lives in service to our Mother Earth.
I felt the pain of the trees as they were chopped and hacked to the ground. I was so angry with the wood cutter – and everyone here yelled at him and told him to stop. But it was too late for those two trees – their lives finished by the chop of the blunt axe – digging deep into their core – they won’t die today – but they will die – and will no doubt be helped along the path to falling by the bite of another axe when we are not looking. To be dragged down the hillside and used in the cooking fires of the villagers.
I wanted to cry – but suddenly there was no point to the tears – only a point to action. If those trees died and I cried .. what changes? But if I am spurred to action – then meaning comes from their loss.
In my move to action first I thought to complain to the forestry department – but my Indian friends just laughed at that idea – after all what was our forestry department really going to do? In their opinion simply nothing as they seem to do all along.
So my next action was to seek out others who were looking to help our land and I found something very interesting.
Bore well recharging. The lights started to go on.
Water – the life blood of our Mother Earth – water so scarce here in this dry season.. that we have to truck it in every few days to keep our children supplied for all our many needs.
We have two bore wells.. one totally dry and the other produces only a little water each day. But imagine if we can channel some of the tremendous water run off from the rainy season – if we can recharge or refill the underground aquifer – using nature’s place to store our water – then we can have a plentiful supply all year round.
From that moment things moved very fast and today less than a week later, Sikandar Meeranayak of the Sankalpa Rural Development Society came to speak with us. We quickly gathered some of the local farmers together and he explained the simple methods they have perfected to make this happen.
And now as I sat in his talk, I began to see the reason why the trees died. They had not died in vain – for their lives had triggered a chain of events that will lead to our children being able to grow their garden and to have quality food. And the chain will not stop there as the farmers in our valley see the difference it makes to our water supply – they too may find the way to recharge the water deep in the earth.
We are going to store our water not in a big tank, but deep in the ground where Mother Earth already has the ‘tanks’ in a perfect place – cool, filtered, clean and bigger than any tank that we can build above ground – no evaporation from the sunshine, just waiting there for us to bring it to the surface – and to replenish it every time the huge and powerful rainy season monsoonal deluge comes.
What a simple an beautiful solution.
How grateful am I to the death of the two trees who gave their lives to trigger this discovery.
And in awe of the symmetry that surrounds me when I open my eyes to see.