Some people wonder why I spend so much time in the woods? Some people tell me I go to the woods to escape reality. Some people say I must be in search of something. Some people just think I’m weird. The truth is there is a “fierce green fire” inside me.
“A Fierce Green Fire” is the name of a book by Marybeth Lorbiecki about environmentalist Aldo Leopold, author of A Sand County Almanac. Leopold isn’t the reason I spend so much time in the woods, but he helps me understand why I do. I’ve been going to the woods all my life. I grew up along Beaver Creek just outside of Adrian. It’s where I spent my summer days; catching frogs, building tree forts, and playing in the creek. When I was 12 we moved to another home along the River Raisin. I learned to shoot an air rifle in the flooded woods along the Raisin. My dad said I was only allowed to shoot blackbirds; which we considered raucous vermin who stole food from his feeders. But one day I broke his rule. I accidentally shot a Robin. I remember vividly seeing it fall from the tree. When I walked up to the robin it was twitching and watching me. I only had to watch it for a minute or so before the twitching stopped. Then I watched a fierce green fire leave his eyes. I buried that Robin in the woods beneath a Maple Tree. Aldo describes this same experience in his younger days when he first shot a wolf.
When I was a kid I went fishing a lot. Most kids love to fish. But I really loved it. When all my brothers were chasing girls I chased fish. I studied them. I learned all I could about new techniques and gear. I caught a lot of fish too, learned to clean them and loved to eat them. I still love to eat them. But nowadays I rarely keep them. I don’t keep fish for a lot of reasons. When I was a kid I was the Josie Wales of fishermen. All I cared about was how many fish I could catch. Some days I just left them on the bank. Like the outlaw Josie Wales I would say, “buzzards gotta eat” and spit on their heads. Later on in life when I was working my way through college I got a part-time job at the Spring Valley Trout Farm just west of Dexter, MI. They also had a catfish pond. My main function was to assist the customers, keep the gear in good shape and clean fish. I remember one hot summer day when a father and child came in to get their catfish cleaned. The kid wanted to watch so they stood there while I pounded the catfish’s head with a mallet, cut the throat and ripped it’s skin off. After that the father skurried the son outside to go find mother. I have to give the father credit for allowing his son to see that process. It’s good to know where your food comes from and how it’s processed. Most animals we eat are deprived of their lives horrifically and violently. So I don’t kill fish anymore. If I do I say a prayer thanking God for the food that sustains me. I think everyone should go to a chicken farm, or a CAFO or any food processing plant to see the ugly truth of where our food comes from. Every person needs to see the fierce green fire leave the eyes of the creatures we eat. It would do them good.
I go to the woods because I feel God more in a pine cone than sitting in a pew. I dont work for humans anymore. I work for nature. Leopold said that we are “the meanest flower that grows”. This is most obvious in our voracious appetite for new and shiny things. We destroy everything in our path for them. And most Americans are blind to it. We chop off our feet to buy a new pair of shoes. Progress is not bad. I am comfortable. I owe that comfort to progress. But I refuse to give up any more of my wilderness chapel in the name of greed. Recycle your old abandoned buildings that you left to rot in the city. Leave my chapel alone because I would rather listen to the chorus of frogs than an iPod, smell the sweetness of morning dew on a Big Bluestem than expensive perfume, feel the cool Lake Michigan breeze on my face than spend a day in air conditioning, or float down the Au Sable than spew smog with a jet ski. That’s just me. Those are my joys. I need wilderness to do that. It has nothing to do with politics. It has everything to do with a fierce green fire.
The Heron 