Among the Michigan Pines (1885)

Working as an environmental historian for the past 16 years, I have come to develop a great love and respect for the magnificent, ancient forests of Michigan's past. If Druids of ancient times could have walked among the forest groves of North America, I'm certain they would have discovered great power, beauty, meaning and majesty here, nestled among the Great Lakes. After decades of lumbering in the late 19th century, only scattered remnants of uncut forests now remain, such as those at Hartwick Pines State Park and in the Porcupine Mountains wilderness area. But our woodlands have undergone tremendous regrowth over the past century. Today, you still experience amazing sights and sounds among the trees over millions of wooded acres. 

Recently, I discovered a series of nine articles which were originally published in 1885, in the Chicago weekly magazine The Current. Written by columnist Charles Ellis, of Boston, the publication has been scanned and may now be found on Google Books. In short, much of what Charles wrote simply blew me away. 

In the winter of 1883 or 1884, Charles Ellis decided to head to Michigan in order to view our vast forests before they were gone and to spend time in a lumber camp. Of his decision, he wrote, "...packing my trunk in the early winter, I turned my back upon dear old Boston and was whirled away to the famous land of the wolverines."  After spending a few days in Saginaw, he traveled by train “about 70 miles distant”, ending somewhere in the Saginaw Valley watershed, which flows right through the Nature Center where I work. Below is the fifth installment of his articles. I've cut a few pieces out and added some additional paragraph breaks so you can read it more easily. I know its long, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I have! The full series of articles can be found here. 

AMONG THE MICHIGAN PINES

V.

A PINE FOREST.

There is a peculiar solitude in a pine forest. Alone upon the shore, the restless break of the waves makes ceaseless voices that wake companion voices in the mind. Alone upon the sea, the incessant change of its surface, the splashing waves as your boat dashes across the wind, or the idle flap of her sails as she rises and falls to their lazy roll under the summer sun, load the flying hours with delightful dreams. But the pine forest is alone. Time was when here the scarce hunters found abundance of game where now I see and hear nothing, save when the wind blows by, and high overhead I hear its breath as it is torn by the needles through which it is driven. This, indeed, is a varied sound, for at times it seems like a gentle prolonged sigh, and again, like Niagara's roar; or breaking waves pounding upon rocky shores are not louder nor more wild. But when the air is still and you stand alone beneath the pines no other solitude can compare with it.

Above, below, all peace!

Silence and solitude, the soul's best friends.
Are with me here, and the tumultuous world
Makes no more noise than the remotest planet.

The tall, dark columns all around you, the darker ceiling of the darker branches intermingling and blinding the sky above you, the utter absence of living things within range of your strained vision, all conspire to excite a sensation so new that you do not understand it for a time. I can almost understand, as it seems to me, how the ancients came to people forests with imaginary life; for as I look around me among the silent trunks, I feel the ancient impulse burning in my veins, and half expect to see elf or dryad beckoning me away. The silence excites imagination in her recesses and the Old becomes New; Ancient is Modern; I am a Pagan, like my ancestors, and at home. I become familiar with the trees. They know me and seem to shake hands. I am welcome among them. They tell me of the past. The inroad that civilization is making upon these grand old trees seems almost like sacrilege and murder; yet saved they cannot be... 

I recall a memorable ride among the pines. One day a foreman invited me to ride with him to a camp some fifteen miles away, and I gladly accepted the opportunity. Nine miles of the ride led through what might strictly be termed "unbroken wilderness," if such a thing can be found. Here and there was a small opening, where the pine had been cut and the brush burned, and there were two or three of these spots where courageous men had set to work to make farms. It seemed to me as if they might as well have gone to work to make a new earth! But what made hard farming made a most sublime picture to one unto whom the pine forest was a new revelation.

For miles we drove in and out along a narrow road with the trees so close that it required the strictest attention of our sylvan Jehu to carry us through without collision. As far as I could see across the snow, that lay smooth and unwrinkled like a spotless counterpane, rose the fair round columns of pine. Throwing back the head, one saw the branches reaching out to one another far overhead, interlacing and crowding to form a dark green canopy through which there fell occasional glimpses of a sky that seemed to rest upon the trees. The prevailing color is like a soft twilight that seems to express itself psychologically as Silence, but the monotony is agreeably lit up here and there by the reddish bark of the beautiful Norway pine.

The hard-wood growth is chiefly beech which, with its smooth, steel-colored bark, mottled with patches of green moss, gives a quiet variety and tone to the picture. The undergrowth (there is no "under-brush," as in a New England forest,) is also chiefly of young beeches that, as seen from the road, appear to be from six to twenty or thirty feet high. The beech is the most beautiful of our forest trees when stripped of foliage, as they are now, and when only their skeleton graces woo our admiration. As this tree grows here, among these tall, closely-standing pines, with but little sunlight ever falling upon it, and without hope of any, or of a glimpse of the world, unless it can push its head up through the dark roof that imprisons it, the beech seems to have set itself earnestly to the work of growing tall.

Sheltered from all winds it does not need strength, and so appears to be giving its whole attention to the development of delicacy, grace, and beauty of trunk and limb. Its lithe arms taper out from the shoulder long and beautiful, gradually dwindling to a pretty brown bud so finely pointed as to suggest the thought that the beeches might be running opposition to the pines in the production of needles. Every lesser branch, too, of every larger branch has its subordinate branches and twigs, and they all taper down in the same exquisitely graceful way to a beautiful brown bud. This undergrowth, standing everywhere through the forest, reaches out its long, slender branches in every direction until they mingle, touch, cross and interweave in all possible angles, curves and inclinations.

On every branch, twig and spray hang thousands of the dead, rust-colored needles that have fallen from the pine, and there form a seemingly intangible fringe of color. Looked at from a distance of a few rods, or as the picture deepens away from you into the background, it seems like nothing so much as an immense but strangely beautiful veil, the effect of which is to soften and tone down the heavy, dark figures of the pine that seem to stand behind it, while in fact they are in the midst of it everywhere. This vision begins and ends with the dense forest. Shut your eyes and open them upon the same spot again and again, you cannot be certain that you have ever seen the picture before, that while you even winked the scene was not changed. No whirling kaleidoscope ever presented a more varied picture of material always the same than does this silent panorama of the wilderness. As I saw it first it seemed to me that nothing could be added to it, that nothing could be more beautiful, and yet it was wholly void of speck or point of gaudy coloring, and no sign of living thing could be seen save in our own company.

Not even a ray of sunlight glinted through it, for the sky was overcast with clouds that portended a storm. Indeed, while we were in camp it came on. As we returned in the afternoon over the same road I saw that there had been a transformation. The snow had sifted down through the pine boughs, and in the still air had settled upon and covered every branch and twig of my fancied veil and converted it into the loveliest white gossamer that ever hung in midair. I knew that the scene had not been really changed, I knew that I had driven through and looked over all that same ground only a few hours before, but another factor had been added, that was all, and the effect was marvelous indeed!

Nothing could have been finer. I have seen a quite similar effect produced by a heavy frost under which, in the early morning, the forest everywhere looked as if a great gauze veil had fallen upon it; but in that picture the frost crystals, standing so much more loosely, show a darker color and less clearly defined lines than are given by the snow, which falls more compactly. So, of the picture, I repeat that nothing could be finer or more beautiful; and nothing like it will ever be seen save in just such a forest under similar conditions. No canvas can ever be made to show it, for no artist can ever carry its magnitude away with him. The trees are too tall, the vistas too deep, the perspective too far, to be manipulated on canvas. Nature defied Art when she built this magnificent forest of pine. Looked at from the outside and seen from a distance, such a forest seems like a belt of night bound around the waist of day. Looked at from within, it seems almost to be a community of individual, though mute, lives. The Pines are "daughters of the gods,"

Divinely fair,
And most divinely tall!

So sings my soul, and I, nothing loth, have found at their pagan shrine, if not the peace, at least a piece of Heaven.

-Charles Ellis

Swinger of Trees

When I see birches bend to left and right 

Across the lines of straighter darker trees, 

I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
                                   

From Birches by Robert Frost (1916)

In fifth grade, I learned where the sidewalk ends. All of us in Ms. Hartman’s class made the journey to that magical place together. We also sat on the carpet with bated breath as storks built their nest of sticks on a wagon wheel, perched on top of a schoolhouse, far away. I even read aloud to the class one rain-soaked afternoon.

Me as a Kid

Poems and stories filled the air as we turned pages, memorized lines, and shared them aloud with each other. I distinctly remember the warm fog of horse’s breath as we stopped by a wood on snowy evening. Teachers share gifts with their students in small ways every day. Some last a lifetime.

Richmond Middle School still sits at the edge of a small Michigan town, just as it did when I started attending in the autumn of 1981. Behind the playground was a woodlot of oaks and maples, crisscrossed with winding paths to entice the intrepid adventurer.

The wood was divided by a deep drainage ditch, bordered by a tall chain link fence. I have no idea who owned the property, but their fence was no match for boys. Wally and I roamed the place at will, crossing the ditch on a fallen tree. Our search for the mighty Excalibur lasted many moons, and scores of sticks were smashed to smithereens in the conquest.

One summer Saturday, I dragged Dwayne along for birdwatching behind the school. Blue jays and cardinals, chickadees and mourning doves were among the morning’s usual suspects. After birding we stopped on the playground and hopped on the swings, if only to get that much closer to our feathered friends. Soon after, an unusual sight pulled into the parking lot. Our swings came to a rest as we watched a man get out of his car and walk across the grass, headed in our direction.

The police officer told us that someone had been lighting off fireworks behind the school the night before and asked if we knew anything about it. Our resulting pleas of ignorance and claims of watching birds were initially met with some degree of skepticism. Clearly he thought the culprits had returned to the scene of the crime. The glint of victory sparkled through his glasses.

Until we uttered the words, “Yellow-shafted flicker.”

Even at my tender age I could instantly discern that while a badge and a gun provide some measure of authority, they do not impart one whit of knowledge about birds. “If you boys see anything suspicious, let us know,” he said as he smiled and drove away.

Now back to Mr. Frost. Reading his poem Birches had introduced me to quite a new idea. The concept of “swinging trees” was, I must admit, most intriguing. Climbing trees had already been a favorite pastime of mine for years, starting with the gnarled old apple trees in our backyard. But climbing a slender sapling to the very top, then flinging outward with a swish to the ground! What a grand and terrifying idea!

Poem in hand, it was time to search for a candidate. While I had no need to “fetch the cows” as the boy in Mr. Frost’s musings, it still seemed to me this line of work was a solitary calling. This would especially be true if things didn’t go quite as planned and I ended up breaking an arm or something. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to witness such a spectacle. That kind of story would be whispered behind my back for years or maybe end up in the local paper.

So off to school I go, when no one is around. Except for the scolding jays, the woods sure are quiet and peaceful. It feels like the trees know I’m up to something...

There aren’t many birches around here, but I’m sure another kind will do. Maples are strong, don’t they make baseball bats out of those? Or maybe that’s hickory. There’s a hickory tree over by the high school where we race squirrels to collect nuts every autumn, but that sucker is huge. Maybe Paul Bunyan could swing it, but I weigh about 80 pounds.

Now concentrate…maple it is. Those helicopters sure make a mess of our yard, but that ice storm a few years ago was even worse. Giant branches were down everywhere and the neighbors were out on the street, surveying the damage. I wonder if any of these bent saplings got arched to the ground then and stayed that way. “Like girls on their hands and knees that throw their hair before them over their heads to dry in the sun.” Robert Frost is so cool.

That one looks pretty good, but the branches sure are skinny. Oh well, might as well give it a whirl. My hands are kind of sweaty and it’s not even hot out. Holy crap, this thing is already swinging all over the place. I’ll never make it to the top. Back down. Try again.

This one looks better. Probably grew a bit slower under the shade of this big guy. Chickadees sure have small feet. They could cling to one of those tiny twigs way up there and barely make a leaf move. Mom sure loves those little guys. I bet they’re really soft.

This isn’t as easy as Mr. Frost makes it sound. “He always kept his poise to the top branches, climbing carefully with the same pains you use to fill a cup up to the brim, and even above the brim.” Well that doesn’t sound so easy after all.

I know, how about those low branches on that big tree over there. Now this is no problem, and I can just reach the top of this sapling. Holy cow, I must be twenty feet up here. It would really suck if this thing just snapped in two.

“Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, kicking his way down through the air to the ground.” Okay Robert, here we go.

It worked! And I became a swinger of trees. I clenched my sweaty hands into tight fists around the thin taper of the crown. Feet extended, I jumped from the larger tree, descending in a furious rustle of green leaves and invisible wind, smiling all the way to the ground.

Lightly stepping off, the tree sprung skyward, (mostly) returning to its upright position. For the next little while, I enjoyed the natural ride again and again. Saplings were at my mercy. “By riding them down over and over again until he took the stiffness out of them, and not one but hung limp, not one was left for him to conquer.”

Then it was time to go. This wood and I would meet again before my youth was done. As I turned to say goodbye, fresh memories swirled in my brain. But then I saw the trees. The jays were right to scold me as I arrived that day. After my thrills, a row of saplings bowed their heads to the ground. They looked sad, if leaves and branches somehow share our feelings. Their neighbors stood nearby, leafy arms reaching to the sky, soaking up the sun. At that moment, I sure hoped Mr. Frost was right and they wouldn’t stay that way.

Today, I cherish the day I became a swinger of trees. I had come to know the quiet sentinels of the little woodlot behind my school in a new way. Our arms were intertwined as swirling wind rushed through our hair. The trees brought me back to earth with the softest touch, stripping me of fear and worry, leaving nothing but joy.

Since that day, I have never again been a swinger of saplings. Now when I climb (and you better believe I still do) I only choose trunks strong enough to support me. Young trees have a more noble task than riding my somewhat-more-than 80 pounds to the ground. Slender leafy heads belong above us for chickadees to perch on.

But I must admit, when I see a sapling bent to the ground, it makes me wonder and have to smile. Let the children play. Let them know the trees.

Great Lakes Druidry

While Druidry existed in ancient Britain and its revival took place there in the 17th century, modern Druidry has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon. If people are able to use this spiritual path to help repair our connection to nature and heal our damaged world, then it must be extremely adaptable to each place where people feel the call of nature all over the planet.

An excellent introduction to this idea is articulated by John Michael Greer in his article "A Pacific Northwest Ogham", which can be found on the website of the Ancient Order of Druids in America. In his article, Greer writes:

The tree-Ogham as it has come down to us in modern Druid tradition is a creation of the British Isles, and draws on the trees of that region. The Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest, where I live and practice Druidry, is nearly a different planet in botanical terms...The process of creating a tree-Ogham appropriate to the Puget Sound country - or any other environment sufficiently different from northwestern Europe -- is not unlike that of translating poetry from one language to another. Inevitably, some meanings are lost, and others are gained which were not present in the original.... If Druidry is relevant to the whole world, though - and I believe that it is - it must be able to put down roots in forests very different from the ones where it originally grew. There must someday be a cactus-Ogham for the Arizona deserts and a jungle-Ogham for the rain forests of northern Australia. 

The concept of Druidry being adaptable to anyone is extremely important to me. While I respect and admire the ancient Celtic cultures of the British Isles (and even have ancestors who immigrated from Ireland, Scotland and England), I have little desire to simply reenact the spiritual traditions of a long-ago culture from a different place and time. It's also one of the (many) reasons I drifted away from the Christianity of my youth. 

Pines and Fir Trees along Clark Lake in
Michigan's Upper Peninsula

As I've begun to study the Celtic tree Ogham, I've had some trouble with the specificity of its connection with the trees and shrubs of the British Isles. I've spent my entire life immersing myself in the woodlands of Michigan and the surrounding Great Lakes region and simply have no personal connection with species like the Rowan, Gorse and Hawthorn. Others, like the Honeysuckle and Scots Pine are actually invasive exotic species in Michigan and the nature center where I work makes a considerable effort to eradicate them from our property.

Don't get me wrong. I'm happy to study Arthurian legends, learn the story of Einigen the Giant and contemplate the personality of Esus as he sits in the Sacred Oak. What I think we ALL need, however, is  personal experience with the plants, animals, soil and water around us. We need to hear the sound of the wind in the leaves of the Sacred Oaks in our own backyard and smell their leaves on the forest floor.

In that respect, I plan on working on adapting the tree Ogham for the woodlands of Michigan. I look forward to investigating the hidden hidden traits and characteristics of our trees and shrubs, celebrating their wonders and deepening my connection to their life-force spirits.

Skybranch /|\

Forest Voices

The trees are speaking to me again,

their willow branches windswept in the night.

Their mystic beauty, everlasting,

turning crimson,

golden, green-leafed faces,

shallow laughter.

Singing, sighing, screaming;

broken in storm-swept meadows,

lightning flashes.

I soak the rain into my bones

and hear the song of the endless life-force.

Flowing rootwise, breathing, growing.

I feel their shadow on ever-pine laden pathways

into the shelter of twisted faery places.

They welcome me to their shrouded haven

in the sun-dappled morning soaked with dew.

Look to the sun-rayed goddess

who turns green-clad mountains from lifeless greyness

to groves of laughter filled with beauty.

Fabled places, long forgotten, still feel the pull of the forest;

still hold the secrets of tomorrow,

in yesterday’s songs of colored autumn.

Don’t forget the quiet places,

hidden by the trees who are always singing.

Talking to me, once again,

I hear them breathing,

ground-beat throbbing in my bones.

This is a poem I wrote many years ago, long before I discovered the path of Druidry. I've always felt the call of the forest. Living in Michigan all my life has been an inspiration. We are the State of Trees and I've always felt most at home among my leafy woodland friends. 

-Skybranch  /|\

Ancient Shores

I led a very wet hike this evening at Averill, once the largest banking ground in the world, where white pine logs were piled thousand upon thousand as they awaited their trip to the sawmill. A lot has changed since the 1880s, and the property along the Tittabawassee River is now owned by the Little Forks Conservancy, who has worked to restore the natural ecosystems there.

As I walked the property yesterday, I listened to the wind blow through the trees and watched autumn leaves spiral to the earth. Each spring, 130 years ago, this land was nothing but logs piled 30 feet high and more, stretching for a mile along the high riverbank. Now, white pines and a host of other trees grow there once again and birdsong fills their branches.

The little stream flows into the river

As I contemplated this history of men and trees, I was drawn off the trail by a fragment of an old stone foundation in the woods. A small piece of wall is all that's left of some old structure, long rotted and gone. Looking further in, I noticed a piece of an old railroad tie that was once part of the grade that ran near here. Now, it's a paved bike path that stretches for 30 miles through the restored countryside of forests and farmland.

Looking even further into the trees, I noticed the winding bed of a small stream, cutting its way through the woods as it heads for the nearby river. I found evidence of mink, raccoon and deer in the sand and clay along the shore. Beds of stones and pebbles lie exposed in the low water. Walking along the bed, I paused to examine these rocks, deposited here who-knows how many eons ago. Crouching low, I was amazed at the variety of sizes, shapes and colors and found several small pieces of pure white quartz amidst their gray-clad cousins.

Then, in the water, I noticed a pattern of lines and pulled up a rock that was nothing less than a completely fossilized shell. Just over an inch long, its top and bottom halves are clearly visible, almost like something new which had instantly turned to stone. This whole region, however, was once covered by glaciers a mile thick and ages earlier than that, a warm saltwater sea. The name of our local Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans group is "Ancient Shores CUUPS" in recognition of those times long past and forgotten by most.

Though it seems like the main tale of this place, it turns out those frenetic years of lumbering destruction were just a mere moment of time in a long, long, story of this land. Here I am, crouching in a streambed with wetted fingers, clutching a fossilized shell from an ancient sea. Maybe the very water molecules that gave it life thousands and thousands of years ago are literally flowing through my veins.

Skybranch /|\