The work of turning part of my yard into a prairie has begun. The first step was to cut down a big tree, and as I heard the chainsaw start up, a furious flush spread throughout my body. Was I making a huge mistake?
I adore trees. I am always pressing my palm to them, like when I wandered around Emily Dickinson’s backyard a couple of summers ago. I touched the biggest tree, hoping she had done the same, and that the tiniest bit of her spirit might flow into my body from that huge and rooted living thing.
Now, here I was, paying someone to kill a tree. It needed to be done for the ultimate health of the soon-to-be prairie, because this was an invasive species.
I’m familiar with those. My son’s Eagle Scout project was to destroy the Buckthorn that was choking out the good stuff at a county park. Over several cold weekend mornings, a committed band of us gathered to hack the trunks and dab nasty chemicals on the now-exposed centers, to make sure they didn’t come back stronger than ever.
Seedlings from this tree in my yard are growing into little trees here, there, and everywhere, and the thing about invasive species is they don’t play well with others. They choke everything else out.
Still, as I heard the chainsaw’s teeth make first contact with the living tree, I shuddered and whispered, “I’m sorry.” This tree provided shade, and gosh darnit, one of its branches housed a squirrel’s nest that I hadn’t seen until I watched it fall to the ground.
But this tree would make it impossible for the good and beautiful things I wanted to grow here.
It’s hard not to see life as a battleground, where things are pitted against one another, for water, food, energy, even sex. Some things want to take over. To dominate and destroy.
It’s important to take a good, hard look at the invasive species in our lives. Maybe it's living in to the culture of busyness or always trying to be in control, but what in your life is slowly but surely taking over? It might still have some benefits, just like my tree, but what in your life is squeezing out the quiet and the wondrous, leaving the beautiful with no room to grow? What can you remove to create the most health?
Sometimes in our lives and in our world, we have to do our damndest to protect the tender and the beautiful. To give them room to root and rise. To live and grow.