Evergreen Testament

We cross the Coast Range at daybreak on the first of December. My daughter sleeps as dawn sifts darkness from the surrounding sea of trees and stumps.

First light on the forest makes me grateful for the way trees filter carbon from the air, buffering climate change. Others might muse on their value to wildlife and outdoor recreation, or salute timber revenues for schools and infrastructure. Many locals probably drive without thinking about much at all.

Willa and I are on the road at this early hour because she’s scheduled to take the SAT subject tests in Hillsboro. We left our farm outside Nehalem later than anticipated, so I keep glancing at the clock and speedometer.

On the other side of the mountains we pass a gas station, Dairy Queen, and other urban outposts. I notice a hand-painted sign pointing up a side road that reads “Nobles Only.” I picture a pastoral wedding where the bride and groom are ranking members of the Greater Portland Society for Creative Anachronism. Are mock medieval ladies and lords gathering separately from the hip commoners?

The sign’s real meaning becomes obvious when I see noble firs strapped atop several cars. Silly me. The yuletide is rolling in and we are, after all, in Christmas tree country. The native evergreen crop is a holiday centerpiece, an axis mundi to focus our exchange of gifts and mounding of commerce.

Willa wakes up shortly before we turn off at the North Plains exit. She opens her biology book as I fend off grief over the encroaching urban sprawl. “You’ve been good to me,” she says to the book, then reads a compelling description of photosynthesis.

We whiz past a sign urging motorists to watch for slower moving vehicles in agricultural zones.

I pull into the parking lot of Glencoe High School on time, hallelujah. My gratitude grows in the knowledge that I now have free time. The dutiful dad can do whatever he wants while his daughter jousts on the testing fields of America’s edutocracy.

The feeling of bounty swells as the new day becomes more glorious by the minute. No rain, by God. Swaths of blue woo a big moon setting over the school grounds. Time to stretch my legs in the morning air.

My usual ambles take me up into the coastal watershed, or from my bookshop down to Haystack Rock. The flow of life sounds different near the city, where engines whelm the elements. No ambient crash of surf here. Fewer trees whisper tales of the wind’s travels. Instead, there’s the drone of traffic and clang of a rope against the school flagpole.

At the front entrance volunteers divide wreaths and garlands for their winter fundraiser. My offer to help is graciously declined by a fellow with a clipboard. The greenery seems to be stacked for efficient delivery. I wish the boosters happy holidays and move on.

Glencoe has a well groomed campus with room for a robust athletic program. Home of the Crimson Tide. A woman in the office tells me the place was once farmland planted in crimson poppies. I’m guessing she means crimson clover, a beautiful crop that brands the North Plains area for residents and travelers.

Near the back of the school is a poly-resinated track tucked up against a neighboring subdivision. I take a lap while breathing in the surrounds. For me the suburbs feel normal and alien at the same time. This is where land-based culture dies and is buried under a pop American blob. At least that’s how our urban nativity has unfolded so far — from forests to mangers to strip malls.

A trail runs down a bank beside the track into a marshy spot where new plantings are marked with ribbons. Looks like the school property includes a natural area where mindful stewards are restoring part of the ecosystem. I head down there, following my heart. The ground’s too soggy for canvas sneakers, so I walk up another path into a grove of evergreens.

Suddenly I feel like I’m standing on sacred ground. My sense of kinship with the place expands in the company of cedars, some large enough to barely get my arms around. I press my palms against the taut skin of their trunks, revel in the scent of sprigs picked up from earth their kind have nourished for lifetimes.

Americans associate western red cedar with shingles. Having adapted to weather in the Pacific Northwest, these trees provide rot-resistant armor for dwellings across the country. Cedar shingles are a symbol of utility, preservation, and charm. So much so that supplies of older-growth trees are being depleted by our market economy.

Yet cedars are rooted in an older economy, too, one that treats natural resources as gifts rather than commodities. For thousands of years people of our region have used these trees for shelter, furnishings, clothing, and art. Indeed, cedars are central to our Northwest heritage. They’re called the native “tree of life.”

Recently I admired two exquisite cedar hats and a cape made by a member of the Clatsop-Nehalem Confederated Tribes. Such traditional regalia are showcased in museums and art collections, but they aren’t just possessions. Making and wearing them connects people with life-ways that predate modern notions of property.

This fact was first brought home when I witnessed the naming of a cedar canoe, carved by the Clatsop-Nehalem to replace one stolen from them by Lewis and Clark. Wood for the vessel came from a rare old-growth cedar that had been down for one year. The master carver sang for the tree and the forest, giving thanks for that life and for the creativity that helped it transform.

Two years ago my relationship with cedar was enriched while I was gathering greenery for a celebration of the returning salmon. Spontaneously I started singing a song that I still sing when I’m out for a walk and pick up wind-blown cedar sprigs to carry home. I spread them around the house to freshen my family’s spirits. After a while I remove their dry leaves and pass them along to friends who use them in sweat-lodges.

So I am walking in the Glencoe grove, gathering up something that feels good and grounding. Call it medicine. And here I come upon something I’ve never found before — a large felled cedar with a partially hollowed trunk. Sections of the trunk and limbs are pushed into a pile, apparently destined for disposal. The base of the cedar is burned on one side and charred deep into the center. Looks like someone built a fire against the tree, rendering it structurally unsafe and prompting grounds-keepers to cut it down.

Now I’m faced with my own little test. What role do I play in the chain of events that has brought me together with this sacrifice?

I sing while circling the pile.

Willa is still inside the school, filling in bubbles for another hour. Plenty of time to read a book I brought along.

Some writing is packed with so much thought that I have to read it several times. This is true with “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World,” by Lewis Hyde. The book discusses the role of gifting in human culture. Hyde’s topic takes time to understand, because it involves a synthesis of anthropology, folklore, theology, literature, and economics. Good reading material while waiting in a school parking lot.

Opening the book I read about Northwest Indian potlatches — key communal occasions that involve a giveaway of food and goods. I was asked to witness this tradition when the Clatsop-Nehalem named their new cedar canoe in concert with the Lewis and Clark bicentennial. I saw how gifts were shared in a ritual way to strengthen bonds among people and with nature.

The carver who oversaw the creation of the canoe also served as master of ceremony at the potlatch (the largest held in the Clatsop-Nehalem homeland in over a century). He spoke of the potlatch tradition as something that’s been carefully stored and is still intact.

“We’re pulling it from the shelf,” he said. “Dusting it off.”

According to Hyde, a lot of dust had already settled around such events when ethnographers first wrote about them in the late 1800s. By then potlatches had already been changed by over a century of trade with non-Indians. Before that time, indigenous folks would labor a year or more to become ready for such an event, if only to gather and prepare the treasures to be passed along. Gifts included pelts, fish oil, shells, and robes woven of mountain-goat wool with cedar bark. All this changed with the advent of manufactured trade items.

“The Indians began to winter near the company stores,” writes Hyde, “crowding the land and depending more and more upon a market they did not control. The Hudson’s Bay blanket, machine-made and selling for about a dollar, replaced the traditional nobility robe as an item of commerce. Where formerly a few carefully woven robes would grace a potlatch or feast, now literally thousands of trade blankets might be stacked along a beach…”

That transition echoes a generational shift that occurred in my family. On Christmas morning, after my siblings and I plowed through piles of presents, our grandparents would talk about old times on their farm. They’d tell us how holiday gifts were modest during their childhood, mostly homemade or grown.

“Sometimes sister and I would each be given a piece of store-bought candy or fruit,” said Papaw. “We were grateful.”

Swimming amidst Santa’s spoils I felt warmed by Papaw’s memory without any risk of having to identify. How could anybody — child or adult — be satisfied with so little? What I failed to see, back then, was that Papaw grew up during a time when the spirit of giving was less dependent on mass commerce.

I caught glimpses of that quality of life when Papaw scrutinized a piece of furniture made of wood from a select tree on his farm. Having made furniture himself, he knew craftsmanship. I also watched him run his hands over a farm-cured ham to determine whether it was ready to eat. No store-bought ham I’ve tasted compares. Surely other aspects of his land-based youth afforded similar satisfaction.

Such creative knowledge is itself a gift that becomes increasingly scarce as society submits to big box consumption. Keeping pace with that cultural shift means heaping up more commercial stuff even if our communal life feels less bountiful.

Will tomorrow’s children hear tales about the good old days when no Christmas shoppers were trampled on Thanksgiving at Walmart? If the dust of dependency keeps settling around us, I doubt many grandkids will be as happy as my grandparents.

Hyde discusses a ritual that accompanied some potlatches following the death of a chief. On such occasions, items of great worth were sometimes broken apart and the pieces given to participants. Each piece gained value as it was passed along. Sometimes all the pieces were re-assembled, and the restored creation became even more treasured by the tribe.

Probing the meaning of such rituals Hyde borrows two Greek terms for life — bios and zoe.

“Bios is limited life, characterized life, life that dies. Zoe is the life that endures; it is the thread that runs through bios-life and is not broken when the particular perishes.”

Hyde suggests that today we might think of zoe-life as the gene pool. Judging from our priorities, society seems to equate it with the sum of our market transactions — either GNP or GDP. But my heart knows the gift of creation can’t be compressed into barcodes and genetic sequences. Not by a long shot.

And this is a good time of year to point out that early Christians had the same basic idea.

“In the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life [zoe], and the life [zoe] was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Willa startles me from my thoughts by opening the car door. She feels good about the test, and is glad to be done.

“Let’s go home,” she says.

“Sure,” I say, “but there’s one more thing I want to do here.”

On the way to the grove I remind Willa about the significance of cedars. I’m assured that she’s way ahead of me when, unprompted, she takes a sprig of rosemary from her pocket (given to her by her mom, an herbal talisman for memory during the test) and leaves it at the base of a tree when we enter the grove. We walk there for a bit, then I show her the felled tree. What I have in mind, I tell her, is a kind of art project.

Here’s the idea that came to me while I was singing. First, we carry a piece of the trunk and some bark back across the mountains, store them in our house for a little while. That way, if the pile is hauled to the dump, at least a small portion of the remains — what Willa and I can fit into our little Toyota Echo — will not be wasted.

Then I’ll contact my Clatsop-Nehalem friends to tell them about my experience, ask if they’re interested in using the wood and bark for educational outreach. After that I’ll go through the official channels with the Hilsboro School District, find out whether the cedar can be used accordingly. If not, I’ll bring it all back to the heap.

And that’s what happens, after I pray. I ask for the gift of the tree to be guided so that it strengthens the relationship between people and the forest.

Days later, my Indian friends say the cedar gift would be a welcome contribution to their work in the community. The school district says they will consider a written request for the felled tree. And I receive permission to give the tribe the piece of trunk and bark stored at my home.

What will become of these gifts of creation? Hyde gives us an idea, later in his book.

“Works of art are drawn from, and their bestowal nourishes, those parts of our being that are not entirely personal, parts that derive from nature, from the group and the race, from history and tradition, and from the spiritual world. In the realized gifts of the gifted we may taste that zoe-life which shall not perish even though each of us, and each generation, shall perish.”

The most precious gifts on earth don’t come from humans. They come through us, and a light within us shines as we steward them along.

These are days of deep consequence, when people are tested both individually and collectively. May creation be unbroken by our limited thinking. Lord help us share in everlasting life.