April 25, 2020 by Miriam Jacobs

It is late in the morning, when I sit in my kitchen with coffee. I keep the curtains closed. I can't look at it. I can't stand looking at the big tree in my neighbor's backyard, while it is getting cut down. I keep hearing the chainsaw, cutting an intense pain through my soul. The penetrating sound deviates silent breaks, because the tree has to be killed step by step.

Yesterday evening, my neighbor knocked on my kitchen door. If we please could remove the car, because tomorrow the tree will be felled. The tree? That enormous big tree? It might as well had been standing in a forest. That tree has to leave? Now? Damnit, during breeding season! There are so many nests in the tree! If killing the tree is unavoidable, why not wait until after the breeding season? No, waiting is not an option. Because the tree leaves a mess and it damages the patio tiles.

The chainsaw is cutting the branches. It feels as if my arms and legs are weakening. I take a sip of my coffee and stare into nothing. Why do I feel this intense pain inside my soul? Why am I so devastated from this? Because, well, every day trees get cut. Every day, animals die. Every day, people close their eyes forever. And well, everyday uprooted people get taken away from society and locked up in detention.

The tree. A strong symbol in so many cultures. And in so many stories. The tree holds a message about the human roots. It symbolizes being embedded. From the symbolic consciousness within me, associations are made between the tree and the current situation in human society. The tree in the backyard of my neighbor is uprooted with policy. Isn't that the same we humans do to ourselves? Are we not uprooting ourselves with the policy of artificial systems? Ancient old cultures lived in the knowledge of being part of the whole. They were rooted in that whole. However, when human kind started to place itself above nature, it got uprooted. Because human kind is part of the same, from which it separates itself from.

The tree tells me that nature has to make room for economy. It has to go, because it damages the patio tiles. I think of a news item, yesterday on television. In that item, Trump calls to inject chemical agents into to body, in order to fight the covid-19 virus. The virus has to leave, so the artificial systems can start up again. Because otherwise, Trump might lose the elections without a well running economy. And when he loses the elections, he loses that horny power he craves so much.

Symbolically, my brains connect felling the tree with the uprooted man in the time of Corona. It seems as if humanity finds itself in between two paradigms. The old is gone forever, while the new hasn't yet arrived. In this phase of in between, one tries to save what can be saved from the old familiar world. However, Corona hunts people back into their houses, and it destroys their artificial systems. At the same time, nature is involved in the orgasm of spring. Like every year. Unattached.

Tonight, the tree will be gone. Tonight, the patio tiles can be restored. I look through the front window of my kitchen door. I see the neighbor passing by. Carrying her grocery bag in her hand.