I am coming to you on the evening of another victory. Another day in my tree home. Another day that Anadarko can’t destroy this forest and turn it’s streams into another gulf deepwater disaster. I am reminded of fall and how the leaves are now, well, falling. Confrontation is expected at any moment, it is amazing that I’ve gone this long without it. I am taking a calculated risk, one that I am able to take because of my privileged standing in this culture.
I am not going to lie, the constant reality that any moment, the time when some law enforcement type will find me and try to remove me is pretty draining. The thought that someone will force me from this tree so that it will be destroyed, what have we become as a species.
Why is the bottom line of some distant corporation more important than the forest? Why does the desire of some random shareholders quarterly check take precedence over the life that holds this place precious?
I am just an anonymous person in a tree, I am not brave or some radical super activist. I am just a person who holds this place sacred, I’m just someone who thinks it is special enough to risk being put in a cage for defending it. In the defence of this place, we can all be Hellbender if we just try. Reading your comments and letters has reminded me why I am here. So that together we can stop this insanity. I’ve felt your resounding love and I send mine back.
I will end this mushy update with a quote.
“We have nothing to loose because we have nothing. We have everything to gain because our rage and the strength of our resistance is infinite.”
For now I am left to enjoy yet another fall day on the front-lines of victory.
~ Hellbender