My favourite trees have been felled and it breaks my heart

This week, more than half the trees on my road were chopped down, unannounced.

My heart broke.

I was unexpectedly working from home due to the wintry weather, and was really excited to be heading out on a snowy lunchtime walk with Bomber, only to turn up the road and see that a whole line of trees that I love had disappeared. Trees that I greet each morning and feel incredibly grateful to have on my doorstep. It was so surreal and painful.

They were still felling them as I walked past, and at first I didn’t have the courage to go and ask why they were cutting them down, annoyed at myself for my fear. I walked further along and I started to cry, and then cry harder when I saw that they had already cut down the trees further up, one of which I had been sitting under only a few mornings earlier. Another is/was the tree that would signify the spot that me and Bomber would turn around at and head back home.

I carried on, alternating tears with games of snowball fetch, trying to process what had happened whilst simultaneously entertaining my dog. It was really strange to be feeling both heartbroken and joyful in the company of Bomber and the snow.

When I got home and back to work, I started to worry about how many they were chopping down. There is a tree outside my bedroom window, that I again greet and say night to every day. I took a photograph of her, just incase. I looked up the road and saw that they were working their way down, and eventually plucked up the courage to go and ask why they were doing this and if they would be cutting down this tree.

In her full glory

It was apparently to rebuild the stone wall that the trees were knocking down, which didn’t make any sense as there is a housing application already approved to build in those fields. He said he didn’t know anything about the housing, that he wasn’t cutting the tree outside mine down, and that once the trees had gone I’d have a nice new wall to look at. My blood was boiling but my people pleasing self just smiled politely and said that I had grown fond of it, and laughed as I said they’ll be knocking down your new wall in a year or two. I was absolutely spitting inside.

And within this planning application, they had proposed to fell the tree opposite mine, and some others too. I put in my objections but was prepared for the inevitable, thinking I had a year or two to process this future loss. But it came today, when I was not ready for it.

I had planned to draw the tree from my window, to capture her before her time came to an end. All the trees were Sycamores, which sadly reminds me of the Sycamore tree on Hadrians Wall that I was blessed enough to visit, hug and photograph before she was felled. I recorded a podcast on that here.

I then wondered about how much strength and courage people must have to tie themselves to trees, or protest against any environmental matter…or anything really- to stand up against others for what they believed in.

That people pleasing part of me is currently too strong to do this as much as I would like, and I resent that I don’t have that in me yet. So instead I sobbed as they cut the tree outside my bedroom window in half. I did what I felt I could which was to be there with her, and the others, as they were felled. I felt their pain and comforted them like a mother, whilst sobbing like a baby.

Now

It then got me thinking about my own house, and what nature was destroyed to build my home. And then about all the trees being cut down every single second across the world, and our mindless consumption of wood.

I’m now back to holding myself with kindness, and those parts of me that struggle with the guilt of my impact on the world and find it very difficult to stand up for what I believe in.

I’m still in the process of working out what this means for myself and my actions going forward, but what I do know is what I shared in that Sycamore Gap Episode- these trees aren’t gone. They’re entering a new chapter on their journey. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted from one state to another. And just like when we ourselves are faced with challenging times, these trees will root deep and look inwards for the wisdom that is here, and grow from it. Just like we all will.

Love, Becca x

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