Branching out

Photo credit: Booker T. Sessoms 2014

If you have ever cleaved wood on a regular basis, at some point you will come across a piece that carries the tiniest beginnings of a new branch. It looks like an internal sprouting, a plant within a plant.

You see, for a branch to grow to be sturdy and resilient, resisting the wind, it needs to have roots, of a sort. It can’t just be “attached” to the outside of the trunk. It has to start almost at the center, interweaving its fibers with that of the existing tree.

The fibers are actually how you notice it. It is almost impossible to cleave wood cross-fiber, at least if the wood is fresh. While cleaving firewood is always hard work, if you follow the fibers at least you will get it done. But if your piece contains an inchoate branch “sprout,” the fibers run in several different directions, rendering an axe inadequate. To do it well, you’d have to use a saw. Let’s just say I have left some pieces uncleft. Don’t tell my mother.

The point here is that we are the same. If we isolate ourselves and refuse to learn new things, it is easy for us to break, to get separated from each other and ourselves. It is easy for us to snap in the wind. Sustainability requires us to branch out, with knowledge and values that are rooted in our communities. Values that might grow cross-fiber and knowledge that might reach where we couldn’t reach before.

The point is, we are only as fragile and stuck as we allow ourselves to be.