Peace In America?
Perhaps the redwoods should be America’s symbol, not the eagle!
Friends, though sometimes it may be hard to believe, there is peace in America. The beautiful photograph shows some magnificent Californian redwoods growing peacefully. These trees can live up to 2,200 years, they are the tallest trees on earth (up to 115 metres) and, at their base, they can reach 8 metres in diameter.
While these trees have been growing, Christ and Mohammad and Buddha have come and gone, the Greek and Roman Empires have vanished along with many others, and many tribes of Red Indians lived in America more or less coexisting.
Then, around 400 years ago, the whiteman arrived in America in large numbers! Whatever peace there was quickly disappeared. What followed was mass genocide of the Indians, the killing of all the bison, a war against England, a Civil War, industrialization, the Wild West, the building up of the world’s biggest military, WW2 and the dropping of atomic bombs. You know all the rest!
While death and destruction have been widespread both in America, and because of it, across the world, these majestic trees, which harm no one and do not engage in violence, grow quietly, serenely in their solitude. Their limbs are raised to the sky, thankful for the seasons, sunshine, rain and fog. Their longevity, when chainsaws are kept away from them, contrasts strongly with our laughable 70 or so years.
Ironically, their size is all too often dwarfed by human ego and conceit. Their peacefulness towards all other life forms also contrasts with the almost universal love of violence and killing found in humans. And, unlike humans, they are not greedy but take from the environment just what they need.
These trees could teach humans some valuable lessons if only humans were intelligent and humble enough to stop the frantic pace of their lives for a time and question the direction of their lives, their beliefs and their values.
Redwoods dwarf us in every respect.
I envy them their peace.
Yes, indeed! If only USAers would be intelligent and humble enough to learn from the Redwoods. I am so thankful for them.
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David G Reply:
November 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
The contrast between the California redwoods and Americans generally is extreme, Therese.
I’ve visited the redwoods and was struck by their silent, majestic, understated beauty.
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David there is a “natural peace” in America such as your photo shows. It’s all within nature though and not with most people. The people here are living on their last nerves. The fearmongering has killed us.
I have never seen our famous Redwoods but here in my neighborhood, (I live in the suberbs) I chose to buy a home in an old neighborhood about 9 years ago and we have old trees here. ( Not nearly as tall as Redwoods) Mostly Oak and Maple. There are also plenty of Dogwood and Magnolia trees. But the Oaks grow rather tall.
One morning as I stood in front of my kitchen sink and stared out the window, I noticed the trees playing with each other. Tennessee has become quite breezy in recent years and even sometimes called part of the new tornado belt. So that morning I noticed that the trees to the left of the window were really swaying hard in the breeze. All the trees in the middle of my view remained still. Then the trees to the right of my view answered back with their swaying. They were all about the same height. In my opinion, the wind blowing through should have made all of them sway at the same time in the same pattern. But it didn’t. The left would blow and sway and then become still and then as if to answer, the right would blow and sway and the middle trees were always still. I think I witnessed the trees having a conversation with each other! I’ve only ever told this to one co-worker. She didn’t think I was crazy. Everyone else would have.
Right before this tree incident I had an encounter with a red bird that we call a Cardinal here. I was at the kitchen sink window again, early in the morning before work and the bird lit outside on the ledge. It started chattering at me through the window glass. It didn’t leave right away so I talked to it through the glass window. “What do you want little bird?” “What are you saying to me?” We had about a 5 minute conversation with me asking it questions and telling it how beautiful it was but I have no clue what it was chattering to me!!
So David, I think nature tries to have conversations with us if we could only slow down and listen! If I hadn’t had that little crazy conversation with the red bird, I probably would have never noticed the trees a few days later outside that same window.
I have a feeling that the Red Indian would have known what all of my tree sightings and engagements with the bird were about. I regret the history of the white man and the Indian in our country. I regret the slavery of the black African Americans too. And I also regret all the wars that we have been involved in. Peace is always here….right at our fingertips if we can only learn to use it!
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David G Reply:
November 27th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Kathy, your experiences are uplifting. I often talk to the many birds which visit my property including swallows which come back here each year to nest.
I keep them supplied with water during the current drought and enjoy watching them bathe. They contrast strongly with the horrific images that I often see on the television. We need to harmonize with the natural world frequently. If we do, we’ll see that we are just a small and rather insignificant part of the scheme of things.
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David, thank you. I’m glad I’m not the only one who talks to birds!! LOL
We are indeed very insignificant in the whole big scheme of things!
I didn’t realize you guys were going through a drought. We just had one of the most rainy October’s on record and it hurt a lot of the harvest for various crops.
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I had two baby birds fallen from their nest, two years distance from eachother, hosted at my place. A kingfisher. and a Crow. people thought I was crazy. i transformed my balcony in a human sized cage, and raised the two feeding them with syringe. I had guts, and carried one with me in the office every day, in a cage
to be able to take care of it, until it was able to fly.. I was wondering, how come was I to find them? But then I realized, I was the only one maybe to stop the car and pick them up .. The experienc of raising two baby birds was unbelievable. If I only could describe it!!! when I found the baby kingfisher, I put it in my lap and drove home. On the way, he jumped ffrom my lap on my forearm,( my hand on the driving wheel) and stood peacefully watching interested outside the car window. I said to myself: he must be experiencing now what I would feel if abducted by an alien vessel hehehe.. How come is he so peaceful and composed? I then decided to stop at a vet shop I happened to see in a shoping complex before. I had a laptop and a documents bag which I could not abbandon in the car. so I was puzzled, when I get out, how do I carry all these and the bird? I decided.. I put King Baby on my shoulder. It was a sight to remember, me carying two bags, the car keys, and others while walking majestically with a kingfisher on my shoulder and enetering so the pet shop. The vet inside and everyone else were… were stunned.. then the vet told me he is no expert in birds, but confirmed it s a baby due to the feather’s growth… and gave me cat food 
to feed him with a syringe. When I reached home I put him on the sofa (he couldn t fly) and went to make a salad in the kitchen. The most screeching sound, every time I left him, came from his throat. I returned to the sofa, silence. I left the sofa, noise. After ten times back and forth, i got tired, took him on the left shoulder where he sat all the while untill I cooked and ate my salad. Sounds sience fiction? After a week, I was in the toilet, the door open to the living room where he sat on the sofa. In the meanwhile he already mastered few jumps.. all eneded against a wall or window. He hadn t mastered the science of landing. So I was washing my teeth. I heard wings flipping. There he was, landing on the toilet seat. Put him on my shoulder, his favourite position, and slowly slowly he climbed on the top of my head. Since then, his new favourite, replacing the shoulder. I was all the while worried for his future, and planning to return him to his habitat, every week I was visiting the place where I found him. I walked around the nearby park, and he started make his very specific skreeching sound. Believe it or not! TWO BIRDS came under the three where I temporarily placed him, and circled him, making similar sounds. One was grey small and one was his color and bigger. I know that male birds are colored if I m not wrong.. the Baby was restless and I hoped he ll fly away with them.. wishful thinking, yet the trouble maker jumped and jumped and flew a bit, until he landed up on a wall, fended with metal grids and pointy things.. Hell in my head. How to get him? Jumped jumped couldn t reach the height. Went on the other side to see what building was that? SHIT. AUstralian embassy, guarded with Cameras.. and was wondering 
heheh do they electrify their fences? I dropped quickly the idea of asking them to open their gates to let me find my bird. he he they would have thought I m crazy..I went back again, stacked some rocks, and recuperated my baby, after squeezing my hand through the grids, PRAYING heheheh for two things: one. no electrified fence. two. No CCTV aimig me as a terrorist planting a bomb in their backyard… he he he.
After two weeks I released him in the same park..as he was ready to fly and I am sure his family welcomed it. They did not forget him, as I had already seen. I was impressed by birds! we highly underestimate what is non human, and that is in tune with the idiocy of our species.
As for the crow.. I have witnesses too in case anyone doubts this is real. Took baby crow from the highway border. If I hadn t , he would sure be smashed sooner or later. he was ugly and noisy and shixxxted a loooooot. My balcony stinked and it was a mess all over the place. But. The first day I took him home, I had experience two years previously with the kingfisher, I re-acted the human size gace balcony. Prepared everything, put some tree dried branches make him feel like home. Next morning!!! BELIEVE IT OR NOT!!! HUNDREDS OF CROWS WERE CIRCLING MY WINDOW!!!!!! I called a friend and showed him the thing! It was like in the Hitchkok movie! The second day even MORE AMAZING. OnLY TWO CROWS STAYED. And they stayed forever ON. At all time when I was approaching the baby crow, they were making that terrible sound, and circling the window. Now.. can I assume they were his parents? how would so many crows come and only two stay? BEATS ME. The baby was smart! Smartest pet ever. He learned when I say come, come, little bit more, little bit more.. when I fed him to open the beak so I can give the chuncks of pet food.. he was bending his head back a bit and opening the beak. Hhis name remained LittleBitMore.
I searched internet. I found amazing things about this maligned bird. They are amazing beings. Aside from the fact that they are inventive and learn fast, they hav a social structure. They communicate with eachother. Most amazingly, they take care of eachother. For example, i learned that the young crows assume the task of feeding the old ones that can no longer fend for themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!! Is it a wonder, Kathy, that your statement about the Indians.. is so true? Wasn t crow an important animal for them?
And, Here comes the human part. I had a vacation booked before I even found him. Could not cancel. So called a friend, and told her. I pay you (and a LOT 150USD) for four days for you to go leave water, food, and check on him, twice a day. She was working 10 minutes walk away from my place). She took the money and said not to worry. DONT YOU THINK IT WAS A LOT OF MONEY FOR SUCH A SIMPLE TASK?
When I came home the bird was gone. Despite the presence of few fresh fruits which my friend carefully placed the same day probably, to make me believe she did everything right… and she said the bird was there that same morning when she last visited… my detective nose and my knowledge of LittleBitMore, a prolific prolific shitter
, showed that he was missing for days, as the only droppings present were plenty but hardened. The guards confirmed she never visited. Yet she claimed hard and loud that she did her duty.. and I am crazy and the kind of person that should go live wiht the monkeys not with humans.
YES. INDEED.
Cause I was stupid enough to PAY a HUMAN FIRST, and then hope he would care and take care for a bird just as I would, even for free, actually, even if it cost me a lot. She took the money and the bird was left to fend for herself.
Dont know what happened to LittleBitMore.
My “friend” apologized two years later and admitted “her mistake”…
I hate people, in their vast majority.
But I love birds. And trees.
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(don’t EVER pay a human first! – and then hope !) – isn’t that what EDUCATION is about ?
wow Adina
that was some a story, which tells (me) about your unselfishness and your acknowledgment that all species living on earth , (if you will / or not) are in the same both and as such, have to care for each other, which also gives life a kind of ontentment / value, and with this knowledge in store, knows that what humanbeing denote ‘animal’ do have exactly the same aspirations, as we (humans) do, for a good life.
I think one can say with kind of certainty that an animal will never betrayed you – unlike – what you have to expect from homo (sapient?)- or maybe should changed to ‘homo’stupid’.
great story
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Don’t give up on people, who are often just the victims of the Jews who have instigated wars. It is sad that most people only want to be entertained, and not face problems, but we need to keep telling them the truth. I appreciate Eric Hufschmid’s latest audio on this subject, found at http://www.erichufschmid.net.
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Kathy, I think droughts and floods are going to be more frequent. The world is not treating climate change seriously and the big polluters don’t want to change their ways.
Adina, the contrast between you and your ‘friend’ highlights the extremes in behaviour that humans are capable of. The idiocy of humans indeed. Thank heavens the world has people like you in it!
John, most humans think they are the centre of the universe. How ridiculous. How irrational. How immature. How conceited.
Therese, most humans can’t handle the truth: about themselves or about their mortality and insignificance. Each human is just a drop in the huge river of life!
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Adina your bird story is amazing! I’ve never had such prolonged close contact with birds or any other wild creatures for that matter. It’s a shame that your friend took your money and did you and the bird wrong!
I’m not sure what the crow was to the Indians but I believe the Indians had a close relationship and believed in special meanings for all animals.
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Dear John, so happy you liked my story. Thank you so much for the encouraging words.
You also put it better than I could “I think one can say with kind of certainty that an animal will never betrayed you – unlike – what you have to expect from homo (sapient?)-”…
Dear David, I am not an exception. We are many, see? We are outnumbered though.. Will we ever prevail? I do not think so. Does it matter? No. We will not abandon this road.
As many of my friends put it to me that time ,”you are wasting precious time on a crow instead of doing something more meaningful or profitable”. Is it ??????????? See. Humans are screwed. But there are many which I dearly love, contrasting the hate that I feel for the “homo stupidus” , which John so creatively invented
Kathy, these experiences have not been life changing in the sense of loving animals more (because I had the luck to be born in a family which always loved and helped animals – mostly tormented by the beloved homo stupidus). It changed me in the sense that it further strenghten my belief that there are precious things which cannot be quantified by science, or human “intelligence”. Emphaty, love, caring, intuition, adaptation.
Science is wasting precious time mechanicizing everything.. we should learn from animals. Even the greedy ones do not stuff themselves with more than they need, like humans do.
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Just like the rest of the wonderful individuals commenting on this unique site, impelled ( I think?) by a strong feeling that the world is moving in a DANGEROUS direction, I love the beatiful minds of yours – Adina
It’s me who thanks – I insist – also because
Cruelty to animals – makes me mad/sick, (when I see it.)
In my 60′ty years (of life) I’ve seen so much evilness perpetrated, and especially against defenceless animals. It’s an area/sphere of ‘great opportunities’ and completely impunity for those, (by one or another reason?) is saturated by hatred for which poor defenceless ‘animals’ have to suffer (without limit) , by which, the ‘dog’ has allways stand in the first row/line.
Therefore – (GOD (the BIG spirit) OUGHT TO PROMULGATE!)
” I shall judge you on the way that you treat DEFENCELESS (to which animals is to be reckoned).
Apropos: Adina
“Science is wasting precious time mechanicizing everything”
It’s another topic on which ‘das capital’ will spend huge amounts of money/resources/energies and time on, for the future world of mechanic (arteficial life) be it robots in various way, able to immitate humanbeings in all forms of work or private life. – driven by the inconvenient fact the that ‘humanbeing’ are WAY TOO MUCH expensive to employ.
It will not go many years from now before you can’t distinquish a robot from a ‘homo’.
( hope I’m dead then)!!
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adina Reply:
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Dear John, to hear from a beautiful mind (yours) that mine is a beautiful mind…….. is simply wonderful. I take your compliment with gratitude, and accept it gladly!!!
I ll strive to live up to it.
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What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time; it is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
Last words of Crowfoot,
A great hunter of the Blackfoot
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Kathy, the white men slaughtered the Red Indians thinking they were savages. We know who the savages were!
Adina, I too love the homo stupidus label. Mechanization demonstrates clearly the extent of the stupidity. After all if we mechanize everything then humans won’t have a job or the money to buy all the crap that is made!
John, I hate seeing cruelty against animals. Perhaps we should be called homo stupidus cruelus.
Jeannie, Crowfoot got it right. Yet, ironically, most humans think that they are at the centre of the universe.
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Hi David
I just wanted to raise briefly a point about the bison, apparently there is only 1% of bison that are free and wild, with the other percentage being owned privately by a white man, not a native American.
People please go and hug a tree, close your eyes listen to it creek and sway in the breeze, feel like an indigenous person and get connected to your countries spirit of the land.
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David G Reply:
November 30th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Kemosobi, your advice ties in with my feeling that people must accept that they are merely a part of nature, part of the huge life force which drives all living things.
Hugging a tree or an animal forces a human to acknowledge another life form and accept that it has a right to life too and that its rights should be respected.
Those trees in California made me feel insignificant and humble. Would that everyone could see them.
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The left eye is the moon a far away rock. It enlightens the darkness.And the right eye is the sun.Shining down its desire so we’ll all be able to breath.The mountains are her breast and the rivers and streams are her blood vessels.The desert is dry and needs moisture or it will forever die.Just as ourselves when we have a need to replenish our dry cells with moisture or we will die.What keeps our organs moistureized and well. Its up to us to feed it as well.And if we can’t see it as well. It may be a dry spell trying to keep us from doing well.And when we are well we have a piece of mind to keep on going doing well.And when we do well the peace up in ourselves shows signs of growth and production.After all what is life about other then being productive.So as the positives and negatives,good and bad,happy or sad.We should feed our minds that in which we our productive and with the growth there should be good and plenty.As one could say there are more of everything in this world then there are people including work.But the negative bad and sad thoughts want us to be counter productive.And this shouldn’t be.And if you were to leave the world up to me there would be plenty of work for you and me.Lots of peace and harmony and when the sun shines down its desire to feed our heartbeat the love that it needs.And everytime we look at someone we’ll have to think of love because that is how we were brought into the world was through love ,love ,love.
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