Postcards from the Forest - a landscape of textures

Woodpeckers and stellar jays, dark eyed juncos, finches, western flickers, scrub jays and ravens broke the silence. Slick snow, melting in the warming air, fell from the trees in a mostly-soft rain.

A Friday stroll in Charlton Flat revealed the toll of the December 26 storm, with three feet of snow coming down overnight, followed by days of high winds. Trees that has withstood the 2009 fire and the following years of drought succumbed under the heavy snow load and the relentless wind.

And seedlings, eager for sunlight, rejoiced at the openings in the canopy.

The textures of the landscape, the sounds, the smells, the richness of it; the wordless experience of placing your hands on an old tree. There's a presence in the natural world that we cannot duplicate, that we suffer perhaps unknowingly in the lack of, that feeds us both literally and spiritually.

Trees in particular lift our spirits. Their longevity, their seasonal revival, their giving nature, providing shade, oxygen, fruits, wood, habitat; their relationships, which we are only beginning to understand. Beneath the soil, they communicate, sending nutrients to their offspring, sending signals to each other, embracing symbiotic relationships with some plants and resisting interaction with others.

I'll be sharing images from the forest over the coming weeks as we navigate these new times. They are part of a body of work called the Forest Recovery Project, Redbird's documentary of the Angeles National Forest after the Station Fire, going on eleven years now. Redbird is a local Native American and environmental non profit and, like most arts and culture entities, ours has seen an immediate and all-consuming impact from COVID-19. But there's hope. We'd like to ask everyone who shops Amazon to use Amazon Smile, and when you do, Amazon will make a donation to Redbird. It's free. It's very simple. And it will provide critical support during these times when we are unable to offer cultural and educational presentations and events Learn more about Redbird at www.RedbirdsVision.org, and sign up for Amazon Smile at https://smile.amazon.com/ch/77-0374732.