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5eQUOIAWaTCH: Challacombe: THEGRCAT 

 promoting themselves as infallible were com- 

 monplace. In the 19th-century it was an estab- 

 lished 'science' to read character from the shape 

 of the skull. And Bibles were printed in the 

 1890's thiit fixed creation at 4,004 B.C. 



For all the prestige, proactivism and self- 

 assurance our forest managers exhibit, there is 

 that about them which is superficial, inflexible 

 and unfulfilled. For decades they live with our 

 wonders. But, sadly, the native wit to appreciate 

 the marvels we entrust to them is missing. 

 Locked into a desert-making mind-set, they have 

 proven themselves unready for the 20th, let 

 alone the 21st Century. For them all trees in a 

 "managed" forest are resources for logging. Lost 

 in time, our forest managers see the Sequoias as 

 nothing but "mega-flora." To describe a massive 

 Big Tree grove as a cathedral or a work of art 

 causes them intense pain. Such an image they 

 will dismiss with ridicule as "unscientific." For 

 their career track imagination was never a pre- 

 requisite. 



THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE 



We come now to the crux of the matter — 

 what makes these giants more in our eyes 

 than just a tree? It is an exceptional person who 

 can walk alone, off trail, deep into a Sequoia 

 forest and not be impressed that he is in the 

 presence of the unusual, exciting, and even 

 threatening. For the early Greeks the Great God 

 Pan dwelt in their forests and had the power to 

 drive men mad. What is there about the Sequoia 

 forest that catches up man and plunges him into 

 the primordial? 



Most of us live the city life — as aliens several 

 times removed from the natural world. We think 

 of ourselves as a series of regrets, accomplish- 

 ments and hopes — that is, as a series of yester- 

 days and tomorrows. We are largely oblivious to 

 what is occurring right now, moment to mo- 

 ment Nature, however is nothing if not moment 

 to moment processes and happenings — or what 

 we can call "real-time" events. 



Ernest Hemingway called facii^ the charge of 

 an African lion "a moment of truth." In that very 

 instant of real-time there can be no evasion or 

 dissembling. All attempts to escape into designer 

 tomorrows and specious belief systems masquer- 



MIRROR 

 ading as "science" come unglued. 



Not many of us will go to Africa to face a 

 roaring lion. And why should we when we have 

 Sequoias at hand? They can scare you good, but 

 they won't bite. 



Considei; for a moment, the Disney theme 

 parks in Florida, in France and in Orange 

 County. We travel hundreds, thousands of miles 

 to experience prefabricated, designer "frontiers." 

 We explore the unknowns which have "an- 

 swers." We fi"ighten ourselves with "rides" and 

 other happenings which challenge our sense of 

 scale and what is "normal." And to escape to 

 such artificial "frontiers" from our city world we 

 pay dearly. 



So why are we destrojring Sequoia Forests to 

 keep a small mill running, to create a few low- 

 skilled jobs and to supply wood fiber for Japan? 

 Are we mad, bhnd or catatonic? If anyone were 

 serious about "selling the Sequoia" — deriving a 

 sustained revenue and jobs fi'om them — he 

 certainly would not be stupid enough to cut 

 them down or to ruin the forest ecosystem that 

 sustains them. 



The Sequoia Forests supply the waters that 

 nourish the valley agriculture. But even more 

 they supply a vital element which is missing 

 from our urban hves. And that is the challenge 

 and excitement of a tangible fi:ontier — namely, 

 whatevei; like the charge of the hon, lies unex- 

 pected beyond the familiar and quantifiable. 



These ancient trees are tied into man's psy- 

 chology in an uncanny way. They evoke what is 

 latent in our nature, but long discouraged by 

 western cultures. 



Early man lived, as an individual and a com- 

 munity, on the edge of wilderness and the not- 

 known. Unlike ourselves he sought to expand 

 his understanding of whatever challenged him. 

 His mind being focussed in real-time, early man 

 was no dumb savage, but a subtle watcher of his 

 environment Often his life and his community 

 depended on his skills of seeing the unexpected, 

 of observing minute changes. It was in such a 

 time-environment that man as crafty, intelligent 

 hunter-gatherer lived down to the end of the last 

 Ice Age — before we, as peasants and urban 

 cutificers, began alienating time, warring with 



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