Entering The Cathedral : Our Journey To Hike Into The Heart Of The Ancient Forest Watershed Of Fairy Creek
Part two of a three part series describing my experiences and what I learned while exploring the Fairy Creek ancient forest watershed on Vancouver Island
(The following is part two of a three part series on Fairy Creek, you can read part one of the series here and you can read part three of the series here.)
I invite you to embark on an adventure with me to perceive glimpses of a place of unparalleled abundance, healing, spiritual nourishment and beauty.
This is the story of entering the ancient primary rainforest valley called Fairy Creek.
For those that missed the first installment of this series and are unfamiliar with the area:
Fairy Creek is a 1,189 hectare (full spectrum of biodiversity intact) ancient forested watershed located in Pacheedaht First Nation territory northeast of Port Renfrew and 130 km northwest of Victoria on southwestern Vancouver Island, British Columbia (BC).
It is the last unlogged old-growth valley on southern Vancouver Island outside of parks and is situated within a broadly industrially exploited and ecologically crippled landscape.
The Fairy Creek watershed includes some of Canada’s wettest and most productive rainforest habitat and most of the forest in the watershed is very old (large percentages of elder trees estimated to be more than 1000 years old).
Amongst these old trees is a massive and ancient yellow cedar, which is the nineth widest known yellow cedar in Canada according to the BC Big Tree Registry. Yellow cedars in the Fairy Creek area can be incredibly old, with some specimens in the watershed recorded to be over 2,000 years old.
Over 400 species of plants and animals rely on BC’s primary (never industrially disturbed) old growth forests for at least part of their life cycle. As of February 18, 2022, 326 species (plants, animals, birds, etc.) have been sighted and recorded in the Fairy Creek watershed, including 17 species that are at risk.
Why use the word “Cathedral” in the title?
I apprenticed as a stone mason, I learned about cathedrals and the importance of the key stone in an arch.
However, I was also raised to spend time going into the Creator’s Cathedrals in the ancient forest and I can tell you that when someone enters a primary old growth forest (as I recently did) they are evoked into a state of awe and humility (and on a different level than any manmade structure can elicit).
Thus, I now invite you to experience this little slice of heaven along side of me, through my lens, words and the stories the images tell of this ancient, sacred, beloved and living cathedral called the Fairy Creek rainforest.
In the previous installment of this series on Fairy Creek, I documented all the recon we had to do via 4x4 and some on foot to find a viable access point into the heart of the valley for day hiking.
In this second installment of the series, our adventure into the heart of that ancient rainforest watershed began when we woke up to again witness the gorgeous beauty of the west coast in Port Renfrew (via from our cabin rental shown below).
Below is a short video clip of the view from our cabin on the morning before we hiked into the heart of Fairy Creek’s ancient forest.
This image below shows a zoomed in pic of a couple trees right in front of our cabin on the ocean side. The biodiversity on a single tree in that region where so many beings (such as lichen and moss) ally with trees via drinking up the ocean fog is astounding
On our way to drive up the gnarly logging roads to get to our day hike entry point to Fairy Creek, we were blessed to see bald eagles, bear and heron (on the river that Fairy Creek flows into) hunting for salmon and other fish, fulfilling their sacred role in nourishing that ancient forest to have been able to become what she is today (more on what I mean by that below).
These patient hunters are also in symbiotic relation with the ancient trees (as the Bears and Eagles are). As one of the main predators of young salmon the Heron serves the role of assisting the ocean in giving back to the ancient trees (which had provided the ocean with the minerals necessary to support her help forests, fish and ocean mammals). When the Heron, Bear or Eagle carries a salmon out of the river and then deposits his bones in the forest, those salmon bones are the ocean’s way to give back to the forest that seeds much of the ocean life with iron, and this allows the ancient trees to grow 2-3 times the size and live a lot longer than they would without having salmon bones in the soil.
Katsuhiko Matsunaga is a Japanese marine chemist, who has spent his life doing research that has shed light on the biogeochemical cycles of marine and freshwater environments. Some of this research has shed light on how forests are linked to the oceans in ways our ancestors had observed but we are only now beginning to understand.
In a 2002 article, Matsunaga helped demonstrate a correlation between bioavailable iron in the marine ecosystem, and multispecies phytoplankton growth. Phytoplankton are the basis of marine food webs. They are the primary producers, turning sunlight into energy, that provides zooplankton and fish with food and energy to be passed up the food chain.
Previous research by Matsunaga suggests that the type of bioavailable iron that helps fuel this primary productivity is born from, and strongly correlated with, the forest soils found in the catchments of rivers. In laymen’s terms the humic compounds and acids that form as leaf litter decays, bind with iron in the soil and are flushed into the river, then carried out into the ocean. This delivers the necessary bioavailable iron to the oceans, which are naturally low in iron, in a form that can be used by the phytoplankton.
They use it, they grow better and thus there’s a stronger foundation to the rest of the food web. This means a healthier ecosystem and more surplus fish to be caught.
Salmon are keystone species in Building ancient and resilient Forests. Rich in nitrogen/phosphorus/calcium from the sea, the rotting salmon flesh and bones fertilizes forest growth. Salmon promote forest health. Giant trees require nitrogen and minerals to grow massive canopies that shade the streams and absorb excessive rainfall. These help prevent flash-floods and mudslides from wiping out salmon-filled creeks. Humans that protect (and/or create / enrich) salmon habitat are initiating and/or aligning with a syntrophic feedback loop that can have immensely regenerative potential on the scale of entire forest ecosystems.
(pic below shows the river Fairy Creek enters into before becoming one with the ocean and enriching the kelp forests, phytoplankton and salmon habitat).
Next we passed by Fairy Lake and the bridge driving over Fairy Creek on our way to the logging road that heads up to our entry point into the heart of the valley (shown below).
Along that journey we had to cross paths with Fairy Creek as she exits her mother watershed and so we naturally stopped near the bridge to get water.
I also shared an offering with the flowing waters, asked for the blessing of the unseen guardians and jumped into Fairy Creek to become fully enveloped in the Fairy Creek magic before proceeding any further (you can tell from that farmer’s tan how I work outside 6 days a week and then never have enough time for tanning on my day off haha). The water was extremely refreshing (maybe 4 degrees C despite it being a hot summer). I walked out of the creek feeling baptized in a holy water carrying ten thousand times more divinity than any water you can find in a church made by men.
Below shows the Red gate at the entry point into Granite Main (these types of gates are owned by logging corporations and can be closed at any time, it was likely open on that day as the corporations had personnel working further up that road and were attempting to do scouting for pillaging the Walbran valley adjacent to Fairy Creek, (which forest defenders are standing up to protect even now). If you pass a gate like this, be prepared for the possibility of being locked in.
We made the journey back up the clearcut block filled valley to the east of Fairy Creek via the route shown below:
This is what that journey looks like on a satellite map .
Below shows the last part of our 4x4 ascent through the killing fields of what was pristine ancient forest in the adjacent valley to Fairy Creek on our way to hike up and over the mountain ridge (and then down 1000 meters elevation into the heart of the Old Growth forest in Fairy Creek).
The ride up there through the desolate clearcut blocks was tough to experience for a second time, but the view of the intact mountain tops and ocean mist rolling in was quite a thing to behold from the top.
Above shows the view from the furthest you can drive up the logging roads to get close to the head waters of Fairy Creek (map shown above with circle marking where this picture was taken from looking back down the valley tot the east of Fairy Creek.
After this point we entered into the realm where the ancient learned rooted ones reign supreme. The whispering patient ones, the generous mycorrhizal benefactors of new generations, tenders of the soil and rain orchestrators.
Below shows what the very end of the logging road looks like before you exit the desolate wastelands of the clearcut zone and enter into primary rainforest mountainside that heads up to the ridge above the headwaters of Fairy Creek.
Above is what it looked like to hike up and crest the ridge. Video below shows footage on the ridge.
”Walking into Fairy Creek was like walking into a community of tall, sentient, beings that welcomed me with their energy of warmth and their showering of what felt like magic. It was like walking back centuries… walking amongst them and you couldn’t help but be elated when you looked upon these trees that were untouched by humans for several millennia. Their beauty, the feeling of mystical magical wisdom, and the nurturing that seem to go on between the eldest and the youngest of the tree beings… I have never in my life felt so at home… so protected… so welcomed.I love forests, but this forest, untouched by humanity, standing there ancient and majestic, touched my heart and brought me to tears. It frustrates me looking at those beautiful trees, knowing that human beings are just waiting to get in there to cut them down for the sake of money, the greed of those humans… their audacity to think that they are more important than beings that have been here thousands of years in comparison to what humans who live (if they’re lucky) 100 years. That means they’re living 10 to 20 times as long and still humanity has no respect for them. That frustrates me and makes me very sad. And although I carry the gift of walking in those trees in my heart and in my memory, it nonetheless hurts my heart that future generations may not get that chance to have the experience I have had walking in Fairy Creek and it brings to me the understanding that we need to do something about it.
The next picture offers the perspective of me looking back up at the ridge crest after having descended a few hundred feet down the steep ancient rainforest mountainside into the headwaters of Fairy Creek. I was looking back up to tell my brother and mom that the way is safe. He is up there somewhere, find waldo! :)
As I began the decent I quickly realized (after falling on my ass one or two times) that the footwork required focus and commitment. That next led me to realize that the focus on one’s footwork invited you to perceive a world of immense beauty, composed of the most diverse array of tiny things I have ever witnessed.
I could have spent a year just studying the moss, ferns, lichen and rhizomatous plants on that ancient rainforest mountain side.
Each square foot of the forest floor and each fallen log and tree trunk large and small was just teaming with life, a web of symbiosis, gift economics, fog drinking beings, morning dew accumulators, alchemists of the finest kinds.
Here are a few pics showing you what I mean.
Mosses (and Lichens) are a protectors and community builders.. helping protect ancient residents of the forest (preventing organisms that would develop a pathogenic relationship with the trees from taking hold via exuding mild acids that act like an exfoliant and probiotic tree defense system) that are healthy, existing in symbiosis with young trees and old growth trees alike.
They aid healthy trees in healing and also simultaneously accelerate decomposition offering their alchemical gifts to turn death into the potential for new life again. These are healers and wizards that bridge life and death. We have much to learn from our moss and lichen kin.
“Infrared satellite imagery, optical telescopes, and the Hubbell space telescope bring vastness within our visual sphere. Electron microscopes let us wander the remote universe of our own cells. But at the middle scale, that of the unaided eye, our senses seem to be strangely dulled. With sophisticated technology, we strive to see what is beyond us, but are often blind to the myriad sparkling facets that lie so close at hand. We thing we’re seeing when we’ve only scratched the surface. Our acuity at this middle scale seems diminished, not by any failing of the eyes, but by the willingness of the mind. Has the power of our devices led us to distrust our unaided eyes? Or have we become dismissive of what takes no technology but only time and patience to perceive? Attentiveness alone can rival the most powerful magnifying lens.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
Look at the moss skirting the trunk of the young tree in the pic below. Notice those droplets forming? Those are gathered water molecules pulled from the air when the ocean fog rolls into that valley in the morning.
These moss beings are attempting to teach us how to turn air into water.
For more information on the many medicinal uses of Moss you can look here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
As I was looking down at the world of immense diversity at my feet I was being watched from above.
Notice the way these massive centuries old trees are holding together the mountainside.
Below is a video clip showing the canopy of the massive hemlock and cedar we were hiking down the mountain in the midst of through the first half of the Decent. There were huuuge 6-10 foot tall blue berry and huckleberry “trees” (they were bigger than the shrubs I am used to and covered in moss and lichen that looked older than I am).
Looking ahead, deep into the rarely travelled ancient woods, I felt such a deep feeling of fulfillment. Being able to move in those woods was a blessing few experience (thought I hope more will) and it gave me a new found passion for protecting these places. How many places are there left on Earth like this? Where you walk on hallowed ground, thick with inches of moss, ten thousand years of giant trees giving themselves back to the earth building rich humus soil, moss and old mans beard draped everywhere drinking in the fog and gifting it to their friends? Very few.
Please do what you can to share an awareness of this place and help protect it through raising awareness about how rare these places are on Earth now.
There were times when the path we chose was very steep. 6-10 foot tall blueberry “trees” and young hemlock (deeply rooted and mycorrhizally re-enforced) offered superb support when we felt like we were about to slip and fall.
Below pic and super short video clip shows me and my brother descending down the ancient rainforest covered mountain side into the heart of the Fairy Creek watershed.
It was surreal, to be in the presence of so much health, so much truth and so much wisdom. Every breath you take in there makes you feel younger, more alive, more in touch with that part of yourself that used to move you to feel love, curiosity and hope as a child when you looked to an elder tree, a butterfly or dew drops on a flower.
I trained for a few weeks before we flew out west for this trip but I can tell you that living in southern Ontario (totally flat) uses a different set of muscles. I was feeling it descending down this mountain side, and the burn in my legs felt good, life affirming.
Below shows an ancient Western Hemlock that has seen and diminished multiple forest fires in her lifetime.
I feel the need to explore the connection between ancient (old growth primary forests) and forest fires as there is a lot of confusion out there due to government propaganda and corporate gaslighting campaigns.
Some people are concerned about how government forestry “experts” are regurgitating corporate logging thinktank talking points about “forest” fires (i`ll link the note / quote below).
The “John Muir Project’s” page posted
“A Forest Service scientist just claimed the science is “settled” on logging for wildfire mitigation.
Science isn’t settled — it evolves. And growing evidence shows “active management” destroys ecosystems, makes fires burn hotter, and puts communities at greater risk.”
I share their concern regarding corporate bribes and influencing academic institutions but I think these people pointing the finger solely at corporations are missing the even greater threat that is capturing the minds of scientists and forestry specialists, aligning their statements with corporate greed and resulting in ecological devastation, and that is how they are captured by the Statist Religion.
Here in Canada the statist thugs profit from and enforce corporate exploitation and extraction of rare eco-systems (while putting out PR about how “green” and “sustainable” they are). They use paramilitary RCMP units to attack any indigenous people that attempt to protect the forests or rivers of their ancestral lands. Their vested interest in perpetuating that model is indoctrinated into children in government funded schools.
Clearcut logging of old growth (fire resistant) forests and replacing them with logging industry plantations with unnatural spacing of trees at all the same age (which ignorant people often erroneously refer to as “forests”) is the the single most contributing cause of the unnatural fires we have been seeing in recent years. It does not require a PHD to take a satellite imagery maps of clearcut areas and cross reference them with where fires start and then get out of control. I have done that and the correlation is striking and unavoidable.
In places where trees are capable of becoming large enough and old enough where their thick bark and spacing naturally mitigates extreme fire events, we are seeing logging industry plantation fires (not forest fires).
When we were in Fairy Creek on Vancouver Island (the last intact old growth forest waterhshed on the whole island) and I saw evidence of fire and how it interacts with that forest ecosystem. I saw where the lighting struck, the smaller trees that burned adjacent to the starting point, the charred bark on the thousand year old (healthy) hemlock, cedar and fir trees and the trajectory of the fire going uphill where its momentum was slowed by the inflammable giants and then it stopped. I saw this event played out over and over written in the bark of ancient trees and in the soil (which by the way was full of biochar, enriching the health of the trees and water absorbing potential of the soil).
Within the context of an old growth forest fire is very rarely a threat to the forest community and thus does not threaten the surrounding and/or contained human communities.
The valleys adjacent to Fairy Creek however (full of freshly clearcut primary old growth and large swaths of second and third growth monoculture plantations) told a different story about the relationship of those trees with fire. When lightning struck the closely spaced young trees were like tinder and they burned with intense ferocity spreading up and over the clearcut ridge lines and into adjacent valleys gaining momentum.
Now our corrupt government and their logging corporation collaborators are dousing entire forests with glyphosate via air, crippling local ecology and turning those places into a tinderbox in the name of preventing those freshly clearcut forests from ever being able to return to the biodiverse old growth they once were by imposing a monoculture tree farm onto the landscape.
For more info read: https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-glyphosate-in-forestry-explainer/ (thanks for this info Cheerio )
The truth about these deluded and sometimes bought and paid for pro-clear cutting forestry “experts” is that they are not only captured by industry propaganda, they are first and foremost captured and driven by the statist religion (which is inherently anthropocentric and innately ecologically degenerative).
History has taught us that the racketeering operation that is Statism farms humans just as Teal Jones and Western Forest Products farms forests. They both decimate the natural beauty, diversity, uniqueness and God given gifts of that place/being and replace them with implanted monocultures of trees/thinking intended to perpetuate exploitation and extraction in the name of greed, domination, human exceptionalism and the myth of “progress”.
Just as the farmed trees grow in ways that make them weak, the farmed humans in the factory farms for humans called nation states can also be crippled from achieving their true potential, their minds are weak and imaginations stunted (when they prioritize their allegiance to a flag over their allegiance to the Earth). Their priorities distorted by the inherently immoral institutions that they have been indoctrinated to worship and (like the farmed trees) this prevents them from connecting with and contributing to the larger community of life they are a part of, making them susceptible to being exploited and more of a liability than a contributing symbiotically connected member of a community.
Thus, it is not just corporate capture of academic institutions we must address, but also the intrinsically ecologically degenerate nature of the statist regimes we were born into and taught to put on a pedestal.
As long as we are swearing allegiance to flags and statist regimes that thrive on exploitation of rare ecosystems in the name of greed we are committing treason against the Earth.
Now that I have spoken to the reality of how government as well as corporations are the main driver behind both deforestation, salmon habitat loss and unantually extreme forest fires, lets get back to exploring one of the pockets of ancient forest that is still doing its sacred duty to prevent forest fires, enrich salmon habitat and exude a fountain of life, beauty, clean water and medicine.
This is how the terrain looks while descending the mountain side down the east slopes of the head waters of Fairy Creek.
(my iphone was set on “live” mode for pictures so this accidentally resulted in me getting a bunch of 2 second clips of our hike, i`ll share those below to hopefully allow you to feel the vibe of the terrain and atmosphere with more depth than photos can offer. I am just sharing this now so that you do not click on the videos and get disappointed by only 2 seconds of footage. Though, some of the videos shared below will be longer too)
Some of the terrain is quite steep and ask you can see from this pic of my brother and mom standing on the root structure of a middle aged Hemlock and Cedar duo that is holding the mountain side and soil together, this landscape would change swiftly without those trees holding the hillside together.
Douglas Fir were not that common up on the ridge but as you descend down further they grew in pockets in gullies.
Below shows one substantial Doug Fir in that watershed (as big as the 900 year old tree in Cathedral Grove on the way to Tofino, shown beside me here in these pics).
“Fungi mine stone to supply their trees with minerals. They hunt springtails, which they feed to their hosts. Trees, for their part, store extra sugar in their fungi’s synapses, to dole out to the sick and shaded and wounded. A forest takes care of itself, even as it builds the local climate it needs to survive.
Before it dies, a Douglas-fir, half a millennium old, will send its storehouse of chemicals back down into its roots and out through its fungal partners, donating its riches to the community pool in a last will and testament. We might well call these ancient benefactors giving trees.”
- Richard Powers (from his book titled “The Overstory” chapter titled “Trunk” page 242)
Most people are not aware that (before the tallest ones were targeted for clearcutting by colonials) the tallest Douglas Fir trees in BC once exceeded even the Californian Redwoods in height.
Douglas Fir are known for their mycorrhizal network enabled forest economy orchestrating and generosity towards less fortunate rooted beings as they have been recorded gifting nutrients to a diverse array of species through their roots and fungal allies. These are foundational beings for ecosystem health, salmon habitat protectors, soil builders, watershed guardians, keystone species.
Although a Coast redwood is presently the tallest tree found to date, there is evidence that the coastal Douglas-fir has the biological capacity to surpass the redwoods in stratospheric height.
In 2008, a study proposed that the maximum height for a Douglas fir -- one of the world’s tallest trees -- is about 453 feet (138 meters). They may have had a slightly modest estimation.
A Douglas-fir is the third tallest tree in the world (or second, depending on other accounts), and some believe a Douglas-fir could be, or once was, the tallest. Upper height limit estimates for the species go as high as 476 ft, and before logging began in the 19th and 20th centuries, plus 400 foot trees were probably fairly common.
A Douglas fir measured 415 feet high, (127 meters) in 1902 at the Alfred John Nye property in Lynn Valley. Diameter was 14 ft 3 inches 5 feet from the ground.
A 352 footer was felled in 1907 in Lynn Valley. Diameter was 10 feet.
In 1897 a 465 foot (142 m) Douglas fir was felled in Whatcom, Washington on the Alfred Loop ranch near MT. Baker. Diameter was 11 feet, and 220 feet to first branch. Board footage was 96,345 feet of top quality lumber.
To learn more about Douglas Fir, read this.
In the 2 second clip below my brother Dale is was about to say “juuust about half way down” :)
Below is another gorgeous ancient Western Hemlock. She was over 1.5 meters in diameter.
Above and below, my mom and me standing next to an ancient Hemlock about 2/3 of the way down the descent from the east ridge above Fairy Creek into the headwaters. That tree has seen multiple natural forest fires and remains a healthy contributing member of that ecosystem.
Thanks to the spacing and thick bark of ancient trees like that these lightning initiated fires did not spread further than a few hundred feet in this valley. This one was also over 1.5 meters in diameter.
Above you can see how much I was in awe, feeling the ancient bark, charred with forest fire scars, yet living and covered with decades old lichen and moss. Evidence of the forest fire resilience of ancient forests that are allowed to persist and teach their kin to thrive.
above shows looking up the mountain side w had just hiked down, and below shows looking down into where the mountain side begins to taper off in steepness, with large beautiful cedars, hemlock and Doug fir becoming generously spaced and even more forest fir proof as we get into the lower reaches of the valley.
Below shows a common sight in the ancient Fairy Creek forest, elder cedars and hemlock growing in close proximity, with baby hemlock and blueberry bushes growing 10-50 feet up on the bark of the neighboring cedar. This image below shows a little bonsai style hemlock (circled in turquoise) having germinated on a bump on the cedar’s bark with a small blueberry bush also starting to grow underneath.
My thoughts on this ecosystem within an ecosystem are sussinctly expressed in the tiny clip below.
Above and below, my brother hiking down the mountain side by some beautiful elder cedars.
Picture above and video clip below show the terrain and species distribution changing as we approach the bottom of the valley on our decent down the headwaters of Fairy Creek (from the east ridge). As you get lower, the cedars increase in numbers and in size, hemlock decrease in numbers slightly and a few Douglas Fir and big leaf maple start showing up here and there.
The Red and Yellow cedars towards the bottom of the Valley at the top of Fairy Creek are truly spectacular, the air is rich with the medicinal aerosols released by their foliage and the lush moss and lichen increases in quantity.
We were almost all the way down our decent into the living Cathedral of the ancient Fairy Creek forest in the pics above and below. By that point, we had been hiking through and under 6-10 foot high moss covered and ocean mist dew droplet covered blueberry undergrowth forest for an hour or so, and so we were soaked in water of the most exquisite quality, baptized in moss sequestered ocean mist and cedar sublimated holy water, one might say.
We arrived in the the core of the valley to witness many great giants. Cedars, Hemlock and Doug fir of epic proportions, but what make them so beautiful was not their size.. it was their clearly perceptible sense of community with each other. Young or ancient, these beings loved each other, you could feel it. And they also extended their love to us new comers, the humans. It brings tears to my eyes now thinking back on it and feel their presence reaching to me, speaking to me softly, holding my spirit in their millennia of knowing.
Below is what a boulder (and my hiking boots) look like in the heart of an ancient west coast rainforest. Even at about noon on a sunny day, the foliage is still rich with ocean fog droplets.
“There is an ancient conversation going on between mosses and rocks, poetry to be sure. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. This is what has been called the “dialect of moss on stone - an interface of immensity and minute ness, of past and present, softness and hardness, stillness and vibrancy, yin and yan.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses
When you enter into a place like this that is as it was millennia ago, the spirit of the land is very palpable, very talkative and full of stories she wants to share for those with ears to listen.
The trees trunks and bark beckon to you with tomes of hundreds of seasons passed, close calls, new friendships and alliances forged and the deep perseverance and love required to become an elder being in this community.
I had to take moments to just stop and be present, and truly look upon and witness these learned beings as they are and let them speak to me in a language beyond anything humans can invent.
“Behold
The voices that influence our lives and work do not always speak in human language. When I am uncertain what to write, I go to the foot of a bigleaf maple or a grandmother redcedar, sit upon her roots, lean against her wide and wizened trunk, sink into the earth, and whisper, “What do you want me to say?” Then I listen. And what I realize, more than anything, is that instead of speaking in words, we are often asked to dwell in silence, where there is no imposed story, just the earth and us there, too, listening beyond language to one another.
Though the mystical revelations that came to Julian of Norwich are most often described as visions or showings, Carol Lee Flinders Points out in Enduring Grace that Julian herself would often call them “touchings” — things she experienced firsthand, in “forms of understanding that are not merely cerebral at all.” There are elements of the sacred earth that flourish beyond our rational thinking and naming.
Sometimes the withholding of human language may be the best path toward apprehending other forms of communication.
Cultures across time have known this. In The Spell of the Sensuous, David Abram writes:
The belief that speech is purely human property was entirely alien to those oral communities that first evolved our various ways of speaking, and by holding such a belief today we may well be inhibiting the spontaneous activity of language. By denying that birds and other animals have their own styles of speech, by insisting that the river has no real voice and the ground itself is mute, we stifle our direct experience.
We cut ourselves off from the deep meaning in many of our words, severing our language from that which supports and sustains it. We then wonder why we are so often unable to communicate, even among ourselves.One day I was walking in the woods with my friend Trileigh - a kindred spirit and adept naturalist. She recently achieved emerita status after a fine career as a professor of environmental studies at Seattle University, and we wondered aloud together about next life steps, both of us being at something of a crossroads-she newly retired, and I newly empty-nested, ls daughter fledged from home to college. Trileigh has many irons in the fire—-she’s a Renaissance woman with a passion and talent for photography, art, and writing. There is no worry of her withering away in boredom. Still, there hangs the ominous question of Life Purpose. “I wonder whether part of my work at this point might be to simply witness,” Trileigh said, “but I feel I should really be doing something.” We recalled the words of Mary Oliver, who composed tamous instructions for lite that include the admonition to Pay attention, be astonished, and tell about it.
In these lines we are called to witness the earth through personal experience, and — a dimension of the meaning of witness — to testify based on that experience.
These are good instructions. But I wonder: what if we leave off the last part of Oliver’s instruction sometimes? To witness can simply mean to be present — no testifying involved. Why not just witness— see a thing because we are there to see it, knowing that our presence is a privilege for ourselves and a quiet offering to that being witnessed. Why not allow astonishment to visit as it will, then walk into the world changed but perhaps silent — without thinking up words and ways to “tell about it,” or imposing a narrative upon our encounter at all?
This is beholding. For spiritual traditions all over the world, such a stance-that of contemplative witness—is in itself prayer, art, and activism. Sometimes, letting go of the urge to name and tell—to embroider our own story upon a being or experience, however unwittingly— allows us to see deeper into the beheld while cultivating a unique and poetic wholeness within ourselves, like that possessed by an owl or a stone.
Try these things: Keep field guides everywhere. And topographical maps. Read them like novels, like holy texts, like poems. Learn the names of new-to-you wild beings or landmarks in your home region, then create your own living names for these same things. Respect Indigenous names. Listen for the earth to whisper a new name for yourself, and tell it to everyone or to no one. When you are at a loss, put your ear to the forest floor, or the bark of a tree, or tilt it toward the clouds. See what wordless language points you along your path.
SPEAK IN TRUTH”- Lyanda Lynn Haupt (from “Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit”)
Below is some kind of flowering plant that to me, has blossoms that look like tiny little Fairy beings.
and it was deemed thusly!
Right after I “discovered” (or more likely re-named) the “Fairy Flower” above, we finally made it to the streambed of Fairy Creek.
Below shows the empty streambed (this was late august and a dry summer so water did not start flowing above ground until a few hundred feet downstream. We could hear it trickling underground though.
As we approached the streambed at the middle of the Fairy Creek valley we were immersed in a world of moss and lichen beings that were certainly much older than we humans… and the trees they lived on ten times the age minimum. The amount of large fungi growing on logs also increased with a range of polypores on large standing living and dead trees. You could feel the air and soil pulsing with intelligence and memory… each breath of the air filled with magic evoking healing and remembering, each touch of your hand on a moss covered log or lichen covered boulder like an brail inscription attempting to tell the story of eons of life, symbiosis and resilience to us blind and deaf humans.
Here are some pics of the Fungal beings we witnessed down near the valley bottom of Fairy Creek.
Above shows one of the many beautiful fungal beings I crossed paths with in the heart of the Fairy Creek watershed
I am not gonna tell you what to believe about the pic below, but I will tell you that when I stood in the heart of that ancient forest watching the trees emit medicinal aerosols from their foliage there was a moment when I felt a very distinct presence near me, and that moment was when I took the pic below.
I felt loved, I felt safe, I felt understood, seen, supported and showered with infinite blessings.
Make of that what you will..
Above video shows how Medicinal aerosols emitted by old growth trees alter human physiology (and all other mammal’s physiology) optimizing reproductive health and the function of our innate immune systems.
The air in this primary (never industrially disturbed) rainforest watershed is full of medicinal aerosols, each breath was sweet and cleansing, like a gentle smudging for one’s body, mind and spirit.
Not only does do the ancient forests produce a huge portion of the oxygen we need to live a long and healthy life, build soil and clean water, while supporting the foundation of ocean life (such as the salmon) thanks to Diana Beresford-Kroeger’s groundbreaking research into medicinal tree aerosols, we now know that human biology is also intertwined with and enriched by medicinal airborne molecules (emitted by trees) that travel thousands of kilometers (such as Terpenes and other Volatile Organic Compounds exuded from old growth trees) which impact the human immune system and reproductive health. The potential for the longevity and health of our human family is interconnected with these ancient forests. Our destiny is woven together with the fate of the Forests by the Creator in many ways. We can either use our gifts to strengthen and add beauty to that tapestry, or we can be guided by greed and begin to unravel the fabric that Creator put here to support us all in unlocking our true potential (each choice will have profound implications).
“Plant aerosols are new to modern medicine and to science; I was the first person to publish on tree aerosols. They are not, however, new to nature. This chemistry has always been present in the plant world, a unique means of communication in which the speaker is a plant, and the speech produced is a biochemical sheet of molecules. Each molecular form has a meaning attached to it, provoking a response from its receivers, be they pollinator, fly, ant, mammal, fish, or another plant or tree- even an entire forest ecosystem, if the call is loud enough, urgent enough.
An aerosol is a balloon in miniature, a carbon mainframe hat can carry other attachments, some big, some small. These are molecules constructed by nature to respond to the flow dynamics of the atmosphere, one form of nature’s public transport system. To understand how they work, picture a child’s birthday balloon. Tethered to the child’s hand or wrist, the balloon floats above the child’s head, restricted by its string until it is blown away by the wind, or let go in a moment of carelessness or curiosity. On release, there are always a few seconds when the balloon seems to hang there. Looking up at the colourful object, you wonder if it will ever take off. Then something happens and it goes. This “something” is the physics of flow, a phenomenon called “lift” in the aeronautical world. The action of lift depends on the design of the object, the force behind it and the current wind-speed properties of the atmosphere. The balloon takes off, floating up and up through the air. All of a sudden a giant flush of momentum carries the balloon sideways and out of sight.
Plant aerosol molecules are invisible to the naked eye, too small to be seen, but then so are the sound waves of speech. The human voice can be measured by vocal wavelengths. Similarly, aerosols can now be tracked by displacement in cloud chamber experiments and characterized or identified by gas chromatography.
As these molecules are studied in greater depth, they have begun to reveal their diversity. Some aerosols are tiny, others have a symmetry of shape to save energy, many more are bulky by molecular standards. These last need to be staged like rockets, losing weight to increase the momentum at liftoff, to become airborne. Still others carry the molecular form of a bullet. The remainder float and dangle like kites, with the same ingenious sail-like
Focus on each sense in turn, starting with sight. Your visual cortex registers an ordered disorder in the branches overhead. Nature’s masterpiece painted in green, a pastoral passage to the sky, swamps every sightline.
Hearing comes into play, with the fragile sweep of leaves in the canopies. There are no echoes in this verdant palace; sounds are muted and absorbed, clotted by the suberin within the trees-a substance that is an attenuator, pulling sound out of the air. Suddenly, a songbird calls from the timber nave. The air holds all the notes in place, hoarding them like treasure, then releases them. After this song, the stillness returns, threaded with silence. Then slowly, slowly, the web of infrasound, or “silent” sound, with its long, loping waves, reaches you, perceived with the chest rather than the ears. You breathe deeply, clutching it before it has gone.
As you begin to walk, smell rises with each footstep. It swirls up from the dark melanin in the skin of the forest floor. Breaking loose from their underground home, the odours pierce the air with the rich fruitiness of sweetened decay. The smell is so heavy you feel as though you could brush it with the tips of your fingers. It smells good enough to eat.
That’s when tastes ride in on the forest air, lush with lactones, travelling the wet passages of the mouth and nose, crowding the epiglottis, pressing on oral glands to express digestive juices. You enjoy the full taste of the trees, designs allowing them to float in moving air. These molecular kites come in two mirrored varieties; one design spins the kite to the left and the other to the right.
The aerosol language opens new windows into the workings of nature. All flying pollinators rely on aerosol messages from plants. The flower sends out this call from its female hub, usually in the form of a perfume, though one that may or may not be identifiable by the human nose. A pollinator will have no trouble recognizing it, however, and will hurry to the source. Meanwhile, the flower will already have switched on a series of guiding lights. One will show in polarized light, visible only to insects, while the other is a colour cascade of ultraviolet light. These brilliant systems act as a guide for the insects, first to geo-position the field and then to track the pollen source. The results rest on your plates, food for thought and fork.
Perhaps the greatest of the plant world’s chemical clarion calls, however, is the vernal language of the boreal forest system, the planet’s signal for spring. The northern forest system spanning continents and countries, islands and peninsulas is the workhorse of the planet, maintaining the oxygenation of the atmosphere.
Trees manufacture and release a substantial plume of bioactive medicinal aerosols, which becomes a lifeline of vastly important medicine for the planet. This invisible shield protects all mammals and also acts as an initiator of spring activity.
The enormous spring flush of aromatic aerosols ends in a global plume of airborne medicine.
These aerosols put the freshness into spring and a skip into the step of lovers. They target many aspects of the human body. They stimulate smooth muscles, those in the gut and other internal organs that are not under voluntary control, and they dilate the small arteries that feed blood to the sur- face of the body. They open the lungs to refine breathing. They lower blood pressure and inhibit the excess secretion of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. They improve the flow dynamics of red blood cells, meaning the labour of birthing is easier and inflammatory reactions are reduced. These aerosols also bring nasal vasoconstriction, which makes it more difficult for airborne viruses like colds, flus and other viral populations to enter respiratory pathways.
The fingers of the forests touch the atmosphere and dip into the human heart to keep it pumping. The song of the forest signals spring and health for the whole world. The forest system of the boreal, seen by so few people, has a profound effect on individual health. The plume of oleoresin aerosols will take physics a long time to examine in cloud chambers. Industrial medicine will take just as long to forge new artificial protective biochemicals from studying the boreal. But the ancient wisdom of nature is ready to teach us that we are all connected in a web of life.” (all we need to do is stop destroying these living libraries and storehouses of medicine that were put here by Creator).
- Diana Beresford-Kroeger “Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests”
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“The many uncatalogued volatile compounds breathed out by needles slow her heart rate, soften her breathing, and, if she’s right, even alter her mood and thoughts. So many substances in woodland pharmacies that no one has yet identified. Powerful molecules in bark, pith, and leaves whose effects have yet to be discovered. One family of distress hormones used by her trees-jasmonate— supplies the punch to all those feminine perfumes that play on mystery and intrigue. Sniff me, love me, I’m in trouble. And they are in trouble, all these trees. All the forests of the world, even the quaintly named set-aside lands. More trouble than she has the heart to tell readers of her lite book. Trouble, like the atmosphere, flows everywhere, in currents beyond the power of humans to predict or control.”
- Richard Powers (from his book titled “The Overstory” chapter titled “Trunk” page 242 about a character in the book named Patricia Westerford)
Below shows what it looked like to reach the valley bottom (descending from the east ridge above Fairy Creek, into the heart of the valley at the very top of the headwaters (where the tributaries begin to converge and form a single creek bed). At this point the water was flowing under the granite boulders and you could hear it trickling and filtering through the rocks as you walk on them.
Maps above show first our decent path and secondly, the location where the picture below was taken. My brother and I continued exploring about 2-3 km down the creek bed beyond those coordinates, which is the portion of the journey the final installment of this series will cover, along with the ascent back up the mountain.
The rocks in the heart of that valley were something else. There were Fae hieroglyphics in there I am sure of it!
Stone beings filled with ancient stories, veins of quartz crystal inscribed granite whispering of raging spring torrents and the energetic paw prints of one hundred thousand bears and the few two leggeds that made the journey in here over the eons.
Another 2 hundred feet or so down that creek bed (with water flowing underneath us in the rocks, but not on the surface) the water emerged from under some mossy boulders and began flowing on the surface (shown in pics below).
Below shows what the forest looks like at the point where Fairy Creek water emerges from the Earth. Some of the most magical forest I have ever been blessed to visit. The air just humming with energy, emanating health and ancient memory.
(notice that green being in the pic below)
Another sacred spring guardian below… an elder cedar, magnificent, majestic and magnanimous.
There are no words to convey what I felt at this point in the journey my friends. I hope you can gather a little bit of the feeling from these pics.
And here we arrive at the end of the journey for today. The heart of the Fairy Creek watershed. This rainforest is as the Creator intended it.
Video below shows the first point at which the living waters emerge from the granite, ancient soil and from under the roots of thousand year old cedars to begin flowing on the surface.
Thank you for taking this journey with me and thank you for caring about our elder rooted kin.
The BC and Canadian federal government still allows (and profits from) cutting down the last of the ancient trees that exist in the last few intact watersheds on Earth (like Fairy Creek).
Please check out (and share) my full posts on the Walbran and Fairy Creek valleys and support the forest defenders that are engaging in their sacred duty to protect these learned and generous rooted beings so they can be appreciated by future generations.
This post was included as the 36th post which is part of the Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary series as learning from intact old growth forests has been an integral and essential part of the research for writing my next book.
Pertinent for more in depth cultural, ecological and historical context :
Poll Of The Month: Can beautiful manmade buildings alone provide all the nourishment and beauty required for a healthy mind and soul?
I stumbled across this essay linked below thanks to a share from a man I respect a great deal ( Paul Cudenec ) and then once I read the whole thing, a deep sense of loss and sadness came over me… looking at the world through the lens the author of this essay presents, it leads one to the conclusion that we could be happy, healthy, inspired and complete …
Some Irreconcilable Truths on Truth and Reconciliation Day
Great suffering has been inflicted on the original people’s of Turtle Island in the name of Statist imperialistic, anthropocentric, industrial expansion of Empire. We also live in a time when some First Nation sell outs in so called “Canada” have decided to internalize the sickness of greed and the parasitic relationship with the Earth that is capitali…
Old Growth/Tree species distribution, soil depth and linguistic artifacts as indicators of cultural maturity
This post serves as the 31st post which is part of the (Stacking Functions in the Garden, Food Forest and Medicine Cabinet : The Regenerative Way From Seed To Apothecary series).
Update February 20th, 2026
Those suffering from the wendigo (sickness of greed) insanity (Teal Jones and their government accomplices) are attempting to target ancient rainforest for clearcutting and exporting as part of a racketeering operation that intends on stealing the heritage of our great great grandchildren.
Check here for updates: https://www.facebook.com/FairyCreekBlockade
Corrupt government and their corporate colluders are trying to sneak into the valley next to Fairy Creek and decimate the ancient forest pressed against the Fairy Creek headwaters ridge while everyone is distracted.
Please see link below for how you can demand they stop this insanity of attempting to pillage the last of our ancient rainforests.
TAKE ACTION — Submit your comment before February 22
Link to comment guide + example submission is linked below :
The video clip below is from back when our corrupt government and their corporate partners were trying to annihilate the ancient forest in Fairy Creek in 2021. They are trying to do the same now near the East ridge of Fairy Creek headwaters and in Walbran valley. We need to make sure that the world is watching again, otherwise these profiteers, psychopaths and their enforcers will destroy the last of the ancient forests and these forests will not be seen on the earth again for millennia.
I might have already said this, Gavin, but, boy, do I wish I could have been a stowaway on this adventure with you and your family. Even the name...Fairy Creek...What a life-changing experience it must have been. It seems absolutely incomprehensible that these magnificent standing ones are ever cut down.
I just read this about where I live: "New Hampshire is 83% forested, with about 4.8 million acres of forest land, but due to extensive clearing for agriculture and logging in the 19th century, most of the original old-growth forests were lost by 1910." :(
Thanks for sharing your experience and the spectacular photos. This post would make a stunning book. From your fellow Tree Lover to the South. XO
Stunning photos! That must have been a sublime experience.