Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

My cathedral is made of trees, but it has seen the downslope of my attention. Its pillars are still sound, standing strong through storm and summer heat, but the branches and leaves of its soaring roof have become crowded, ragged, thick with deadwood and duff.

Its nave and transept, too, once clear and open, are now overgrown as the plantings set down in years past have grown relentlessly upward, reaching out, filling the vaulted space.

The reason for this deterioration has been my inexhaustible neglect, piled year upon year, as life and events sapped me of my faith, my devotion, my love for this quiet place. Leaving nature to do as nature does has only compounded the situation, as self-sown volunteers sprang up in open spaces, and Seattle’s often rough sea-borne winds snapped off limbs twice as long as I stand tall, dropping their five-stone weights from the canopy down onto the hapless undergrowth below.

But I have renewed my covenant with my church, and have spent a fortnight, shears and billhook in hand, climbing ladders and ducking resinous boughs. Pruning, sawing, shaping, thinning, the work grimes my face and cakes my nostrils with sawdust, chaff, humus-birthed spores, and the pollen of conifers. My hands are sticky with pitch. The denim of my jeans is stiff with dirt and sweat. Yet, I am suffused with a feeling of peace born of this creative destruction, the cruel regard of the landscaper’s eye.

Much of the major work is done now, with only the carting off and chipping up of the detritus left to do, but above the rounded, leafy piles that I have raked up throughout the garden, I can see that the sight-lines have lengthened and the dissolution that once encroached on this sacred space, this heart-home, has been replaced with a sense of recovery and regrowth.

This autumn, this winter, you will find me out here much more often, tending my charge as I ought, repairing myself as much (or more) than I do this forested hall.

k