i am your people

I was raised among the trees in the hills of Oakland, California.  As far back as I can remember, I understood that trees — and gophers and giraffes and poison oak and pelicans and dogs and daffodils and… you get the idea — were “my people.” I have never understood how anyone could look at a hill covered in brush and trees and grasses and think, “That looks like a great place to build a house!” Instead, I have always looked at places that are still “undeveloped” by humans and dominated by Nature as magical places where we humans may be lucky to tread, but where we must tread ever so lightly so as not to cause any harm to any of the other life thriving there. Trees in particular seem to have a mystical type of mgnificence to them. Perhaps they are the wise elders of all life on Earth. I experience deep peace when I am around them, and even when I simply close my eyes and imagine them. My church is in Nature, beneath the trees. It doesn’t matter if you share my beliefs and values; you are my people, no matter what. And whether or not you like my beliefs and values, I am your people, too.