Accumulated Wisdom

As I was thinking about Dr. Alan Drengson and his legacy, contemplating what I could write about him that would capture his essence, I looked down at a card that was sitting on the table beside me and everything became clear.The card is produced by the Ecoforestry Institute Society.The photograph on the front (Image 1) -taken at Wildwood Ecoforest on Vancouver Island by EIS Board member, writer, and photographer Hans Tammemagi -is of a big, old stump in front of a rustic wooden shed with upright boards as siding and a small wood-framed window.The edges of the stump where the tree had been cut show that it had continued to grow after that, forming the beginnings of a so-called "sealed stump."Emerging from the rotting centre of the stump is a large red huckleberry bush and a little clump of salal with its oval, evergreen leaves.Light green lichens encrust the outer bark of the stump and there is more salal growing on the ground around it.A forest of big and medium sized Douglas-firs and some smaller deciduous trees emerge in the background behind the shed.