Moon Phase: Waxing crescent
Weather: Warm and mostly clear

I took these a couple of weeks ago when I went to core some trees for a class. The first one is some eastern white pines with an understory of balsam fir, and the second one is another big pine. White pines used to be a major tree in northern Wisconsin, but they were the first to go when the logging started out here, and nowadays there aren't too many seedlings popping up to replace the ones dying out. Anyway, I really love white pines�they've always felt very sacred to me for some reason. I think at least part of it is that in high school I started teaching myself to build fires, and I quickly learned that white pine needles are a great way to get them going, so the trees came to symbolize fire for me. Pines are pretty rare in the DC area, at least in the wild�we have plenty of planted ones, but in the woods you only find the occasional Virginia pine, and they're dying out.

Speaking of sacred trees, I just finished reading Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia, which is just an amazing book. I always love reading utopian (and distopian) novels, and this one is really the best I've ever read. It takes place 20 years after Washington state, Oregon, and northern California have seceded from the US to create an ecologically and socially sound nation. It sounds like paradise to me�I just wish it were possible. I can't see that many people actually agreeing to make that kind of society. But it's nice to dream, isn't it? And anyway, a lot of the technologies they employ to reduce their ecological impact are really possible, and some of them have actually begun to be used since the book was published in 1975. I suppose some aspects of their society could be employed, if enough people were dedicated to it.