Restoration

If you're anything like me, your kneejerk reaction to this photo would probably be anger, disgust. Giant backhoe in the middle of an open field, next to a beautiful oak tree. Tearing up the ground, raping mother Earth -- this is a job for the monkeywrench gang!

Actually this photo represents something of a metaphor for what I have been experiencing lately. This field here is in the middle of a wonderful and transformative healing process. Right now looks as though its being helped through some of the crisis stage.

We live directly behind this field. We were enjoying some warm evenings last month so I opened the back door and suddenly we heard the most beautiful sound of hundreds of frogs singing out in the field. Now, I have lived in this neighborhood on and off for about four years, and that is a new sound altogether. The frogs have returned to the field because the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy is restoring this ordinary field (also known as the Ojai Meadow) back to its original state in nature, which is a wet marshland. So, that sound was like the heralding of this wonderful healing for the ecosystem that was plugged up and planted over for so long. And that is what all the heavy machinery is about. Because to just let the field lie fallow would not actually restore it to health. Which reminded me, sometimes you have to tear down what's in place in order to make things right again.