Sequoiadendron Giganteum are the royalty worthy of a bow.
The Giant Sequoia groves, found only on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada in California, are amongst the oldest and largest life on this planet.
Being in their presence is being on sacred ground.
There is palpable sense of something more grand than human.
The oldest Sequoia is estimated to be 3,200.
They stand as tall as 279 feet and can be 26 feet in diameter.
They prompt a sense of reverence and wonder. Some native people called them Wawona. The Tule River Tribe named them Toos-pung-ish.
English speakers named them in honor of Sequoyah, who developed the symbols for the Cherokee language.
It is more than size and the history they have endured that make them extraordinary organisms. To a point, they survive fire.
Unless the fire or heat reaches to the top branches, they will endure, scar, and live on. Their fibrous bark is thick and serves as a kind of insulation.
In a bit of perplexing nature, the Giant Sequoias seed only in the aftermath of fire, or extraordinary heat.
It is stunning to consider what has occurred on this planet in the last 3000 years and to know these regal forms of life have endured that span.
Science speculates there were more of these giant redwoods in pre-historic time, but things changed in the ice age. It is said the climate has been right only the last 4000 years, but now that is changing. The future for these giants is uncertain.
From majesty to monsters
As conservative republican David Brooks wrote in his column, "The level of Republican pessimism is off the charts."
Some of them are urging murder.
Brooks tells of an Economist survey that asked Americans what was closest to their view:
Option A-- The world is big and beautiful mostly full of good people and we must find a way to embrace each other and not allow ourselves to become isolated.
Option B--Lives are threatened by terrorists, criminals and illegal immigrants, and our priority should be to protect ourselves.
75% of Biden Voters chose the good world. 66% of Trump voters said our lives are threatened.
The more the world witnesses the competence and skill of the Biden Presidency, the sillier it is that some cling to the Trump big lie. News clips of his toxic and unhinged presidential moments gain greater vulgarity with time.
It is a shame so many American citizens have their heads so deluded and hidden in another portion of their anatomy. Their blindness presents a problem to all of us.
Brooks wrote "This level of catastrophism, near despair, has fed into an amped-up warrior mentality."
"The decent know that they must become ruthless. They must become the stuff of nightmares," Jack Kerwick writes in the Trumpian magazine American Greatness. "The good man must spare not a moment to train, in both body and mind, to become the monster that he may need to become in order to slay the monsters that prey upon the vulnerable."
I share Brooks' concern about the massive disconnect from reality that Trump loyalists are infected by, and that in turn has destroyed the traditional Republican party. We are not talking about a small fraction of people. There are tens of millions who have been so propagandized, fed distorted information and flat out lies as to be functionally politically illiterate and/or psychotic.
Here is a measure of how sinister the savaging of truth is. Fox News viewership is declining as poor misguided and sad souls flee to two bozo outfits who made it their goal to be more right wing propagandized swill than Fox.
The evil that Joseph Goebbels launched and that Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch practiced has spawned a new mind damaging seed.
Ever the believer that truth wins out, I take succor in the wide Biden public approval rating, and the bipartisan support of most American voters for his programs. The more they see, the more they like. That dose of excellence is likely to be an antidote to the poison of deception and corruption that so many suffer from. It is not unlike the wonder of the vaccine that lessens the horror of the virus.
It is liberating when humans appreciate science, knowledge, history, and practice intelligent functioning. Some folks are starting to throw away those red hats, and are embarrassed about believing in Q. For the benefit of those who resist the truth and for the of us, we need to find a way to heal.
Intelligence is standing it's ground, but there is more work to do. It might help to think of those former friends or family members as being victims. They have been damaged by lies, poisoned by hateful division, and some simply don't know the truth, or are not willing to challenge their suppositions.
Stay strong.
See you down the trail
