Erosion in Fast-Forward
My walk today took me down the path to the river. I was surprised to find that the path was recently mowed and well beat down. I share the path with my neighbor so it is not surprising to see other signs of human interjection here. When I got to the end of the path I found some new edges that I hadn’t seen in a few years. There was suddenly a sandy beach at the end of the path! When I say that I hadn’t seen this in years, it is because my neighbor has created this oasis once before. He hauled load after load of sand down the path to the river’s edge in the fall of 2015. When the snow melted in 2016, the high and fast river washed the entire beach away before anyone could even use it. This time, he has used many more loads of sand, but I am sure that the power of our little river will continue to thwart him and his oasis.
On my way back along the path I looked closer at some other types of erosion. It wasn’t the types we usually think of like wind and water erosion. There used to be more paths down here, I can tell by the age of the trees that are now growing in them. A human cut a path here and put up a fence there, but plant erosion has taken over. It reminds me of a few trips to Spirit Sands, Manitoba’s desert-like sand dunes. I went in 2015 and returned last year for a class trip. Took pictures in the same place (on a different phone and now lost to the infinite cloud) and showed the kids how plants are taking over the dunes very quickly. What was all sand in 2015 is now covered in long grasses. The same has happened here. What was a wide enough path to fit a vehicle down, is now encroached on by all kinds of plant, vying for the limited sunlight at this low level of the forest. In my place, I’ve seen this erosion in fast-forward.
I just realized that I always think of the word erosion as having a negative connotation. It destroys something that we’ve grown to love. Today I finally see the other side of it. Erosion is creative and life-giving, not life-taking. It gives way to something new.
On my way back along the path I looked closer at some other types of erosion. It wasn’t the types we usually think of like wind and water erosion. There used to be more paths down here, I can tell by the age of the trees that are now growing in them. A human cut a path here and put up a fence there, but plant erosion has taken over. It reminds me of a few trips to Spirit Sands, Manitoba’s desert-like sand dunes. I went in 2015 and returned last year for a class trip. Took pictures in the same place (on a different phone and now lost to the infinite cloud) and showed the kids how plants are taking over the dunes very quickly. What was all sand in 2015 is now covered in long grasses. The same has happened here. What was a wide enough path to fit a vehicle down, is now encroached on by all kinds of plant, vying for the limited sunlight at this low level of the forest. In my place, I’ve seen this erosion in fast-forward.
I just realized that I always think of the word erosion as having a negative connotation. It destroys something that we’ve grown to love. Today I finally see the other side of it. Erosion is creative and life-giving, not life-taking. It gives way to something new.