Yesterday I got an unexpected day free. I was sent home shortly after having arrived at work. I wasn’t fired, just sent home. Since my daily commute would make me returning home foolish, especially when my scheduled after-work activities were taken into account, Miranda and I went to Cedarville State Forest. Cedarville State Forest is where the Piscataway used to winter. Apparently it was ideal due to a mild climate and good hunting grounds. It was a clear day, with but a single cloud in the sky. After a picnic we went on a hike along one of the trails. Figuring we had ample time and the day was certainly clear, with no sign of rain. The other hikers were mercifully few, it being so late in the year. All the trees had turned, with the obvious exception of the frequent Holly and Pine trees, and carpeted the ground in fresh leaves. The air was just sufficiently moist to make breathing a pleasure and the leaves crunch at just the right times. The day was unseasonably warm, but no insects took an interest in us. We saw frogs, horses, and Miranda believes she saw a wild cat. The trees were friendly, and wind often caressed us in a breeze.

After a few miles we came to the crest of a hill, past which we saw that the path continued into death. An area that stretched perhaps 100 feet wide and as long as I could see there were uprooted trees and bare dirt. Not the rich black loam we had seen before, but light brown, dry, and dead dirt. I actually prayed to see signs of carbonation, a fire perhaps? Then only to see the tracks of the beast responsible: the easily recognized treads of a weapon of war. Civilized man had come and torn all the plants up by the roots, and left them there to rot. The war machines had done their genocidal damage and left. The few plants beginning to grow there again were not friendly like those earlier on the trail. And as we walked along I realized that I was being attacked by insects, the first I had noticed since arriving at Cedarville. The god of that place was angry, and did not want humans to enter his realm. As we continued to walk it took sometime before the devastation was out of sight. But, so long as we were close, the trees were not welcoming and nature’s bravest warriors attacked us continually. But we did eventually walk past that place, and once again the trees were welcoming and the insects bit us not.

I remember the experience as reminding me of two very important facts: Humans are a part of nature, and as such are susceptible to it. If I were not a part of nature I could not have known the ire of that god, nor of the trees, nor that of the insects. I was also reminded that civilization can only know war. It is designed to grow such that it will always need to conquer more and built so that it can. Civilization will always make war, and failing to find an enemy in other men it will make war on the Earth. Even to no advantage. They tore living trees from a state forest and left them there. They took their machines and left. They did not clear the trees, or build anything in their place. They made war without a purpose, merely to keep their skills sharp for the next one. That place taught me genocide. Not a war for resources, none were taken, only used. Not a war for glory, there was no publicizing. Civilized man came and warred merely to kill. No wonder they hated us.