Last week, I visited the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a few days after the great Blizzard of 2013, which buried the area with up to 55 inches of heavy, wet snow. THe snow, of course, was water in the form of partial liquid and partial solid.
The blizzard had a huge impact on human activity throughout the Hills. Residents and tourists became homebound or snowbound. Due to the amount and weight of the snow, clearing went slowly. Thousands of cattle died in the storm, to ranchers economic dismay.
Of course, we have witnessed before the serious impacts water can have due to hurricanes, floods and the like. But what particularly was revealing to me was the blizzard's impact on the natural environment. Throughout the Hills, the countless tons of wet snow snapped tall pine trees, leaving long severed trunks with jagged tops pointing to the sky like arrows defending the earth. In addition, the snow burden bent aspen and birch, still dressed in autumnal golden leaves, as well as young pines, bent 180 degrees to the ground creating arches, never to spring erect again.
What a paradox, I mused! These trees all need water to grow and live, but water destroyed them.
I had just finished reading a book on the impacts on life in Central and Eastern Europe under the nazi and later communist eras.* Looking at the landscape, I saw history in those broken trees. During those over 60 totalitarian years, people--like the aspen, birch and young pines-- were bent to the ground in subjugation by their authoritarian regimes. And, many people, like the tall pines, were snapped in the entirety.
But, there is a big difference in the two situations. The bent and broken trees were caused by Nature creating benefits to thin the forests, create meadows and provide much needed water for new growth. Bent and broken people were caused by man's inhumanity to mankind.
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*"Border Crossings", by Charles Novacek, Ten21 Press (2012)
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