A Night With Nothing
I wanted to live with nothing.
My brother was getting his PH.D. My best friend from high school had started her first year of vet school. I had previously wanted to track wolves, jaguars, tigers–or to make healing salves and tinctures from the plants I sang to and that sometimes sang back. I had wanted to play with words all day, to be a writer. But I was past all that. I just wanted to be free.
I wanted to shed the burdens of everyday existence, dissolve my connections in the interwoven web we call community, to let go of the items that were keeping me tied down to a physical location: books, car, furniture. I wanted to shed the layers of civilization, to get down to the core. I wanted to let go of my umbilical cord and surrender to the earth mother.
Victory in the Headwaters Forest
Court Rules Against Pacific Lumber Permits
On May 19, environmentalists celebrated a stunning victory over Maxxam/Pacific Lumber (PL) when lawyers from the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) and the Sierra Club prevailed in a complex lawsuit that challenged the tenets of the Headwaters Forest deal.
Humboldt County Superior Judge John Golden indicated that he would strike down PL’s aSustained Yield Plan, Incidental Take Permits and permits to alter streambeds.
Golden ruled that the California Department of Forestry (CDF) and the California Department of Fish and Game failed to follow the law in granting these permits to PL. He further determined that the state of California failed to consider evidence or conduct an environmental review consistent with the California Environmental Quality Act. Golden’s decision will become final after a hearing on June 30.
