Old Forest

Look at an old forest that has not been “Managed” by some agency or property owner.  What you may think you see is a mess, no order, lots of rot.  But what you see is not all there is.  That old forest is interconnected within itself.  The dead and rotting trees as you call them, are not so dead as they appear.  They are contributing to the growing trees and to future new trees.  Forestry services tend to like some order, and managed growth, so they clear away the fallen trees, the “debris” as they see it, to get more trees that can look nice or be cut down for wood products.  Such action loses more than it gains.  A lot is going on beneath the soil that you cannot see.  It is the same with the funeral home business.  They embalm bodies and put them in boxes and bury them.  I think the monastic communities have a better idea.  Bury the body in the ground the day after death, with no box to surround it.  Our dead bodies are valuable to the eco structure of life.  We are interconnected with the earth and serve it even in death.  Like the dead trees we are not so dead after all!