One of the ways we describe our impact on the environment is as a footprint. Sometimes we think of lightly pressing our foot on the sand, making a mark that the rising tide will wash away. But the way we live makes paths in the world that endure.
The path that we walk from the car to the door of the house is worn. When we drive up to visit a new house we can tell which door is most used by the clear path. The path to the door never used may be hidden by overgrown shrubs or blocked with stuff.
If once in a while we walk across the lawn to trim around a tree, no one would know by looking. On a path used frequently, we may put in a walkway so that the grass doesn't wear to mud. There are other paths to a shed, or a pond, or a chair in the shade that we don't want to pave so the grass shows where we regularly walk. At our house, we don't cut the grass around the barn but there is a clear worn path that we use everyday when we do chores.
In the field, there are paths that the sheep use. Much of the time the group is spread out and seems to move in a random way across the field. But there are paths they have made when they head from one field to the next. On the tracks back to the barn, the grass is worn away.
Among the cedars in front of our house there are less worn but clearly marked paths. Deer know the dry places, so as they travel from one corner to the other they've made a subtle path where the grass is just a little worn. Under the lilacs there are places where the grass is pushed aside made by the cats so they can enter the shelter without getting wet.
The trails left by the tractor are not subtle. The grass up to the main doors of the barn will soon be flat as I make trip after trip from the place the hay is stacked to the doorway so it can be stored inside.
The grass in front of the barn will grow long again as summer goes on, but this does not happen on the track that leads to the back of the farm. Wheeled equipment has taken about the same track for 150 years. Horses pulled equipment with wooden or metal wheels. Now tractors pull things with rubber tires that travel the same path. Grass grows in the middle, but there are two bare hard tracks. Although they turn to mud in the low places when it rains, the ground is packed hard. Nothing even tries to grow there. Even if we quit farming, two brown lines will be there for a long, long time to show where equipment traveled.
Our environmental footprint is more like the tractor than the cat. Think of how much carbon we put into the atmosphere. We may walk or bike some distance, but each of us drives further. We heat our house and use electricity. We may grow some plants to capture carbon, but overall we still increase the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
We have made changes. We compost more. We recycle more. But each can or plastic container that goes into the recycling will use energy to be put back into a form that can be reused. I know I am proud of each blue bag I put out, but the weight of the bag I carry to the curb is a sign of my heavy footprint.
When I worked in an Anishinaabe community, teachers said that all the creatures walk the sacred path by their nature, except the human creature. People need to learn to walk in balance and in harmony and with respect.
Walking tip toe for any distance takes effort and focus. Changing our environmental footprint takes even more effort. Feeling guilty when we look back at where we have stepped and what we've stepped on is not enough. We need to walk forward with measured steps.
Cathy Hird is a farmer, minister, and writer living near Walters Falls.
