The human qualities that global warming can't destroy.
The Edge of Nature
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
What is humankind's role in nature? Is there such a thing as Nature? What does the word mean? Are human beings simply destroyers of biodiversity and balance or do we have another purpose? In The Edge of Nature, Oscar-Nominated, Emmy-Winning director Josh Fox (Gasland, Awake, A Dream from Standing Rock) isolates himself in the woods amidst a dreamscape of rising worldwide crises.
After a harrowing bout with COVID, Josh isolates himself in a one room cabin in the forest for 4 seasons. Everything in the film is done in isolation— from the building of the structures to the harvesting of foraged plants to discovering the principles of the forest. The pandemic calls into question everything that our civilization has done to dominate natural world. The plants tell the history of the land- colonialism is literally rooted into the ground. Invasive species are in a war for turf every day against native plants. Surrounded by authoritarianism and the descendants of the Native American genocide, Josh investigates his own history as son and grandson of Jewish holocaust survivors who created a safe haven among the trees. Like a Coronavirus cocoon, the woods become protection and imagination. Nature itself is a call to action, a value system and a mystery that we must protect.
The film is a hybrid form, between narrative and documentary. The Edge of Nature is Josh's last collaboration with Myron Dewey, the co-director of Awake, a Dream from Standing Rock, who is interviewed in the film and advised it. Josh and Myron bond over intergenerational trauma, healing, colonialism and genocide.
"Sheer Brilliance." Common Dreams
"Startling...Profound." Susan Chenery, The Guardian
"Having spent a lot of time in nature myself with intervals of partial isolation, I find this film fascinating. The filmmaker's need to go into nature is powerfully presented, as is his wonderful moments of realization, strength, and epiphany. These moments are memorable and wonderful to watch as they unfold. I am reminded of other trailblazing authors, such as Henry David Thoreau and William Wordsworth, who also went into nature with questions, hopes for answers, and eventually answers. The Edge of Nature encourages us to spend time in nature, truly synchronizing with its complexity and the various scales of its rhythms, from the immediate to the seasonal." —Tyler Volk, Emeritus Professor of Biology & Environmental Studies, New York University, Author, Quarks to Culture: How We Came to Be
"Part Basho, part Thoreau, part Rachel Carson, Josh Fox finds healing and meaning in the woodlands of Pennsylvania, and masterfully blurs the boundary between humans and nature during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. As Pete Seeger and his banjo ring like a familiar heartbeat through the film, Fox denounces the mass killing in the colonial and modern United States of native beavers, elk, black bears, passenger pigeons, and Indigenous peoples, and how the technocratic plutocrats of today have continued this social and ecological pillaging, even as humanity had a brief but meaningful respite during the pandemic." —Alberto Arenas, Professor of Environmental and Sustainability Education, University of Arizona, Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Environmental Education
"This film reminds viewers of the dystopian present, highlighting the absurdity of our current political and ecological reality. Drawing on the filmmaker's autobiographical experiences with long-COVID and depression, it interweaves themes of intergenerational trauma, ecological connection, and healing. With Fox's heartfelt story as inspiration, The Edge of Nature will encourage high school and undergraduate Environmental Science students to reconsider their own experiences and responsibilities." —Anna J. Willow, Professor of Anthropology, The Ohio State University, Author, Understanding ExtrACTIVISM: Culture and Power in Natural Resource Disputes
"Rousing...A passionate call to once and for all return humanity to its original role as environmental caretakers." —Lauren Wissot, Documentary Magazine
"Josh Fox is one of the most adventurous impresarios of the New York avant-garde." —Jason Zinoman, New York Times
"There is a surprise around every moment on screen that will leave you rejoicing and contemplating our planet's future, our future." —Holli Harms, The Front Row Center
"A nearly description-defying work that unspools with knowledge seemingly gained from a fever dream." —Hammer To Nail
"Even given the weighty topics of genocide and ecocide, Fox's piece is the opposite of a bummer, taking the time to remind people of how blue the sky was - and how clear the birdcalls were - when COVID-19 stopped the world and reduced emissions. It suggests that we not only must change course on climate, but that such a change is possible." —PJ Grisar, The Forward
"Was COVID the worst epidemic of the modern age to afflict mankind? Josh Fox comes to the striking conclusion that our polluted, industrialized lifestyle brings about far more deaths and suffering than occurred because of COVID. But Nature heals - His time in the wilderness was not just an antidote to the mental and physical disabilities of long COVID, but also an antidote to the outside world's nationalistic fervor and fascism, pursuit of materialism, and awful impact on climate." —Peter Bunyard, Author, Gaia in Action: Science of the Living Earth and Extreme Weather: The Cataclysmic Effects of Climate Change
"Intimate and heartrending...In the same year that the Earth gains temporary relief through the COVID lockdown, Josh Fox records his own impairment and recuperation by immersion in a seasonal cycle of life and death. The sorrowful history of human violence culminating in the Anthropocene malaise is transmuted into hope and determination through humor, Pete Seeger banjo music, and rapt attunement to the bounty of one's living surroundings. The Edge of Nature viscerally reconnects personal and collective health to the wellbeing and resilient generosity of the natural world." —Bruce Clarke, Horn Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Literature and Science, Texas Tech University, Author, Gaian Systems: Lynn Margulis, Neocybernetics, and the End of the Anthropocene
"This introspective film, framed by the director's personal experience with long covid as well as by political events both current and historic, explores the appropriate relationship between people and the natural world through a year in the Pennsylvania woods. Pessimistic but not hopeless, the film highlights the links between planetary and human wellbeing. It should prompt thought and discussion in groups interested in environmental protection or in the role of nature in human health." —Susan Clayton, Professor of Psychology and Environmental Studies, College of Wooster
"This film powerfully connects what many might see as disparate elements of the early 2020s: a global pandemic, decisions to harm or heal nature, colonization, and the love of the land community. We live on one blooming, buzzing, interconnected, and wondrous planet. Edge of Nature tenderly honors and illustrates our planetary reality." —Michael Paul Nelson, Professor of Environmental Ethics and Philosophy, Director, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, Oregon State University
Citation
Main credits
Fox, Josh (film director)
Fox, Josh (screenwriter)
Crespo, Diane (film producer)
Sanchez, Matthew (film producer)
Other credits
Editing, Matthew Sanchez; music, Doug Bowne, Josh Fox, Lucas Pool.
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
00:02:00.870 --> 00:02:02.205
This is the land that I know
00:02:02.205 --> 00:02:05.166
better than any land on earth.
00:02:07.961 --> 00:02:09.838
It's like a close friend
00:02:09.838 --> 00:02:11.589
or a relative.
00:02:22.851 --> 00:02:25.770
I will be buried here.
00:02:29.524 --> 00:02:32.443
And to tell you exactly how I
arrived at this bank
00:02:32.443 --> 00:02:33.974
and shoal of time,
00:02:34.001 --> 00:02:38.156
I have to go way back,
way, way back to a time
00:02:38.158 --> 00:02:41.452
I can't hardly remember.
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:47.417
2019.
00:02:48.835 --> 00:02:52.630
By 2019, over 70% of all
wildlife on the planet
00:02:52.755 --> 00:02:56.801
had disappeared, burned, flooded,
or paved over.
00:02:58.219 --> 00:03:00.972
In 2019,
the International Panel on Climate Change
00:03:00.972 --> 00:03:03.850
announced that we had only 11 years left
to change everything.
00:03:05.268 --> 00:03:07.896
Climate emissions were through the roof
and increasing.
00:03:08.229 --> 00:03:11.566
We were a mere decade away
from a completely unlivable future.
00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:15.361
In 2019, a handful of
mega billionaires owned
00:03:15.361 --> 00:03:18.114
the same amount of wealth,
than nearly everyone else on the planet.
00:03:18.531 --> 00:03:20.617
Oddly, they kept trying to leave.
00:03:21.284 --> 00:03:26.247
Jeff Bezos announced Blue Origin,
an endeavor to put millions of people
00:03:26.331 --> 00:03:29.834
in giant centrifugal salad spinners
in the sky.
00:03:30.001 --> 00:03:34.088
Totalitarian cities where the weather
is always vaguely like Florida
00:03:34.297 --> 00:03:38.134
and anything and everything you want
can be supplied to you by Jeff Bezos.
00:03:38.468 --> 00:03:42.972
While billionaires fortunes skyrocketed,
Rachel Carson's worst nightmare
00:03:42.972 --> 00:03:44.999
of Silent Spring had arrived.
00:03:45.001 --> 00:03:49.393
2.9 billion birds mysteriously
vanished from the continent,
00:03:49.395 --> 00:03:53.066
and a third of all mammals on the
planet had become endangered.
00:03:53.483 --> 00:03:57.695
A third of all sharks and
34% of conifer trees.
00:03:58.154 --> 00:04:00.531
The system of turning the
bounty of the earth
00:04:00.531 --> 00:04:04.118
into dizzying wealth continued
to rip the planet to shreds.
00:04:04.827 --> 00:04:05.827
All the while,
00:04:05.829 --> 00:04:09.374
we plunged deeper and deeper into the
full tilt nightmare of climate change.
00:04:09.874 --> 00:04:13.419
You're probably being burned out by a
fire or flooded out by mega storms.
00:04:13.753 --> 00:04:15.171
Everywhere was on fire.
00:04:15.171 --> 00:04:16.515
Not just us, too.
00:04:16.520 --> 00:04:20.176
Australia, Europe,
even Malibu was on fire.
00:04:21.344 --> 00:04:23.499
But if you wanted to ignore
what was happening,
00:04:23.502 --> 00:04:25.306
you could escape the planet
at any time.
00:04:25.640 --> 00:04:28.810
Mark Zuckerberg was perfectly happy
to collect all your data points while
00:04:28.810 --> 00:04:32.397
supplying you with endless dopamine hits
every time you heard that little ding.
00:04:32.689 --> 00:04:36.150
So, many of us just didn't notice
how ugly the earth was becoming.
00:04:36.484 --> 00:04:38.987
In 2019, SUVs were on the rise.
00:04:39.028 --> 00:04:42.073
Cars becoming the number one
source of emissions for the country.
00:04:42.198 --> 00:04:43.997
And all of the oil and gas
that we couldn't get
00:04:43.999 --> 00:04:47.495
by destroying, fracking, extracting
and polluting our own backyard,
00:04:47.870 --> 00:04:51.749
America obtained through other means:
00:04:51.749 --> 00:04:54.999
endless wars that killed
hundreds of thousands,
00:04:55.002 --> 00:04:58.887
20 thousand alone executed by those
giant flying metal hornets
00:04:58.890 --> 00:05:00.999
piloted by men sitting
comfortably far away
00:05:01.003 --> 00:05:03.970
sipping diet cola in a
Las Vegas basement bunker.
00:05:04.387 --> 00:05:06.848
Hundreds of thousands
were killed by oil wars.
00:05:06.931 --> 00:05:10.518
But friends, the fossil fuels themselves
are even more deadly than that.
00:05:10.893 --> 00:05:14.689
In 2019, 10 million people
died from air pollution.
00:05:14.981 --> 00:05:19.569
In fact, 10 million people die every
year from fossil fuel air pollution.
00:05:20.194 --> 00:05:22.822
And so, my friends, throughout
the decade I did my duty
00:05:22.822 --> 00:05:25.366
and I went on the box
to tell people the bad news.
00:05:25.867 --> 00:05:27.785
We were headed towards
the promised end.
00:05:27.785 --> 00:05:29.855
Apocalypse. Now.
00:05:29.857 --> 00:05:31.907
- You just want us to be dependent
on foreign oil forever?
00:05:31.959 --> 00:05:35.585
- Multinational oil companies who
will do the classic exploitation model.
00:05:35.710 --> 00:05:37.337
What's happening in America right now is -
00:05:37.337 --> 00:05:39.964
- What you're doing is scaremong-
You're doing scaremongering.
00:05:40.173 --> 00:05:42.467
- We don't need another 50 years.
00:05:42.999 --> 00:05:44.594
- All right, I just wanna -
00:05:44.844 --> 00:05:46.429
- We were making our own end.
00:05:46.429 --> 00:05:48.056
Ripping the world to shreds.
00:05:48.056 --> 00:05:49.974
Ecosystems crashing.
00:05:49.974 --> 00:05:51.434
- What is your plan, Josh?
00:05:51.434 --> 00:05:54.812
- The only thing that we will never-
I am about to explain to you.
00:05:54.812 --> 00:05:58.775
I don't believe that you should be
trivializing my position in that way.
00:05:58.900 --> 00:06:02.195
And once again, the airwaves were
no place for my arguments
00:06:02.195 --> 00:06:04.864
to find purchase.
00:06:09.077 --> 00:06:10.077
And so, friends,
00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:12.372
we went out screaming into the streets,
didn't we?
00:06:14.916 --> 00:06:17.210
Across this land, righteous folks
00:06:17.210 --> 00:06:21.381
placed their lives on the front lines
to try to bend that long arc of U.S.
00:06:21.381 --> 00:06:23.341
history towards the justice
00:06:23.341 --> 00:06:24.717
we've never known.
00:06:24.717 --> 00:06:28.554
Things were so out of whack that many,
many more of us ran out into the streets.
00:06:29.347 --> 00:06:33.643
I grew up that way, with the songs of
Pete Seeger and protest.
00:06:33.810 --> 00:06:35.978
♪ Which side are you on? ♪
00:06:37.814 --> 00:06:40.191
Ours was a frontline movement.
00:06:41.317 --> 00:06:42.999
We are being penned in.
00:06:43.001 --> 00:06:43.945
Whether that was getting shot at
00:06:43.945 --> 00:06:46.864
at Standing Rock,
sitting in to stop pipelines,
00:06:47.073 --> 00:06:50.535
fighting the constant ecocide
which is the fossil fuel industry.
00:06:50.993 --> 00:06:55.748
We nosed in head first and brain first and
got battered and bruised and roughed up.
00:06:56.082 --> 00:06:59.752
And as Henry David Thoreau
once said, "In an unjust society,
00:06:59.919 --> 00:07:02.922
the only place for a just man is in jail."
00:07:03.339 --> 00:07:05.675
So I tried to keep up.
00:07:05.925 --> 00:07:09.095
And the long arm of Johnny Law
compelled so many of us
00:07:09.095 --> 00:07:12.640
to participate in that great
American tradition of civil disobedience.
00:07:13.599 --> 00:07:15.893
But in 2019, you-know-who
00:07:15.893 --> 00:07:19.355
was you-know-where.
00:07:19.605 --> 00:07:22.692
So in spite of the passion
and action of the best and brightest
00:07:22.692 --> 00:07:25.903
of the youngest and oldest generations
and everyone in between,
00:07:26.446 --> 00:07:28.948
nothing would spur
our government to action.
00:07:30.867 --> 00:07:33.244
Not with El Cheetolini in
the White House.
00:07:33.494 --> 00:07:37.039
Instead, he passed enormous tax cuts
for the wealthy when many folks couldn't
00:07:37.039 --> 00:07:40.376
afford insulin or basic medical care,
and the vast number of us
00:07:40.376 --> 00:07:43.629
were on our way to bankruptcy
and ruin.
00:07:43.629 --> 00:07:45.673
In 2019, most people had to have two
00:07:45.673 --> 00:07:48.968
or three jobs just to pay rent,
and you had to be extra quick on your feet
00:07:49.302 --> 00:07:54.098
because in 2019 there were hundreds
and hundreds of mass shootings in America.
00:07:54.599 --> 00:07:58.895
In 2019, the gap between rich and poor in
America was at an all time disparity,
00:07:59.687 --> 00:08:04.442
a system kept in place by over policing
and incarceration with almost 3 million
00:08:04.442 --> 00:08:08.196
people in prison in the United States,
mostly poor and black, and brown.
00:08:08.404 --> 00:08:10.825
So we screamed and marched
and got nabbed,
00:08:10.829 --> 00:08:12.971
and screamed and blockaded
and got nabbed,
00:08:13.117 --> 00:08:16.746
and we screamed and acted out
and got nabbed.
00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:21.001
A decade of fracking, endless wars,
tiki torch Nazis,
00:08:21.003 --> 00:08:24.001
billionaire-contorted
megalomaniacal fantasies,
00:08:24.003 --> 00:08:27.840
an algorithm-induced orange
dumpster fire presidency,
00:08:27.840 --> 00:08:32.999
and the US economy turned into an
autocratic, carceral company store,
00:08:33.002 --> 00:08:34.999
delivered to you in under 24 hours
by Jeff Bezos.
00:08:36.224 --> 00:08:37.433
Oh, my friends,
00:08:37.433 --> 00:08:42.730
we were in a pickle indeed,
a worldwide global-warmed pickle.
00:08:43.064 --> 00:08:47.443
No matter what we tried to do we
could not stop emissions from going up.
00:08:47.985 --> 00:08:51.447
No arrests, no media appearances,
no presidential campaigns,
00:08:51.489 --> 00:08:55.034
no teenagers who don't need no
education, no earnest, narcissistic
00:08:55.034 --> 00:08:58.579
celebrity faces reflected in the warm
glow of an Amazonian solar farm.
00:08:58.621 --> 00:09:01.415
No hippies with puppets
clogging the streets of major cities.
00:09:01.415 --> 00:09:05.043
No divesting our bank accounts,
leveraged 30 to 1 by pedophiliac
00:09:05.045 --> 00:09:06.045
hedge fund managers.
00:09:06.045 --> 00:09:07.838
No personal carbon footprint pledge
00:09:07.838 --> 00:09:10.174
to recycle your polyester
undergarments.
00:09:10.174 --> 00:09:12.999
No climate scientists pushing
nuclear fission
00:09:13.002 --> 00:09:14.845
or Jesus crucified on a wind turbine.
00:09:14.845 --> 00:09:18.054
No vegan palm oil,
henna "Meat is Murder" tattoo.
00:09:18.057 --> 00:09:21.999
No climate influencers hawking
package-free placenta.
00:09:22.002 --> 00:09:23.229
No anti-fracking folk song,
00:09:23.229 --> 00:09:26.649
awkward earth-conscious rap
or Daybreaker sober rave.
00:09:27.233 --> 00:09:30.319
Nothing would stop emissions
from rising.
00:09:30.695 --> 00:09:33.601
Nothing. fucking. worked.
00:09:33.610 --> 00:09:36.948
Emissions just kept going up.
00:09:36.951 --> 00:09:39.704
Our fate as a human race
and every other
00:09:39.704 --> 00:09:45.999
biological species on the planet
imperiled more day by day.
00:09:46.002 --> 00:09:47.628
As if we were chugging blindly
00:09:47.628 --> 00:09:50.840
at a thousand miles per hour
directly into a brick wall.
00:09:52.008 --> 00:09:53.926
I went on TV anyway.
00:09:53.926 --> 00:09:56.637
- You win, you win, Josh.
- When you burn fossil fuels -
00:09:57.221 --> 00:09:59.265
- You beat me in the cliché contest,
we're out of time.
00:09:59.890 --> 00:10:01.892
I appreciate it, though.
00:10:01.892 --> 00:10:04.979
- Even though by then Tik-Tok had
arrived and not many were watching.
00:10:11.819 --> 00:10:14.196
But oh, my friends, in 2019
00:10:14.196 --> 00:10:17.192
we did not know how good we had it.
00:10:21.621 --> 00:10:23.748
And just when we all thought
00:10:23.748 --> 00:10:26.500
things couldn't possibly get any worse,
00:10:26.500 --> 00:10:29.754
this little bugger was born.
00:10:29.754 --> 00:10:33.674
And just as the decade
turned in January of 2020,
00:10:34.342 --> 00:10:35.593
I got it.
00:10:36.844 --> 00:10:39.555
In this most squalid state
of fever dreams,
00:10:39.972 --> 00:10:42.266
I was racing through the woods,
running from bears,
00:10:42.725 --> 00:10:45.102
running from Nazis.
00:10:46.604 --> 00:10:49.357
I felt like I was being beaten
with baseball bats.
00:10:49.815 --> 00:10:51.025
I couldn't breathe deeply.
00:10:51.025 --> 00:10:52.985
My lungs and airways were clogged.
00:10:52.985 --> 00:10:55.738
I was drowning in my bed.
00:10:56.364 --> 00:10:57.490
Gasping for breath.
00:10:59.241 --> 00:11:00.618
I was dying.
00:11:00.618 --> 00:11:01.994
I didn't know why,
00:11:01.994 --> 00:11:03.204
I didn't know how,
00:11:03.204 --> 00:11:05.206
but I was sure of it.
00:11:06.374 --> 00:11:08.834
But in spite of my certainty,
I did not die.
00:11:10.461 --> 00:11:13.714
All of a sudden, my fever broke.
00:11:13.714 --> 00:11:15.508
And when I awoke,
00:11:15.758 --> 00:11:18.928
COVID was everywhere.
00:11:19.011 --> 00:11:21.263
But, oh, the virus had ripped
through my brain.
00:11:22.306 --> 00:11:26.185
It mixed and matched synapses in ways
that didn't seem to go together.
00:11:26.936 --> 00:11:28.813
I had brain fog,
00:11:28.813 --> 00:11:31.482
the next words struggling from
thought to lips,
00:11:32.149 --> 00:11:34.985
stuck inside, stuttering.
00:11:36.278 --> 00:11:38.447
Headaches came from out of nowhere.
00:11:38.447 --> 00:11:41.534
Neurological attacks
where I could not stop blinking.
00:11:42.284 --> 00:11:45.246
The blinking lights, the sirens,
the incessant prefrontal
00:11:45.246 --> 00:11:48.708
strobe of doom scrolling
made it all so much worse.
00:11:49.083 --> 00:11:53.796
So I went off to the woods to live
deliberately away from the wi-fi
00:11:53.796 --> 00:11:55.339
and the cell phone signal,
00:11:55.339 --> 00:11:59.176
away from the noise and the violence
that made the fog in my brain worse.
00:12:00.386 --> 00:12:02.999
Home, to the land that I know better
00:12:03.001 --> 00:12:05.516
than anywhere on earth.
00:12:06.225 --> 00:12:08.894
One room, no cell phone signal,
00:12:10.396 --> 00:12:15.317
and no one around.
00:12:15.317 --> 00:12:19.071
I came to heed this global call
to introspection,
00:12:21.999 --> 00:12:25.661
just me and the ghost of
old Pete Seeger.
00:12:26.829 --> 00:12:29.123
It's like nature told all of us,
00:12:31.542 --> 00:12:33.461
all of humanity,
00:12:33.461 --> 00:12:36.172
"Go to your room and think about
what you've done."
00:12:47.057 --> 00:12:48.934
What have we done?
00:12:49.852 --> 00:12:52.229
How can we heal now?
00:14:11.832 --> 00:14:13.999
♪ Sing together ♪
00:14:14.749 --> 00:14:16.949
♪ On our knees ♪
00:14:17.624 --> 00:14:19.924
♪ Let us all ♪
00:14:20.511 --> 00:14:22.911
♪ Bow down ♪
00:14:23.001 --> 00:14:25.405
♪ Oh, Lord, and face ♪
00:14:25.999 --> 00:14:27.999
♪ The rising sun ♪
00:14:29.001 --> 00:14:31.549
♪ Didn't old John ♪
00:14:31.999 --> 00:14:34.224
♪ Cross the water ♪
00:14:35.001 --> 00:14:37.062
♪ On his knees ♪
00:14:37.999 --> 00:14:40.081
♪ Didn't old John ♪
00:14:40.790 --> 00:14:42.990
♪ Wade the water ♪
00:14:43.999 --> 00:14:46.445
♪ On his knees ♪
00:14:46.472 --> 00:14:48.972
♪ Didn't old John ♪
00:14:49.436 --> 00:14:52.036
♪ Wade the water ♪
00:14:52.168 --> 00:14:54.568
♪ On his knees ♪
00:14:55.134 --> 00:14:57.534
♪ Let us all ♪
00:14:58.117 --> 00:14:59.896
♪ Bow down ♪
00:14:59.899 --> 00:15:01.191
I've been to nine doctors,
00:15:04.445 --> 00:15:06.906
nine different doctors,
00:15:06.906 --> 00:15:10.242
to find out what's wrong with my brain.
00:15:12.620 --> 00:15:13.996
What happens to me?
00:15:13.996 --> 00:15:15.080
- This is the cerebellum.
00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:17.416
That's the part of your brain
that deals with your balance, right?
00:15:17.917 --> 00:15:21.128
So I know you said sometimes you feel a little
bit woozy or weird, but this is totally normal.
00:15:21.128 --> 00:15:26.216
Structurally, there's no tumor or mass or
bleed or stroke that's impinging on it.
00:15:26.967 --> 00:15:30.304
You have Broca's area,
which creates speech,
00:15:30.971 --> 00:15:34.516
and then you have Wernicke's area,
which is the fluency of speech.
00:15:35.017 --> 00:15:37.394
And so that's getting whacked, too.
00:15:37.394 --> 00:15:39.855
- So this is the eyes?
- Yep.
00:15:40.272 --> 00:15:41.231
- What's that called, eye...?
00:15:41.231 --> 00:15:42.191
- Frontal eye field.
00:15:42.191 --> 00:15:42.900
- Frontal eye field.
00:15:42.900 --> 00:15:45.027
- So, this is blinking.
00:15:45.819 --> 00:15:48.405
This is dry eyes.
00:15:48.405 --> 00:15:50.491
This is the stuttering.
00:15:50.491 --> 00:15:52.660
- And those are all happening
because something is happening
00:15:52.660 --> 00:15:55.621
in the amygdala, which is telling me
that I'm being attacked.
00:15:55.702 --> 00:15:56.710
- Right.
00:15:58.582 --> 00:16:00.084
- So what happens is really simple.
00:16:00.084 --> 00:16:04.338
Like I, if I get stressed,
especially if I'm on a phone call
00:16:04.338 --> 00:16:06.465
or on a Zoom or a FaceTime,
00:16:08.759 --> 00:16:12.846
uh, I start to feel all this pressure behind
my eyes, then my eyes get really dry.
00:16:12.930 --> 00:16:15.474
I start to blink, like, incessantly,
00:16:15.474 --> 00:16:17.393
and I can't find the next word.
00:16:17.393 --> 00:16:20.354
And then I, I have brain...
00:16:20.354 --> 00:16:23.774
fog, brai- brain problems, and I
can't keep up with the conversation.
00:16:23.774 --> 00:16:26.443
I get very, very irritable.
00:16:29.363 --> 00:16:30.572
It's terrible.
00:16:32.032 --> 00:16:33.784
It's happening now.
00:16:33.784 --> 00:16:35.619
It's been happening all day.
00:16:35.619 --> 00:16:37.329
Oh, my God.
00:16:39.790 --> 00:16:42.126
Spring is almost here.
00:16:45.713 --> 00:16:48.716
It's about 36 degrees.
00:16:50.217 --> 00:16:52.845
There's a deer poop here.
00:16:52.845 --> 00:16:54.929
And right next to the deer poop,
00:16:54.931 --> 00:16:56.098
is a bear poop.
00:16:57.433 --> 00:16:59.768
Somebody is competing over here.
00:17:01.103 --> 00:17:02.771
Deer poop.
00:17:03.022 --> 00:17:05.857
And that is definitely a bear poop.
00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:08.359
There's the house.
00:17:11.238 --> 00:17:13.365
The bear is around.
00:17:14.408 --> 00:17:17.202
A bear, or many bears.
00:17:17.745 --> 00:17:20.748
It's just a matter of time
before we run into each other,
00:17:20.748 --> 00:17:21.790
I guess.
00:17:23.083 --> 00:17:26.710
But I don't know how I feel
about the bear being this close.
00:17:29.173 --> 00:17:31.633
That looks like coyote poop.
00:17:31.633 --> 00:17:34.762
It's coyote poop for sure,
because it's got hair in it.
00:17:35.471 --> 00:17:38.599
So the coyotes are coming around here.
00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:39.641
Right here.
00:17:41.685 --> 00:17:44.104
Right here next to the pond.
00:17:47.441 --> 00:17:50.110
Listen to all those spring peepers.
00:17:50.110 --> 00:17:53.238
It's like a circus out there.
00:17:59.153 --> 00:18:00.287
I got a lot of stuff to do before dark.
00:18:00.287 --> 00:18:01.955
I - I gotta get to it.
00:18:04.373 --> 00:18:05.918
Oww, fuck.
00:18:05.918 --> 00:18:08.170
That's enough wood for tonight.
00:18:08.170 --> 00:18:11.173
I'm settling in for the long haul.
00:18:11.173 --> 00:18:13.425
However long this takes,
00:18:13.425 --> 00:18:15.302
I'm going to be here.
00:18:18.305 --> 00:18:20.557
I'm going to heal from this disease
00:18:20.557 --> 00:18:22.684
and I'm going to survive it.
00:18:30.984 --> 00:18:32.152
As peaceful as this place seems,
00:18:32.152 --> 00:18:35.155
it's been a perpetual battleground
since the Europeans arrived.
00:18:37.407 --> 00:18:41.829
Wars, conquest, land grabs have
always defined this landscape:
00:18:41.829 --> 00:18:44.039
the Dutch versus the original people,
the Lenape,
00:18:44.039 --> 00:18:47.417
the British versus the French,
the Iroquois versus the Lenape,
00:18:47.417 --> 00:18:51.792
and the American colonists versus
just about everybody.
00:18:51.797 --> 00:18:54.883
In 1798, the colonists settled
at Cushetunk.
00:18:55.883 --> 00:18:59.997
The Lenape called the Delaware,
"the river of human beings."
00:18:59.999 --> 00:19:01.999
They'd lived here for 10,000 years.
00:19:02.001 --> 00:19:05.001
Now, there's only 350 left
in Pennsylvania.
00:19:05.269 --> 00:19:08.188
The colonists clearcut the forest
for timber and farming.
00:19:12.234 --> 00:19:13.902
The river was so jammed with logs
00:19:13.902 --> 00:19:15.904
you couldn't see the water.
00:19:19.825 --> 00:19:21.952
If they hadn't done the clear cut,
we'd have trees here
00:19:21.952 --> 00:19:23.996
as big as redwoods.
00:19:29.126 --> 00:19:31.253
There are always survivors.
00:19:31.253 --> 00:19:33.714
And I found one in the forest,
00:19:34.798 --> 00:19:39.460
a giant old tree that dwarfed
all the others.
00:19:42.848 --> 00:19:43.974
They left this one.
00:19:54.742 --> 00:19:55.999
Gorgeous, huh?
00:19:57.002 --> 00:19:58.622
Look how tall it is.
00:20:03.702 --> 00:20:06.788
My family were survivors, too.
00:20:06.788 --> 00:20:09.625
Survivors of the Holocaust.
00:20:13.503 --> 00:20:16.215
My grandmother had nine brothers
and sisters before the Holocaust.
00:20:16.423 --> 00:20:18.175
Only one survived.
00:20:18.175 --> 00:20:22.012
My grandfather lost his entire extended
family, all of them murdered by the Nazis.
00:20:22.305 --> 00:20:23.305
And they were lucky.
00:20:23.305 --> 00:20:25.933
They were one of a handful
of families of Jews
00:20:25.933 --> 00:20:28.936
who were let into the
United States in the '50s.
00:20:29.019 --> 00:20:30.320
What people don't understand is that
00:20:30.322 --> 00:20:32.981
most of the Jews who tried to get into
the United States for asylum
00:20:32.981 --> 00:20:38.401
were turned away, sent back to the Nazis,
sent back to the gas chambers.
00:20:40.155 --> 00:20:43.742
A survivor has to tell the world
about the past.
00:20:45.077 --> 00:20:46.119
A survivor
00:20:46.119 --> 00:20:49.331
also has to warn us about the future.
00:20:49.331 --> 00:20:52.751
That's a survivor's obligation.
00:20:59.895 --> 00:21:00.895
Enormous.
00:21:04.638 --> 00:21:07.641
The forest is a place where you see
the battle between what survives
00:21:08.141 --> 00:21:11.144
and what doesn't.
00:21:16.566 --> 00:21:19.611
The scars are written into the land,
00:21:22.406 --> 00:21:25.001
just like I can feel
the scars of generations past
00:21:25.003 --> 00:21:26.577
deep inside of me.
00:21:30.664 --> 00:21:33.001
The mist on this, on the half ice.
00:21:37.671 --> 00:21:40.340
Getting down into the 20s at night.
00:21:41.300 --> 00:21:46.145
When the snow recedes you can see
the remains of the coyotes' winter kills.
00:21:48.056 --> 00:21:49.441
Dragged it.
00:22:19.129 --> 00:22:21.170
They must be celebrating a kill.
00:22:25.761 --> 00:22:27.179
Fucking amazing.
00:22:40.650 --> 00:22:43.653
- ...before the coronavirus outbreak
comes under control.
00:22:43.653 --> 00:22:46.406
So how long must we live
under tight restrictions?
00:22:46.406 --> 00:22:49.659
President Trump ventured an answer
at yesterday's White House briefing.
00:22:50.118 --> 00:22:54.247
- People are talking about July,
August, something like that.
00:22:54.915 --> 00:22:57.250
- At today's briefing, though,
Anthony Fauci
00:22:57.250 --> 00:23:00.295
cautioned against setting too specific
a timeline.
00:23:00.670 --> 00:23:03.131
- You have to be careful
when you get a number.
00:23:03.131 --> 00:23:04.341
You own the number.
00:23:04.341 --> 00:23:06.551
And then if the number
doesn't come out, you're in trouble.
00:23:06.553 --> 00:23:09.304
- ...August, which is 4 or 5
months from now.
00:23:18.551 --> 00:23:21.753
♪ Oh, had I a golden thread ♪
00:23:24.999 --> 00:23:27.853
♪ And needle so fine ♪
00:23:30.450 --> 00:23:32.327
These are the weeks
00:23:32.327 --> 00:23:34.788
where life hides most fervently,
00:23:35.831 --> 00:23:39.167
where the brown trees
and the brown mud mixes
00:23:39.167 --> 00:23:44.756
with the gray in the sky and says,
"Wait, it's coming."
00:23:50.804 --> 00:23:54.182
But my friends,
something was charging inside of me.
00:23:54.724 --> 00:23:56.810
The feeling of seeing the ground,
00:23:56.810 --> 00:23:59.896
finally, after all that snow.
00:23:59.896 --> 00:24:02.607
I ran towards my favorite field.
00:24:02.607 --> 00:24:04.359
Oh, no.
00:24:04.568 --> 00:24:08.405
It was overrun by this weird
kind of bush.
00:24:08.738 --> 00:24:11.575
A craggy, evil, thorny.
00:24:11.575 --> 00:24:13.999
Ichabod Crane-looking bush.
Honeysuckle.
00:24:15.001 --> 00:24:17.039
It's a shrub. Invasive.
00:24:17.080 --> 00:24:20.709
It's a thing that Europeans brought
over to create hedgerows.
00:24:21.126 --> 00:24:24.129
The ultimate suburban fence plant.
00:24:25.918 --> 00:24:26.918
There's another one.
00:24:26.923 --> 00:24:27.712
There's another one.
00:24:27.716 --> 00:24:28.967
There's another one,
there's another one.
00:24:28.967 --> 00:24:29.999
There's another one.
00:24:30.178 --> 00:24:31.178
Everywhere.
00:24:31.178 --> 00:24:33.305
I had to crawl around
on my hands and knees
00:24:33.305 --> 00:24:35.140
just to try to get through the field.
00:24:38.018 --> 00:24:41.354
And when I emerged, ticks all over me.
00:24:42.355 --> 00:24:45.501
There's always ticks in
the honeysuckle.
00:24:48.487 --> 00:24:49.487
Fuck.
00:24:57.644 --> 00:25:02.844
♪ We are climbing ♪
00:25:05.999 --> 00:25:09.999
♪ Jacob's ladder ♪
00:25:11.801 --> 00:25:14.971
Much to my chagrin,
the battle for this patch of forest
00:25:14.971 --> 00:25:19.309
was being won by a dastardly,
colonizing suburban shrub.
00:25:26.775 --> 00:25:28.401
But to my delight,
00:25:28.401 --> 00:25:32.280
the more I battled and cleared,
the more my brain felt clear.
00:25:32.781 --> 00:25:36.576
The more I worked with my hands
and arms the less embattled I was.
00:25:36.868 --> 00:25:39.871
I can feel something happening to me.
00:25:39.871 --> 00:25:42.874
I can feel it happening, like,
I don't wanna go indoors.
00:25:45.293 --> 00:25:47.379
I don't want to go back.
00:25:48.338 --> 00:25:51.967
Like, something settling in.
00:25:52.175 --> 00:25:53.635
Something that's
00:25:55.220 --> 00:25:57.847
always been there that
always has wanted to be here.
00:25:59.015 --> 00:26:01.643
It's saying, "Don't go back."
00:26:03.105 --> 00:26:04.688
Hear the blue jays?
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:16.950
I'm getting through here.
00:26:16.950 --> 00:26:18.451
I got a little bit more to go.
00:26:19.744 --> 00:26:22.539
I'm gonna get over towards
that big tree there,
00:26:22.789 --> 00:26:25.250
and that's where I'm gonna
make my stand.
00:26:40.184 --> 00:26:43.999
♪ Well may the world go,
the world go, the world go ♪
00:26:44.001 --> 00:26:46.847
♪ Well may the world go
when I'm far away ♪
00:26:47.001 --> 00:26:48.999
♪ Well may the skiers turn ♪
00:26:49.001 --> 00:26:50.999
♪ The lovers burn,
the swimmers churn ♪
00:26:51.002 --> 00:26:53.999
♪ Peace may the generals learn
when I'm far away ♪
00:26:54.547 --> 00:26:57.999
♪ Well may the world go,
the world go, the world go ♪
00:26:58.002 --> 00:27:01.247
♪ Well may the world go
when I'm far away ♪
00:27:02.495 --> 00:27:04.664
I didn't know what I was
building, or why.
00:27:05.999 --> 00:27:07.459
I just knew I had to get up higher.
00:27:08.918 --> 00:27:11.796
I guess you call that instinct
00:27:12.464 --> 00:27:14.591
or insanity.
00:27:28.063 --> 00:27:29.773
Okay.
00:27:29.773 --> 00:27:32.776
Okay, so I got some leverage now.
00:27:32.901 --> 00:27:35.320
Push the motherfucker up.
00:27:37.656 --> 00:27:39.499
Shit, it's really heavy.
00:27:41.618 --> 00:27:43.703
Don’t go over, no! NO!
00:27:43.703 --> 00:27:46.289
Oh, shit.
00:27:46.289 --> 00:27:47.791
Shit.
00:27:47.791 --> 00:27:49.417
Oh, man.
00:28:21.825 --> 00:28:24.202
That's all the invasive species.
00:28:25.286 --> 00:28:27.080
All invasive.
00:28:27.080 --> 00:28:29.249
All honeysuckle.
00:28:29.249 --> 00:28:30.625
See how much area it takes up?
00:28:38.591 --> 00:28:40.719
My inner peace didn't last long,
00:28:40.719 --> 00:28:43.263
so it was back up the hill
to find a signal
00:28:43.263 --> 00:28:45.348
and another doctor.
00:28:45.515 --> 00:28:47.225
Thanks for seeing me in this way.
00:28:47.225 --> 00:28:48.225
- Of course.
00:28:48.309 --> 00:28:50.437
You know, we don't really understand
00:28:50.437 --> 00:28:53.732
how COVID interacts with all of the
body's systems just yet.
00:28:54.482 --> 00:28:57.819
Um, so how it interacts with the central
and peripheral nervous systems.
00:28:58.027 --> 00:29:01.740
It's well documented
that a physical medical illness
00:29:01.906 --> 00:29:07.328
can be the source of, or even exacerbate,
already existing mental health conditions.
00:29:07.495 --> 00:29:10.290
So it's very likely that a
bad COVID infection
00:29:10.331 --> 00:29:12.625
could lead to worsening PTSD.
00:29:13.334 --> 00:29:16.129
And then even if you're physically
healed from that COVID,
00:29:16.421 --> 00:29:17.630
now you still have to deal
00:29:17.630 --> 00:29:22.091
with the residual effects of the
mental health consequences, right?
00:29:22.594 --> 00:29:27.849
Um, and this could manifest in a
myriad of ways including worsening of tics,
00:29:27.849 --> 00:29:30.852
agitation, headaches, you know,
GI upset,
00:29:31.352 --> 00:29:34.481
really any type of somatization.
00:29:39.319 --> 00:29:40.570
- That night,
00:29:40.904 --> 00:29:43.531
I found out my disease has a name.
00:29:43.531 --> 00:29:46.284
- Long COVID has left thousands
00:29:46.284 --> 00:29:49.496
with a laundry list of sometimes
debilitating symptoms
00:29:49.496 --> 00:29:52.749
many months after first getting
infected with the coronavirus.
00:29:52.749 --> 00:29:55.752
Scientists do not know yet
what causes it.
00:29:56.044 --> 00:29:59.589
But as NPR's Will Stone reports,
they have found some clues
00:29:59.589 --> 00:30:00.882
for what could be going on.
00:30:00.882 --> 00:30:05.678
- Most people have dozens of symptoms
over multiple organ systems.
00:30:05.678 --> 00:30:09.140
- There's brain fog, shortness of breath
and extreme fatigue,
00:30:09.224 --> 00:30:12.435
also rashes and heart palpitations,
hearing loss.
00:30:12.685 --> 00:30:13.686
The list goes on.
00:30:13.686 --> 00:30:15.730
- Is COVID hiding in the
body somewhere?
00:30:15.730 --> 00:30:17.999
- Bad headaches more days than not,
00:30:18.002 --> 00:30:19.999
sudden high-pitched whistling
in her ears,
00:30:20.001 --> 00:30:23.514
aches and pains all over her body,
brain fog so bad
00:30:23.517 --> 00:30:26.901
she had to quit her job as a nurse
and is afraid to drive.
00:30:26.903 --> 00:30:30.870
- These symptoms, they come and go
and you think it's gone.
00:30:30.870 --> 00:30:32.999
You think, "This is it, I'm getting better",
00:30:33.002 --> 00:30:36.038
and then it'll just rear back up again.
00:30:41.231 --> 00:30:45.343
- I don't even know what
all those animals are.
00:30:45.385 --> 00:30:46.803
I'm scared.
00:30:48.596 --> 00:30:49.889
That's a bullfrog.
00:30:49.889 --> 00:30:52.433
What happened to my brain?
00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:55.687
Why won't my brain work?
00:30:56.563 --> 00:30:58.898
In the middle of the night
00:31:01.067 --> 00:31:03.111
the pond has so many sounds.
00:31:05.989 --> 00:31:07.365
Why won't my brain work?
00:31:09.965 --> 00:31:11.119
The intensity of all this life.
00:31:12.745 --> 00:31:15.039
Why won't it work, why?
00:31:15.915 --> 00:31:17.834
Why is this happening?
00:31:18.126 --> 00:31:21.713
All the frogs singing,
00:31:22.088 --> 00:31:23.965
♪ Find me ♪
00:31:25.133 --> 00:31:27.093
♪ Find me ♪
00:31:28.553 --> 00:31:30.513
I can't focus.
00:31:31.055 --> 00:31:35.310
It's the song of the species
trying to continue itself.
00:31:36.102 --> 00:31:37.729
You're lucky you didn't die.
00:31:37.896 --> 00:31:39.564
You're lucky you didn't die.
00:31:39.564 --> 00:31:43.318
Sometimes I can hear footsteps.
00:31:43.735 --> 00:31:45.445
I feel like I have, like,
00:31:45.945 --> 00:31:48.448
five minutes left to live.
00:31:48.448 --> 00:31:49.365
Goddamn it.
00:31:49.365 --> 00:31:50.909
What happened to my brain?
00:31:50.909 --> 00:31:52.911
So many of my friends have died.
00:31:54.746 --> 00:31:56.913
Passed on before me.
00:31:56.915 --> 00:31:59.208
Will this ever stop?
00:31:59.334 --> 00:32:01.085
Hear those footsteps?
00:32:01.294 --> 00:32:02.795
Something is out there.
00:32:02.795 --> 00:32:05.006
I can't remember what it's like
to be normal.
00:32:05.006 --> 00:32:08.009
Hundreds of thousands of people dying.
00:32:08.635 --> 00:32:10.509
You're lucky, you're lucky.
00:32:10.511 --> 00:32:13.637
Across the world, where do the dead go?
00:32:15.183 --> 00:32:17.686
I'm not afraid.
00:32:18.895 --> 00:32:20.480
I'm not afraid.
00:32:20.480 --> 00:32:23.483
Will I wake up?
00:32:23.650 --> 00:32:26.653
Will I wake up tomorrow?
00:32:29.072 --> 00:32:32.075
Wake up at six in the morning,
00:32:34.953 --> 00:32:37.956
right before the sun comes up.
00:32:40.083 --> 00:32:43.086
Kinda nice to hear all the birds.
00:32:45.004 --> 00:32:48.007
Beautiful things.
00:32:50.134 --> 00:32:52.437
Good morning.
00:32:54.430 --> 00:32:55.932
I feel like there's something out there
00:32:55.932 --> 00:32:58.935
that's an antidote
to what's going on in my head.
00:33:32.969 --> 00:33:35.304
And just as the season changed
00:33:35.304 --> 00:33:38.057
and the cold let up for good,
00:33:38.057 --> 00:33:40.768
I found I had some neighbors.
00:33:40.768 --> 00:33:42.270
Hi, guys.
00:33:42.270 --> 00:33:44.105
Eager little neighbors.
00:33:45.999 --> 00:33:46.999
Did you just get born?
00:33:47.002 --> 00:33:50.028
Are you a brand new beaver?
00:33:50.653 --> 00:33:52.488
Hey, buddy.
00:33:52.488 --> 00:33:55.033
Listen, you're putting stuff
into the culvert,
00:33:56.117 --> 00:33:58.995
and the pond is going
to get all messed up.
00:33:58.995 --> 00:33:59.995
Okay?
00:34:01.205 --> 00:34:04.000
Listen, dude, you can't do that.
00:34:04.959 --> 00:34:08.171
This pipe is really important
or else the pond overflows,
00:34:08.838 --> 00:34:11.257
and they're putting all sorts of
stuff in it and damming it up.
00:34:13.384 --> 00:34:14.969
I gotta figure out what to do.
00:34:19.057 --> 00:34:20.933
They built their house
00:34:20.933 --> 00:34:23.895
right across from mine.
00:34:23.895 --> 00:34:26.898
Did you see him go down
under the water?
00:34:27.356 --> 00:34:30.359
So they haven't gotten
to this part yet.
00:34:33.029 --> 00:34:35.448
The water drains
00:34:35.448 --> 00:34:37.784
down through this little spot
00:34:37.784 --> 00:34:40.078
and all the way down
through the forest,
00:34:40.787 --> 00:34:43.698
and it drains down
to where it rejoins the stream.
00:34:44.874 --> 00:34:47.752
So every day I come out here
and I un-dam what they dammed,
00:34:48.878 --> 00:34:51.547
and every night they come
and dam it back up.
00:34:51.547 --> 00:34:53.800
It's kind of a fun game.
00:34:53.800 --> 00:34:56.469
I know you really want to dam that up,
but every day
00:34:56.469 --> 00:34:59.889
I have to come over here
and put it back.
00:34:59.889 --> 00:35:02.476
Bye.
00:35:06.020 --> 00:35:08.481
Okay, guys, it's on.
00:35:09.774 --> 00:35:11.647
Okay, you're going to go off
and find some stuff
00:35:11.649 --> 00:35:12.735
and clog it all up.
00:35:13.402 --> 00:35:15.154
And you're going to do
the same thing, aren't you?
00:35:17.782 --> 00:35:20.159
I wish I could swim like that.
00:35:20.535 --> 00:35:21.744
Whoa!
00:35:22.912 --> 00:35:25.998
That's what they do when they get mad.
00:35:26.499 --> 00:35:28.751
Stay away from my dam.
00:35:28.751 --> 00:35:30.795
And so it went on like this for days.
00:35:31.337 --> 00:35:34.757
They would clog up the outflows to
the pond in the north and in the west,
00:35:35.133 --> 00:35:37.960
and I would head out
trusty hoe in hand and clear them.
00:35:39.095 --> 00:35:41.389
I don't know why
this perturbed me so much.
00:35:42.557 --> 00:35:45.977
I guess like all human beings,
I got nervous,
00:35:47.687 --> 00:35:48.980
anxious,
00:35:49.939 --> 00:35:50.857
worried
00:35:54.527 --> 00:35:56.279
that somehow the pond
00:35:56.279 --> 00:35:58.739
would break its banks
and swamp my little house.
00:36:03.494 --> 00:36:04.871
So one night,
00:36:04.871 --> 00:36:08.291
I waited till almost dark
and then surreptitiously
00:36:08.291 --> 00:36:11.752
crept up to the brand new beaver dam
and poked a hole in it.
00:36:17.884 --> 00:36:19.468
You're coming towards me?
00:36:20.970 --> 00:36:24.140
By some - some deep driven instinct,
00:36:24.682 --> 00:36:26.726
One of the two
young beavers just came over
00:36:27.810 --> 00:36:31.313
and started to repair the
hole right in front me.
00:36:31.314 --> 00:36:33.566
I just did that,
and you're damming it up.
00:36:50.166 --> 00:36:52.335
And at one point it stopped
00:36:52.335 --> 00:36:55.087
and it looked straight at me,
00:36:55.296 --> 00:36:58.424
almost as if to say,
"What are you doing here?
00:36:59.383 --> 00:37:02.178
What kind of an animal are you?
00:37:02.178 --> 00:37:04.889
What's your purpose here?"
00:37:06.307 --> 00:37:08.809
And no one had ever just looked at me
and asked me that.
00:37:09.143 --> 00:37:11.646
Just straight looked at me
and asked me,
00:37:13.481 --> 00:37:16.484
"What's the meaning of your life?"
00:37:29.163 --> 00:37:31.624
And then, my friends, it dawned on me.
00:37:32.541 --> 00:37:35.086
I had no idea what my purpose was.
00:37:38.631 --> 00:37:41.384
So I stopped fussing at them,
00:37:41.384 --> 00:37:44.845
and let them do what they wanted to do.
00:37:45.805 --> 00:37:49.350
What is a person's purpose here?
00:37:49.934 --> 00:37:52.478
How do we fit in to this planet Earth?
00:37:54.230 --> 00:37:56.983
What is our role here?
00:38:02.905 --> 00:38:04.031
And all of a sudden it's like
00:38:04.031 --> 00:38:08.035
all the animals in the forest
were all wondering at me.
00:38:13.601 --> 00:38:14.601
You're just a baby.
00:38:15.167 --> 00:38:19.669
Imagine, if you will, everything and
everyone around you staring at you, going,
00:38:20.923 --> 00:38:22.883
"What's your deal?"
00:38:35.206 --> 00:38:37.706
(lowing)
00:38:42.528 --> 00:38:44.071
Hey, bunny rabbit.
00:38:47.241 --> 00:38:48.451
Nobody here.
00:38:48.451 --> 00:38:49.660
Don't worry.
00:38:52.038 --> 00:38:53.664
I'm a human,
00:38:54.582 --> 00:38:58.836
so maybe I should go do
some human stuff.
00:41:00.833 --> 00:41:02.084
I stayed all night.
00:41:04.322 --> 00:41:06.622
But then I realized...
00:41:12.761 --> 00:41:15.306
COVID had stopped the planes
in the skies.
00:41:16.640 --> 00:41:20.349
COVID had stopped the cars
rattling along the roads.
00:41:28.068 --> 00:41:30.112
And the sky was more vividly blue
00:41:30.779 --> 00:41:33.949
than any sky I've seen
since I was a child.
00:41:57.806 --> 00:41:59.808
And with all the pollution
and noise gone,
00:42:00.518 --> 00:42:03.354
I could hear the music of the spheres
00:42:03.771 --> 00:42:06.941
and the melody of the forest.
00:42:46.564 --> 00:42:49.233
I discovered the most
delightful thing in the world
00:42:49.984 --> 00:42:53.445
is just finding food in the forest.
00:42:53.571 --> 00:42:56.365
Hickory nuts, hickory nuts.
00:42:56.365 --> 00:42:58.951
Get your hickory nuts.
00:43:03.747 --> 00:43:06.500
Bass from the pond,
sometimes a chain pickerel.
00:43:09.003 --> 00:43:12.381
I gathered stinging nettles for
nettle soup.
00:43:18.387 --> 00:43:21.557
More ostrich ferns right there.
00:43:22.057 --> 00:43:23.434
It's called sour grass,
00:43:23.434 --> 00:43:26.299
'cause it's sour and it's delicious.
00:43:39.450 --> 00:43:41.785
Boom boom, boom boom.
00:43:41.827 --> 00:43:45.150
You put the pieces in
the middle, to here.
00:43:45.653 --> 00:43:47.763
And then you raise it up
a little at a time,
00:43:48.375 --> 00:43:50.294
and then screw it in.
00:43:51.545 --> 00:43:53.297
That's the way to do it.
00:44:32.461 --> 00:44:34.672
I'm going to tell you a story
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:37.174
about my grandparents.
00:44:37.883 --> 00:44:41.637
Well, really, about my grandfather,
00:44:41.637 --> 00:44:44.223
how we got to these woods.
00:44:45.851 --> 00:44:50.604
My grandfather was a Yiddish poet,
and he left his village in Poland,
00:44:50.604 --> 00:44:52.690
the story goes,
in the middle of the night
00:44:54.024 --> 00:44:57.820
because he heard - he got a tip
00:44:57.861 --> 00:44:58.987
that the Nazis were coming
00:44:58.987 --> 00:45:02.866
the next morning to round up
all the Jews.
00:45:04.493 --> 00:45:05.411
He said, "All right, that's it.
00:45:05.411 --> 00:45:07.371
We're leaving right now.
We're leaving at midnight."
00:45:08.455 --> 00:45:09.415
And they fled,
00:45:09.415 --> 00:45:12.000
he and my grandmother and
00:45:12.000 --> 00:45:15.629
his one infant child,
his son, Mayer, my oldest uncle.
00:45:16.255 --> 00:45:19.007
They fled five long years,
all the way across
00:45:19.007 --> 00:45:22.302
Russia to Kazakhstan,
00:45:22.302 --> 00:45:23.637
where my father was born
00:45:23.637 --> 00:45:25.973
just before the end of the war.
00:45:27.891 --> 00:45:32.813
But, all my grandfather's
brothers and sisters
00:45:32.813 --> 00:45:35.816
and all my grandmother's
brothers and sisters who didn't leave
00:45:35.816 --> 00:45:37.943
right that moment
in the middle of the night,
00:45:41.238 --> 00:45:44.116
they all went to the gas chambers.
00:45:45.743 --> 00:45:48.454
Nine brothers and sisters,
their whole extended family,
00:45:49.246 --> 00:45:52.166
murdered by white supremacists, Nazis.
00:45:56.589 --> 00:46:01.133
Well, after the war,
they went back to Poland.
00:46:01.133 --> 00:46:03.260
Jews were being shot on their
own front steps.
00:46:03.260 --> 00:46:05.999
They would come home to their
houses and say,
00:46:06.002 --> 00:46:08.307
"Hey, this is where I used to live.
This is my house."
00:46:08.307 --> 00:46:11.143
And someone would come to the door
and say, "Just wait a moment",
00:46:11.143 --> 00:46:14.271
and they would come and, pop,
shoot them right on their front steps.
00:46:17.483 --> 00:46:18.901
That's what happened to
my Uncle Mayer.
00:46:18.901 --> 00:46:20.611
He was a kid, he got shot in the eye.
00:46:20.611 --> 00:46:22.404
Some kid wanted to shoot a Jew.
00:46:22.404 --> 00:46:24.364
He lost the eye and they said,
"That's not safe.
00:46:24.364 --> 00:46:25.157
We're getting out of here."
00:46:25.157 --> 00:46:27.743
And they came on a boat to America.
00:46:29.995 --> 00:46:33.290
And I can see them arriving in
New York City with the Statue of Liberty
00:46:33.290 --> 00:46:36.999
right there, a place of
a thousand dreams,
00:46:36.999 --> 00:46:38.212
a thousand languages.
00:46:38.212 --> 00:46:40.509
New York City saying,
"Here's a hustle for your bustle.
00:46:40.511 --> 00:46:42.154
Here's an egalitarian dream.
00:46:42.299 --> 00:46:45.803
Here's your place at the table.
00:46:45.928 --> 00:46:49.097
Here we respect your perseverance,
your courage,
00:46:50.432 --> 00:46:52.309
and your poetry."
00:46:56.447 --> 00:46:58.647
(phone ringing)
00:47:01.985 --> 00:47:03.862
Hey, Dad. How's everything?
00:47:03.862 --> 00:47:05.572
- All right, it's fine.
00:47:05.572 --> 00:47:07.866
- But you told me a story
00:47:07.866 --> 00:47:12.371
about your father escaping from Poland,
and they had to go through the woods
00:47:12.371 --> 00:47:14.623
and they had to eat a bear,
or something like that.
00:47:15.710 --> 00:47:20.170
- They fled Lodz to Bialystok,
a city on the Russian side
00:47:20.420 --> 00:47:21.380
of Poland.
00:47:21.380 --> 00:47:25.634
Poland had been divided, there were
so many Jews who had fled there
00:47:25.634 --> 00:47:27.469
there was no room for anybody.
00:47:27.469 --> 00:47:30.639
Then Stalin said, "All of you folks,
00:47:31.098 --> 00:47:34.351
I'm taking you to work in Siberia."
00:47:35.352 --> 00:47:38.438
They were made to work incredibly hard.
00:47:38.856 --> 00:47:41.108
At least half the people, if not more,
00:47:41.441 --> 00:47:44.653
who went there died pretty quickly.
00:47:45.237 --> 00:47:48.115
And children, of course,
young children in particular,
00:47:48.115 --> 00:47:50.576
babies, died almost immediately.
00:47:51.535 --> 00:47:54.329
They didn't have much food
and certainly not much meat.
00:47:54.913 --> 00:47:58.834
One woman told my mother
that her husband had killed a bear,
00:47:59.167 --> 00:48:03.463
and it was hung up in the woods someplace
and that she could have some.
00:48:03.463 --> 00:48:04.715
There's a lot of it.
00:48:04.715 --> 00:48:09.887
And she went up to the bear
and the bear had been skinned,
00:48:12.389 --> 00:48:14.683
and it looked like a
human being to her.
00:48:16.101 --> 00:48:18.395
And she didn't take any.
00:48:27.613 --> 00:48:29.740
- There's, like, a honeycomb
in the ground,
00:48:29.740 --> 00:48:32.159
and the bear has dug it out.
00:48:32.367 --> 00:48:36.872
They can eat the entire hornet's nest and
they just dig in the ground and eat it.
00:48:36.872 --> 00:48:40.417
And the bear came and
ate half of this hornet's nest.
00:48:41.084 --> 00:48:45.001
I've been, like, totally avoiding this
nest this entire time because...
00:48:45.999 --> 00:48:48.420
just get stung by these guys,
it lasts, like, a week.
00:49:04.999 --> 00:49:06.171
Oh, fuck!
00:49:06.181 --> 00:49:08.009
AHHHHH!
00:49:34.721 --> 00:49:36.848
Look at that.
00:49:37.140 --> 00:49:39.434
That's unbelievable.
00:49:43.563 --> 00:49:46.441
Look at the size of that beaver dam.
00:49:49.820 --> 00:49:53.198
Look how much water it holds back.
00:49:58.999 --> 00:49:59.999
Wow.
00:50:04.918 --> 00:50:07.838
Every day I wake up and walk.
00:50:07.879 --> 00:50:10.048
Walking through the forest,
looking at the plants,
00:50:10.048 --> 00:50:12.592
walking through the forest.
00:50:12.676 --> 00:50:16.555
Smelling the smells,
hearing the sounds.
00:50:19.141 --> 00:50:20.183
It changes my brain.
00:50:21.601 --> 00:50:24.021
It's settling me down.
00:50:28.525 --> 00:50:30.861
So beautiful here.
00:50:32.946 --> 00:50:34.364
The way the light comes
00:50:34.364 --> 00:50:37.576
through the trees and
lights up the ferns
00:50:37.576 --> 00:50:39.244
this time of year,
00:50:40.370 --> 00:50:43.790
it's like you're floating
through the forest.
00:50:43.832 --> 00:50:46.710
Floating through a sea of ferns.
00:50:49.999 --> 00:50:50.999
Look at that.
00:50:51.715 --> 00:50:54.669
It's like waves of the ocean.
00:50:56.178 --> 00:50:59.181
So I follow the deer trails.
00:51:00.724 --> 00:51:01.721
Deer trail.
00:51:01.723 --> 00:51:03.977
You see that?
See that right there?
00:51:03.977 --> 00:51:05.771
That's a deer trail.
00:51:06.229 --> 00:51:08.815
It's not made by a human,
it's made by a deer.
00:51:10.484 --> 00:51:13.986
Deer trails inspired human trails.
00:51:15.197 --> 00:51:18.116
I mean, for thousands of years,
00:51:18.116 --> 00:51:19.618
they were shared.
00:51:19.826 --> 00:51:25.165
In fact, before colonization,
there was a whole complex system
00:51:26.165 --> 00:51:28.999
of trails that went all
across this continent
00:51:29.002 --> 00:51:32.755
and all the way down to South America,
from Canada all the way up to Brazil.
00:51:35.008 --> 00:51:36.760
These deer trails give me
so much energy
00:51:36.760 --> 00:51:37.427
I just wanna run.
00:51:43.683 --> 00:51:45.310
But when the Dutch
00:51:45.310 --> 00:51:47.479
came to Manhattan
00:51:49.564 --> 00:51:51.817
and forcibly took the land from
the people there,
00:51:51.817 --> 00:51:54.027
killing them and driving them away,
00:51:57.364 --> 00:52:00.534
they started to widen the trails,
00:52:00.534 --> 00:52:02.577
and those deer trails became streets.
00:52:03.954 --> 00:52:05.497
Broadway
00:52:06.081 --> 00:52:08.500
was once a deer trail.
00:52:08.500 --> 00:52:09.835
Nature
00:52:10.627 --> 00:52:12.295
is an x-ray
00:52:12.712 --> 00:52:15.382
upon which our entire civilization
is a hologram.
00:52:16.049 --> 00:52:20.001
In fact, the entire U.S. interstate
highway system,
00:52:20.762 --> 00:52:21.972
a lot of it
00:52:22.722 --> 00:52:25.559
is based on old trails,
00:52:25.559 --> 00:52:29.771
foot trails of the people who
were here before colonies,
00:52:30.730 --> 00:52:33.150
of the Native Americans.
00:52:33.150 --> 00:52:35.110
The history is written into the land.
00:52:36.319 --> 00:52:38.446
Most of this land that I'm
walking around on
00:52:38.446 --> 00:52:40.782
doesn't belong to me.
00:52:41.783 --> 00:52:43.001
There's just nobody here.
00:52:43.702 --> 00:52:44.702
See this?
00:52:45.287 --> 00:52:47.831
This isn't a deer trail,
it's an old logging road.
00:52:55.130 --> 00:52:57.424
And this tree has fallen
right in the middle of it.
00:52:57.507 --> 00:52:59.259
Wow, that's a huge tree.
00:53:01.636 --> 00:53:02.846
Big guy.
00:53:12.981 --> 00:53:15.692
Hear that?
00:53:18.153 --> 00:53:19.446
Not the blue jay.
00:53:21.990 --> 00:53:25.744
No, the gunshots.
00:53:25.744 --> 00:53:27.787
You know you're in Pennsylvania
00:53:27.787 --> 00:53:30.373
if you're walking around in the woods
and you just hear gunshots.
00:53:35.462 --> 00:53:37.464
And if you follow the deer
trails long enough,
00:53:38.632 --> 00:53:40.759
you run into one of these.
00:53:40.967 --> 00:53:42.802
No trespassing.
00:53:43.970 --> 00:53:46.556
So the law in Pennsylvania is
00:53:46.556 --> 00:53:49.517
if there's this
"Posted, no trespassing" sign,
00:53:50.727 --> 00:53:52.020
you can't walk there.
00:53:52.020 --> 00:53:54.022
But if there is no
"no trespassing" sign,
00:53:54.022 --> 00:53:55.565
you can walk.
00:53:57.275 --> 00:53:58.860
You run into "no trespassing" signs
00:53:58.860 --> 00:54:01.029
in the woods all the time.
00:54:01.029 --> 00:54:02.989
You just sort of walk around them
00:54:02.989 --> 00:54:05.033
to where there is no
"no trespassing" sign.
00:54:23.260 --> 00:54:24.260
Dogs.
00:54:27.305 --> 00:54:29.724
Dogs and guns and
"no trespassing" signs.
00:54:31.810 --> 00:54:35.355
I think I'm going to go
the other direction.
00:54:48.076 --> 00:54:50.870
There's one little loophole to the
whole "no trespassing" thing,
00:54:52.122 --> 00:54:54.416
which is that if you're in the water,
00:54:56.501 --> 00:54:58.545
if you're in the stream,
00:54:59.421 --> 00:55:01.464
you're navigating a
Pennsylvania waterway.
00:55:01.965 --> 00:55:04.175
You're not trespassing.
00:55:08.555 --> 00:55:10.515
You can walk up and down,
00:55:10.515 --> 00:55:13.435
you can walk the banks,
you can walk in the water,
00:55:14.936 --> 00:55:16.730
but you're free to move.
00:55:18.648 --> 00:55:21.526
Nobody can own the stream.
01:01:08.081 --> 01:01:09.999
Neighbors from the farm
01:01:10.002 --> 01:01:12.710
up the hill
01:01:12.710 --> 01:01:15.713
came down to pay me a visit.
01:01:20.468 --> 01:01:23.001
- What are you doing standin'
in the trail, Josh?
01:01:24.597 --> 01:01:26.891
They said, "Well, you know,
you got bears around here.
01:01:26.891 --> 01:01:29.142
Bears in the woods.
01:01:29.143 --> 01:01:31.020
We can take care of those bears for ya.
01:01:31.020 --> 01:01:32.772
Don't wanna to get between a
mama bear and the cub.
01:01:32.772 --> 01:01:35.441
You don't wanna get between 'em.
You're in trouble.
01:01:35.441 --> 01:01:37.009
You know what else?
01:01:37.999 --> 01:01:39.895
You got a snapping turtle in that pond.
01:01:39.898 --> 01:01:41.948
You got a big ol' snapping turtle.
01:01:41.948 --> 01:01:43.866
Big ol' snapping turtle.
01:01:43.866 --> 01:01:45.493
And, you know,
we tried to get it one time.
01:01:45.493 --> 01:01:48.705
We put a cage in the water
with a roast chicken in there
01:01:48.705 --> 01:01:49.622
off the side of the boat.
01:01:49.622 --> 01:01:53.000
And then the snapping turtle grabbed
onto that chicken in the cage
01:01:53.000 --> 01:01:56.170
and boy we couldn't pull it out because
we would have capsized the whole boat.
01:01:56.170 --> 01:01:57.922
We tried to pull that turtle out
and we couldn't.
01:01:57.922 --> 01:02:00.341
It was bigger than a VW bug,
you gotta get rid of that turtle.
01:02:01.384 --> 01:02:03.344
You're gonna lose a finger.
You gonna go swimming?
01:02:03.344 --> 01:02:04.929
You're gonna lose a finger,
you're gonna lose a toe.
01:02:04.929 --> 01:02:07.265
And we can come
and take care of it for you."
01:02:12.854 --> 01:02:15.857
And they said, "You know,
you got a beaver in that pond.
01:02:15.940 --> 01:02:18.484
You got a beaver in that pond,
that beaver is gonna eat
01:02:18.484 --> 01:02:21.237
all your fish, it's gonna
clean you clear out.
01:02:21.237 --> 01:02:23.406
We can take care of it for you.
01:02:23.406 --> 01:02:26.409
Get rid of that beaver,
trap it, chewed it."
01:02:29.036 --> 01:02:32.039
And I said, "Well, thanks."
01:02:40.965 --> 01:02:42.008
So I looked it up.
01:02:42.008 --> 01:02:45.428
There hasn't been a single recorded
instance of a snapping turtle
01:02:45.845 --> 01:02:48.473
taking off a person's finger in the water.
01:02:48.473 --> 01:02:49.891
Ever.
01:02:49.891 --> 01:02:51.768
And beavers?
01:02:51.768 --> 01:02:53.561
Beavers are vegetarians.
01:02:53.561 --> 01:02:55.564
They don't eat fish.
01:02:56.856 --> 01:02:58.900
But now all those people have
01:02:58.900 --> 01:03:01.944
Trump signs in their front yard.
01:03:02.403 --> 01:03:04.447
And the roads up there
and up on the roads up there,
01:03:04.447 --> 01:03:07.366
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump,
Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump.
01:03:11.871 --> 01:03:14.874
Now my curiosity was piqued.
01:03:14.916 --> 01:03:18.044
I did wonder why these people
were living in the woods
01:03:18.044 --> 01:03:21.047
If they were afraid of everything.
01:03:25.593 --> 01:03:28.596
And on a hunch,
I looked up one more thing,
01:03:30.097 --> 01:03:33.100
and I about fell out of my chair.
01:03:39.816 --> 01:03:41.234
"Nature.
01:03:41.234 --> 01:03:43.986
The physical world collectively
01:03:43.986 --> 01:03:46.989
including plants, animals,
the landscape,
01:03:47.949 --> 01:03:50.952
and other features
and products of the earth,
01:03:51.494 --> 01:03:55.873
as opposed to humans
or human creations."
01:03:56.457 --> 01:03:59.460
It's written into the very language,
01:04:01.045 --> 01:04:04.507
the definition of nature
as opposed to humans.
01:04:05.383 --> 01:04:09.554
And that definition arrived upon
these shores 500 years ago,
01:04:10.513 --> 01:04:12.849
and the Europeans
01:04:12.849 --> 01:04:15.852
sure as hell separated themselves.
01:04:18.312 --> 01:04:19.505
The European colonists
01:04:19.507 --> 01:04:22.108
saw nature as separate from them.
01:04:22.316 --> 01:04:24.999
They saw every piece of land as
something to own,
01:04:25.002 --> 01:04:29.115
and every animal on it something to
fear, tame, kill, harness, or trap.
01:04:29.407 --> 01:04:30.449
So they did.
01:04:30.449 --> 01:04:35.246
They killed off 300 million beavers,
their glands and their pelts used
01:04:35.246 --> 01:04:40.042
for fashionable hats and perfumes in
the streets of London, Paris and Rome.
01:04:40.751 --> 01:04:44.964
All the beavers in the northeast
killed off, eradicated to extinction.
01:04:45.214 --> 01:04:49.468
The beavers you see now in
Pennsylvania are descendants of beavers
01:04:49.468 --> 01:04:53.999
that were re-imported in the 1920s
from Canada and the Great Lakes,
01:04:54.002 --> 01:04:56.350
immigrant survivors of the
beaver genocide.
01:04:56.392 --> 01:04:59.999
The Europeans killed off
2 million black bears,
01:05:00.015 --> 01:05:02.999
3 to 5 billion passenger pigeons,
01:05:03.005 --> 01:05:07.899
10 million elk reduced to just 41,000,
01:05:07.902 --> 01:05:10.865
60 million bison reduced to
a herd of a thousand,
01:05:10.865 --> 01:05:12.867
all the gray wolves in the
United States,
01:05:12.867 --> 01:05:15.912
the mountain lions,
billions of prairie dogs.
01:05:16.078 --> 01:05:19.081
All the wildlife you see
out in the forest,
01:05:19.248 --> 01:05:23.711
every one is a survivor of the
separation of people and nature.
01:05:24.128 --> 01:05:28.799
And of course, Europeans saw
the Native Americans as animals,
01:05:29.592 --> 01:05:33.846
part of nature, part of the nature
that they were separate from.
01:05:34.805 --> 01:05:36.582
And so they killed them, too.
01:05:38.225 --> 01:05:41.228
95 million.
01:05:41.562 --> 01:05:44.357
I was coming to terms with what
this land really was.
01:05:44.357 --> 01:05:47.318
It was creeping
deep inside of my consciousness.
01:05:47.318 --> 01:05:51.696
I could see it in a way
that I had never seen it before.
01:05:54.492 --> 01:05:56.702
There are always survivors,
01:05:56.702 --> 01:05:59.705
and I needed to call one, a friend.
01:06:00.039 --> 01:06:03.042
So I road up the hill,
found a place I could Zoom.
01:06:04.210 --> 01:06:07.213
Hello! There's the Myron
I know and love.
01:06:08.923 --> 01:06:11.884
Right off the bat, he could see
there was something wrong.
01:06:11.884 --> 01:06:14.887
My face was twitching.
He asked me about it.
01:06:15.262 --> 01:06:17.515
- I could see the wheels turning
in there with you.
01:06:17.515 --> 01:06:19.392
Pretty heavy, you all right?
01:06:19.392 --> 01:06:23.771
Every single tribe across the country
can tell you about their historical trauma
01:06:23.771 --> 01:06:28.067
from colonization, from land theft,
from mineral extraction.
01:06:29.777 --> 01:06:31.946
And every tribe has their own
01:06:31.946 --> 01:06:34.699
dealing with historical trauma
from the loss of land,
01:06:34.699 --> 01:06:37.702
the loss of language,
of course loss of dignity,
01:06:37.868 --> 01:06:40.621
indoctrination, colonization,
01:06:40.621 --> 01:06:43.624
the loss of their traditional
harvesting areas.
01:06:43.624 --> 01:06:46.377
My tribe lost 100% of our fish.
01:06:46.377 --> 01:06:48.254
We're called Agai Dicutta, trout eaters.
01:06:48.254 --> 01:06:52.591
Every tribe has its different way
of dealing with historical trauma.
01:06:53.926 --> 01:06:56.012
And I think about when you're
sharing with me about
01:06:56.012 --> 01:06:57.179
what happened to your people.
01:06:57.179 --> 01:07:01.851
And that process is hard, you know,
and we're in the same boat together.
01:07:02.143 --> 01:07:06.105
It's like we're in constant fight
or flight mode to protect this land,
01:07:06.105 --> 01:07:07.773
this Earth, this water.
01:07:07.773 --> 01:07:10.651
Something will remind you that
the trauma is there,
01:07:10.651 --> 01:07:14.864
like smell, like memory, like tastes,
like visual objects and invisibility.
01:07:15.698 --> 01:07:18.701
And for our trauma, it's invisibility.
01:07:18.743 --> 01:07:21.999
And as America continues to use
their gurus to say,
01:07:22.002 --> 01:07:24.467
"Focus on tomorrow not the past,"
01:07:24.469 --> 01:07:27.334
that's one way of invisibility.
01:07:27.334 --> 01:07:29.545
The white supremacy,
01:07:29.545 --> 01:07:32.131
this is alive and real today.
01:07:32.131 --> 01:07:35.134
This country was built on genocide
and slavery.
01:07:35.468 --> 01:07:38.429
Bigotry, theft, manifest destiny.
01:07:38.429 --> 01:07:42.600
And so that's where the trauma comes
in, is there was no justice for this.
01:07:43.434 --> 01:07:46.899
And that's what we need is that there's
some accountability.
01:07:46.906 --> 01:07:49.999
There's healing that needs to happen
in Western culture's DNA,
01:07:50.002 --> 01:07:52.999
because it comes from deep,
deep violence.
01:07:53.235 --> 01:07:56.113
If you don't think you did it,
you benefit from it,
01:07:56.113 --> 01:07:58.157
from all of those things that happened.
01:07:58.157 --> 01:07:59.575
And so that's just part of the history
01:07:59.575 --> 01:08:03.329
that we got to start the
hatchet-in-the-sugar kind of gig here.
01:08:03.996 --> 01:08:05.999
You know, we got to
come with the hard stuff
01:08:06.002 --> 01:08:07.750
and sit through in those
healing circles
01:08:08.167 --> 01:08:10.836
and start that process or we're going
to continue to repeat this
01:08:10.836 --> 01:08:12.129
over and over and over.
01:08:14.548 --> 01:08:16.300
- Thanks, brother.
01:08:16.300 --> 01:08:19.303
- Keep up the good work.
01:08:20.805 --> 01:08:23.766
Later that night,
01:08:23.766 --> 01:08:25.893
someone was up on the hill,
01:08:25.893 --> 01:08:28.896
firing off what sounded
like a machine gun
01:08:33.526 --> 01:08:36.529
for over an hour.
01:08:42.159 --> 01:08:45.162
This was a different
kind of target practice,
01:08:45.371 --> 01:08:48.749
with weapons meant for killing
human beings.
01:08:52.545 --> 01:08:55.506
This was sending a message
01:08:56.215 --> 01:08:59.093
to everyone in earshot.
01:08:59.093 --> 01:09:02.096
All of a sudden the woods
weren't so safe anymore.
01:09:03.973 --> 01:09:06.225
This is what a bear hears.
01:09:06.225 --> 01:09:08.686
This is what a deer hears.
01:09:08.686 --> 01:09:10.697
This is what the hunted hear
01:09:10.699 --> 01:09:12.699
and run from.
01:09:18.487 --> 01:09:21.490
I'm out here on the boat
01:09:22.533 --> 01:09:25.536
in the middle of the night.
01:09:29.832 --> 01:09:32.835
This is a place where I come
01:09:33.127 --> 01:09:36.130
when I'm scared,
01:09:39.550 --> 01:09:42.553
when I'm worried.
01:09:44.765 --> 01:09:48.100
I see the winds of authoritarianism
blowing right now.
01:09:48.934 --> 01:09:50.269
I see them here in this country.
01:09:50.269 --> 01:09:55.566
I see the seeds of hatred and racism,
ignorance and anger, violence.
01:10:01.405 --> 01:10:04.408
And the Nazis have come back.
01:10:04.700 --> 01:10:07.703
There's Nazis in America right now.
01:10:09.914 --> 01:10:12.875
There's Nazis in America right now.
01:10:15.044 --> 01:10:17.129
And people don't remember
the Holocaust.
01:10:17.129 --> 01:10:18.005
They're not taught it.
01:10:18.005 --> 01:10:21.008
They don't understand what that means,
01:10:21.884 --> 01:10:25.763
But to exterminate 6 million people
in ovens and gas chambers,
01:10:26.347 --> 01:10:29.266
systematically rounding them up,
placing them on trains,
01:10:29.266 --> 01:10:31.685
men, women and children and
working them until they were dead.
01:10:31.685 --> 01:10:33.729
And then
01:10:33.729 --> 01:10:35.314
putting them in chambers
01:10:35.314 --> 01:10:38.317
naked, a hundred at a time,
01:10:38.943 --> 01:10:41.946
pumping in so much gas that
01:10:42.071 --> 01:10:45.074
they would be clawing at the windows
and the walls trying to get out.
01:10:46.492 --> 01:10:49.536
And when their bodies had been
mutilated and puffed out
01:10:49.536 --> 01:10:55.457
and burnt and destroyed by the
toxic chemicals in the air,
01:10:56.835 --> 01:10:59.838
soldiers would come through
01:11:00.047 --> 01:11:01.799
and pick the gold out of their teeth.
01:11:06.430 --> 01:11:10.057
So when people say, you know,
"Well, it won't be so bad,
01:11:10.599 --> 01:11:13.602
things can't get that bad",
01:11:15.354 --> 01:11:18.357
I think about those soldiers
01:11:18.524 --> 01:11:21.485
picking the gold out of folks' teeth.
01:11:21.485 --> 01:11:23.946
That was their job.
01:11:23.946 --> 01:11:26.949
And they didn't refuse.
01:11:28.242 --> 01:11:29.785
It's well documented that Hitler
01:11:29.785 --> 01:11:32.788
got his inspiration
from the American genocide.
01:11:34.206 --> 01:11:36.875
He wanted to imitate and
do to my people
01:11:36.875 --> 01:11:39.878
what the Europeans did here.
01:11:40.379 --> 01:11:42.464
Hitler was a continuation
01:11:42.464 --> 01:11:45.467
of the ideology that happened here.
01:11:46.093 --> 01:11:48.220
To exploit the land,
01:11:48.220 --> 01:11:51.223
they killed the people on it.
01:11:52.935 --> 01:11:57.646
Every corner you turn, every street
you drive on, every strip mall
01:11:58.731 --> 01:12:01.734
was once a forest.
01:12:01.775 --> 01:12:04.778
Those who were protecting those forests
01:12:04.987 --> 01:12:07.156
and taking care of them
01:12:07.156 --> 01:12:09.908
were murdered.
01:12:09.999 --> 01:12:14.204
Genocide, racism,
and the destruction of nature
01:12:15.456 --> 01:12:18.059
are connected.
01:12:25.591 --> 01:12:27.051
Well, friends,
01:12:27.051 --> 01:12:30.137
hurricane season never used to be
a thing in Pennsylvania.
01:12:36.999 --> 01:12:39.999
Record-breaking torrential rains came.
01:12:40.999 --> 01:12:44.655
It was easy to see that it wasn't
just me that was unhealthy.
01:12:44.855 --> 01:12:46.111
The forest is sick.
01:12:46.111 --> 01:12:48.155
We're living on a different planet
01:12:48.155 --> 01:12:50.458
with a changed climate.
01:12:50.547 --> 01:12:51.847
Too much water.
01:12:55.037 --> 01:12:56.413
Water comes pouring down
01:12:56.413 --> 01:12:59.416
and rots the trees from the inside out.
01:13:03.998 --> 01:13:05.698
It died in just a couple of weeks.
01:13:06.799 --> 01:13:09.802
Fungal infections
taking out the white pines,
01:13:09.802 --> 01:13:12.805
the red pines, the spruce.
01:13:13.999 --> 01:13:15.461
So many dead.
01:13:18.999 --> 01:13:20.389
The forest is sick.
01:13:24.316 --> 01:13:25.943
So much water,
01:13:25.943 --> 01:13:28.946
the beaver dam which looked so
strong and formidable
01:13:29.238 --> 01:13:32.241
was completely overwhelmed.
01:13:40.707 --> 01:13:42.710
And when the rain stopped...
01:13:43.199 --> 01:13:44.979
The sun just does not look right.
01:13:45.379 --> 01:13:49.009
...smoke all the way from the
wildfires in California
01:13:49.258 --> 01:13:52.261
painted the sky orange.
01:13:53.053 --> 01:13:54.471
Our climate system
01:13:54.471 --> 01:13:57.474
is tipping into unchartered territory.
01:13:58.809 --> 01:14:00.894
The pollution and emissions of conquest
01:14:00.894 --> 01:14:04.940
and colonialism are trapping us
in a planetary fever dream.
01:14:05.357 --> 01:14:08.360
Soon the Earth will hit
two degrees of warming,
01:14:08.402 --> 01:14:11.999
and then the climate will finish
the eradications and extinctions
01:14:12.002 --> 01:14:14.867
that the colonists began
all those years ago.
01:14:15.576 --> 01:14:20.247
At two degrees of warming, half
of the species on the planet go extinct.
01:14:23.667 --> 01:14:25.294
But that's not the worst.
01:14:25.294 --> 01:14:28.172
The ocean's getting so damn hot
it may fundamentally
01:14:28.172 --> 01:14:31.175
change its nature
from incubator to teakettle.
01:14:31.508 --> 01:14:34.219
If we keep on this path,
the ocean gets so hot
01:14:34.219 --> 01:14:37.222
that phytoplankton stops
creating oxygen.
01:14:37.931 --> 01:14:40.267
The ocean begins to die.
01:14:40.267 --> 01:14:43.270
Mass extinction grips the planet.
01:14:43.687 --> 01:14:47.107
So unless you've got a ticket to Jeff
Bezos' floating Floridian
01:14:47.107 --> 01:14:49.999
totalitarian salad spinner in the sky,
01:14:50.002 --> 01:14:51.904
then you're gonna be stuck down here
01:14:51.904 --> 01:14:54.907
in their greenhouse gas chamber.
01:14:55.949 --> 01:14:59.995
And the billionaire colonizers will keep
dreaming of Mars while down here
01:15:00.037 --> 01:15:02.998
what's worse than genocide will occur.
01:15:03.957 --> 01:15:05.417
Omnicide.
01:15:05.417 --> 01:15:08.420
The murder of all.
01:15:11.441 --> 01:15:14.899
Friends, these were hard
lessons to learn
01:15:14.901 --> 01:15:18.013
all alone in the woods in Pennsylvania.
01:15:18.555 --> 01:15:21.558
I fell into a depression.
01:15:23.685 --> 01:15:26.605
Just got a tornado watch over the,
over the radio.
01:15:32.611 --> 01:15:34.905
Trees are moving.
01:15:34.905 --> 01:15:37.908
I was about to make some blackberry
jam over here on the fire.
01:15:38.242 --> 01:15:41.870
I've been dealing with a pretty bad
bout of symptoms and depression.
01:15:42.496 --> 01:15:45.499
When the blackberries arrive,
you make the jam.
01:15:45.582 --> 01:15:48.143
So if I'm in a depression or not,
it doesn't matter.
01:15:50.671 --> 01:15:53.340
Actually, it's pretty hard
to mash 'em up.
01:15:53.340 --> 01:15:56.009
Takes some elbow grease.
01:15:56.009 --> 01:15:59.012
Mash 'em up, mash 'em up, mash 'em up.
01:15:59.388 --> 01:16:00.389
...make things happen this way.
01:16:00.389 --> 01:16:02.724
Why does it come?
01:16:03.924 --> 01:16:05.727
Depression is hard.
01:16:05.811 --> 01:16:08.105
Anxiety's hard.
01:16:08.105 --> 01:16:09.940
You just mash your way through it,
01:16:09.940 --> 01:16:10.973
mash your way through it,
01:16:11.003 --> 01:16:12.344
mash your way through it.
01:16:12.444 --> 01:16:14.091
I think it's loneliness.
01:16:15.999 --> 01:16:17.103
I think it's loneliness.
01:16:20.367 --> 01:16:23.370
Mashin' my way.
01:16:35.132 --> 01:16:37.435
Cook that jam down.
01:16:39.386 --> 01:16:41.597
You feel depressed.
01:16:41.597 --> 01:16:43.682
Can't give into it.
01:16:43.682 --> 01:16:45.392
If you feel a thing,
you can go through it.
01:16:49.479 --> 01:16:52.482
I don't wanna cook my
sadness into my jam,
01:16:53.525 --> 01:16:56.528
but I need sweetness right now.
01:17:07.080 --> 01:17:09.583
But I'm different now.
01:17:10.500 --> 01:17:13.103
I've become something different.
01:17:13.879 --> 01:17:16.882
And I don't know if I'm going crazy,
01:17:17.424 --> 01:17:20.052
or if I'm just feeling
what everybody else is feeling.
01:17:20.052 --> 01:17:21.720
Am I crazy?
01:17:21.720 --> 01:17:24.123
Blue jays?
01:17:29.999 --> 01:17:31.999
(whistling)
01:17:34.358 --> 01:17:37.361
I can see the sky in the jam.
01:17:43.659 --> 01:17:44.955
Holy shit.
01:18:05.847 --> 01:18:08.250
Don't waste a drop.
01:18:09.226 --> 01:18:10.977
And at my worst moment,
01:18:10.977 --> 01:18:13.605
at the nadir of my depression...
01:18:13.605 --> 01:18:15.973
The beavers are out of
the water up there.
01:18:19.945 --> 01:18:21.822
...this little guy
01:18:21.822 --> 01:18:24.825
showed me the way once more.
01:18:25.826 --> 01:18:28.537
They're clearing the honeysuckle.
01:18:28.537 --> 01:18:30.580
Get that honeysuckle.
01:18:30.580 --> 01:18:32.850
Get it out of there!
01:18:33.250 --> 01:18:35.999
Get that honeysuckle out of here.
01:18:38.338 --> 01:18:40.465
All right, let's get to it.
01:19:03.655 --> 01:19:05.157
I feel like I'm cutting
my way through...
01:19:06.074 --> 01:19:07.743
...through history.
01:19:07.743 --> 01:19:09.002
It's like cutting my way through
01:19:09.004 --> 01:19:12.956
hundreds of years of
darkness and garbage,
01:19:13.415 --> 01:19:18.168
and getting the sun and
the deer trails back.
01:19:21.298 --> 01:19:22.674
I'm a part of history.
01:19:24.468 --> 01:19:27.095
And I refuse to live like those
01:19:27.512 --> 01:19:30.265
who murdered my ancestors.
01:19:33.518 --> 01:19:34.644
I'm a gardener.
01:19:35.228 --> 01:19:37.647
That's our purpose here.
01:19:37.689 --> 01:19:39.775
To take care of this place,
01:19:39.775 --> 01:19:42.778
to take care of all of this.
01:19:44.446 --> 01:19:47.491
What's good for the garden
is good for us.
01:19:47.616 --> 01:19:50.827
What's good for the forest
is good for us.
01:19:53.288 --> 01:19:55.707
The earth dreamed us,
01:19:55.707 --> 01:19:58.710
and it did not make a mistake.
01:19:58.835 --> 01:20:01.838
Nature needs us.
01:20:02.214 --> 01:20:05.299
Without us, the weeds grow
higher than the garden.
01:20:08.720 --> 01:20:12.265
Our purpose is to take care
of this place.
01:20:14.309 --> 01:20:17.312
That's what nothing else
knows how to do.
01:21:06.945 --> 01:21:10.240
We cannot heal ourselves
without healing the planet.
01:21:10.999 --> 01:21:15.120
We cannot heal the planet
without healing ourselves.
01:21:28.425 --> 01:21:29.843
I feel like a little kid
01:21:31.553 --> 01:21:32.553
taking a walk.
01:21:44.774 --> 01:21:46.026
Holy shit.
01:22:45.835 --> 01:22:48.838
Just another friend in the forest.
01:22:49.965 --> 01:22:52.068
Nothing to worry about.
01:23:32.999 --> 01:23:34.699
♪ And my time ♪
01:23:35.003 --> 01:23:37.799
♪ Is swiftly rolling on ♪
01:23:38.999 --> 01:23:42.920
♪ And I know that I must die ♪
01:23:45.894 --> 01:23:47.999
♪ And my body ♪
01:23:48.999 --> 01:23:50.899
♪ To thee ♪
01:23:50.902 --> 01:23:52.703
♪ Dust to return ♪
01:23:53.999 --> 01:23:57.199
♪ And there forgotten lie ♪
01:23:59.999 --> 01:24:01.999
♪ You may sing ♪
01:24:02.433 --> 01:24:04.633
♪ Those songs I used to sing ♪
01:24:06.301 --> 01:24:08.002
♪ Talk about ♪
01:24:09.001 --> 01:24:11.999
♪ The things I've done ♪
01:24:12.999 --> 01:24:14.433
♪ When you take ♪
01:24:15.999 --> 01:24:18.999
♪ Me to the little hillside ♪
01:24:21.001 --> 01:24:24.899
♪ And lay me there alone ♪
01:25:14.067 --> 01:25:16.319
Touching the walls of the grave,
I could tell
01:25:16.319 --> 01:25:19.322
the dirt was made of the
same stuff as me.
01:25:22.408 --> 01:25:24.661
I realized, I will be earth
01:25:24.661 --> 01:25:27.664
for a lot longer than I am human.
01:25:30.125 --> 01:25:34.003
It was comforting, like coming home.
01:25:34.921 --> 01:25:39.968
Something shifted,
and I felt the fear leave.
01:28:17.750 --> 01:28:20.753
Ladies and gentlemen.
01:28:27.010 --> 01:28:29.429
Bears, beavers, birds, deer,
01:28:29.429 --> 01:28:32.432
and all other forms of
life in the forest.
01:28:35.643 --> 01:28:38.896
I present to you a small fraction
01:28:39.272 --> 01:28:42.233
of the diversity of nature.
01:28:53.161 --> 01:28:55.164
The wood fern.
01:29:03.546 --> 01:29:05.549
The ostrich fern.
01:29:08.593 --> 01:29:10.928
Jo Pye weed.
01:29:21.230 --> 01:29:23.233
This is barberry.
01:29:24.776 --> 01:29:27.070
This is white pine.
01:29:28.070 --> 01:29:30.070
Red pine.
01:29:30.999 --> 01:29:32.899
Chestnut.
01:29:32.999 --> 01:29:34.077
Walnut.
01:29:34.077 --> 01:29:36.120
Yarrow.
01:29:36.920 --> 01:29:38.247
Apple.
01:29:38.247 --> 01:29:39.540
Chicken of the woods.
01:29:41.042 --> 01:29:43.253
Spruce.
01:29:43.753 --> 01:29:45.922
Red oak.
01:29:45.922 --> 01:29:48.174
Goldenrod.
01:29:48.174 --> 01:29:50.177
Milkweed.
01:29:51.302 --> 01:29:52.261
Eagle.
01:29:52.261 --> 01:29:53.362
Turkey.
01:29:53.999 --> 01:29:55.723
Blue jay.
01:29:55.723 --> 01:29:57.726
A robin's nest.
01:29:58.999 --> 01:30:01.227
Deer skull.
01:30:02.397 --> 01:30:04.400
Sugar maple.
01:30:05.525 --> 01:30:07.652
Bee balm.
01:30:07.652 --> 01:30:10.321
Wasp.
01:30:10.321 --> 01:30:12.198
Evergreen holly.
01:30:12.198 --> 01:30:13.198
Elderberry.
01:30:13.898 --> 01:30:14.909
Ash.
01:30:14.909 --> 01:30:15.909
Blackberry.
01:30:15.911 --> 01:30:17.294
Wild grapes.
01:30:17.894 --> 01:30:19.288
Cherry tomato.
01:30:19.288 --> 01:30:20.831
Shaggy parasol.
01:30:21.931 --> 01:30:23.242
Japanese knotweed.
01:30:23.842 --> 01:30:25.670
Nettles.
01:30:25.670 --> 01:30:28.339
Honeysuckle.
01:30:28.339 --> 01:30:31.050
I don't know what this one is.
01:30:31.050 --> 01:30:33.394
It's a mystery.
01:30:33.594 --> 01:30:35.721
I don't know what this one is.
01:30:35.721 --> 01:30:38.041
It's a mystery.
01:30:38.641 --> 01:30:41.044
Mystery?
01:30:41.686 --> 01:30:44.480
A mystery.
01:30:44.480 --> 01:30:47.003
It's a mystery.
01:30:47.233 --> 01:30:49.594
A mystery.
01:33:53.585 --> 01:33:55.008
What is that?
01:34:12.106 --> 01:34:15.691
Looks like there's all this
green stuff in the guts.
01:34:18.819 --> 01:34:21.822
And then there's this little hand here.
01:34:29.540 --> 01:34:32.291
I think something ate
one of my beaver friends.
01:34:33.793 --> 01:34:35.920
Sure looks that way.
01:34:37.680 --> 01:34:39.672
Coyotes, maybe?
01:34:52.228 --> 01:34:54.831
The planet is cruel.
01:35:13.124 --> 01:35:15.545
Sorry, little guy.
01:35:22.633 --> 01:35:24.468
One death.
01:35:26.887 --> 01:35:29.890
Coming to terms with a single death
01:35:31.100 --> 01:35:33.303
is nearly impossible.
01:35:35.062 --> 01:35:36.230
The loss holds
01:35:36.230 --> 01:35:39.483
an infinity of grief and questions.
01:35:41.819 --> 01:35:43.738
What, then,
01:35:43.738 --> 01:35:46.741
of a million deaths
01:35:46.741 --> 01:35:49.744
that we just experienced?
01:35:50.920 --> 01:35:53.623
Does the grief last forever?
01:35:54.623 --> 01:35:57.126
Of course it does.
01:35:57.877 --> 01:35:59.503
It's so hard.
01:35:59.503 --> 01:36:02.506
But we have to let ourselves feel it.
01:36:04.425 --> 01:36:06.510
And the earth
01:36:06.510 --> 01:36:09.113
takes it all in.
01:36:10.139 --> 01:36:13.142
The earth takes in all our death,
01:36:14.435 --> 01:36:17.396
and somehow
01:36:17.396 --> 01:36:20.399
turns it back into life.
01:36:21.400 --> 01:36:24.403
Turns it back into something beautiful.
01:36:25.988 --> 01:36:28.991
Over and over
01:36:29.033 --> 01:36:31.736
and over again.
01:36:42.713 --> 01:36:44.757
This much we know.
01:36:44.757 --> 01:36:47.635
Long COVID is a new pandemic.
01:36:47.635 --> 01:36:49.762
One study showed that
one out of every four
01:36:49.762 --> 01:36:52.765
Covid survivors
suffers from impaired cognition.
01:36:53.724 --> 01:36:56.268
Another showed that
of those were hospitalized,
01:36:56.268 --> 01:36:59.230
two out of every three suffered
cognitive difficulties
01:36:59.230 --> 01:37:01.440
six months later.
01:37:01.440 --> 01:37:05.275
So a whole lot of us are just
a little bit or a lot slower.
01:37:07.613 --> 01:37:10.616
Telling our stories is healing.
01:37:11.058 --> 01:37:12.999
The story is what heals me.
01:37:15.996 --> 01:37:17.589
And I am better.
01:37:17.889 --> 01:37:20.834
Not 100%, but better.
01:37:25.217 --> 01:37:27.999
I'm well enough to fight for this forest
01:37:28.002 --> 01:37:32.638
which cured me enough to
fight for this forest.
01:37:58.497 --> 01:38:01.667
And so the great lockdown
that stopped the cars
01:38:01.667 --> 01:38:04.962
and industry and noise and pollution
came to a close.
01:38:05.546 --> 01:38:09.842
Scientists gave it a fancy
new name, the anthropause.
01:38:10.217 --> 01:38:12.970
And since that time,
science has gotten busy
01:38:12.970 --> 01:38:16.891
and examined that great stoppage
of the grinding gears of the economy.
01:38:16.974 --> 01:38:21.020
And they put some numbers and facts
to that time we all experienced.
01:38:21.520 --> 01:38:23.606
Let us, for the moment, consider
01:38:23.606 --> 01:38:26.942
those first six months when COVID
was having its way with us.
01:38:27.234 --> 01:38:30.237
Rivers all over the world ran clear.
01:38:30.237 --> 01:38:34.033
Beaches from Mexico to Spain
were cleaner and clearer than ever.
01:38:34.408 --> 01:38:37.999
Noise pollution, with the sharp
reduction in traffic,
01:38:38.002 --> 01:38:39.540
had a truly polyphonic bounty.
01:38:40.080 --> 01:38:43.083
Bird songs increased in complexity,
01:38:43.250 --> 01:38:47.796
our flightful friends recapturing their
former glory and sonic vocabulary.
01:38:48.505 --> 01:38:51.508
Pollution was measurably lower
across the planet.
01:38:51.634 --> 01:38:54.595
And as it turns out, in Wuhan, China,
01:38:54.929 --> 01:38:59.642
although COVID killed 3,200 people
in the first cycles of the disease,
01:38:59.850 --> 01:39:04.939
it was estimated by Stanford University
that the downturn in industrial pollution
01:39:04.939 --> 01:39:10.110
actually saved the lives of 77,000 people
in the same time period,
01:39:10.402 --> 01:39:14.073
prompting the question,
which was the real pandemic?
01:39:14.490 --> 01:39:17.493
COVID, or the fossil fuels
we love to burn and choke on?
01:39:17.952 --> 01:39:21.830
And most significant of all, perhaps,
for the first time in history
01:39:21.830 --> 01:39:26.418
this civilization significantly
reduced emissions.
01:39:26.710 --> 01:39:28.899
We reduced emissions.
01:39:28.901 --> 01:39:31.883
For the first time,
we met our climate goals.
01:39:32.383 --> 01:39:37.012
The single most difficult problem
on Earth stopped in its tracks.
01:39:37.388 --> 01:39:40.432
Did we heed these lessons
and sharply change course?
01:39:40.683 --> 01:39:45.062
Did we listen to the birds singing and
radically revise and change our ways?
01:39:46.981 --> 01:39:49.984
Well, you know exactly what happened.
01:39:53.070 --> 01:39:56.573
And the country collectively refused
to learn the lessons of how to
01:39:56.575 --> 01:40:00.094
defeat climate change and restore
the balance to ecosystems worldwide,
01:40:00.097 --> 01:40:05.674
would once again prioritize the
economy over the deaths of millions.
01:40:06.417 --> 01:40:09.294
We did not pay people to stay home.
01:40:09.294 --> 01:40:13.048
In fact, those who were given
the honorary title of "essential"
01:40:13.215 --> 01:40:15.718
our government sent back out
into the disease,
01:40:15.718 --> 01:40:19.763
and they failed to raise the minimum
wage or give them health care,
01:40:19.763 --> 01:40:21.501
or enforce basic workplace safety,
01:40:21.503 --> 01:40:24.443
or treat them like human beings,
let alone essential ones.
01:40:25.185 --> 01:40:26.729
So we did not pass Go,
01:40:26.729 --> 01:40:28.856
we did not collect $200.
01:40:28.856 --> 01:40:31.191
We dared the virus to grow and mutate.
01:40:31.191 --> 01:40:32.818
We encouraged new variants.
01:40:32.818 --> 01:40:35.821
We submitted to years of future
lockdowns and anguish.
01:40:35.904 --> 01:40:36.904
As soon as we could,
01:40:36.906 --> 01:40:40.325
we stuffed cotton in our ears
and blinded the skies to the stars.
01:40:40.826 --> 01:40:44.913
And soon the mean, pinched, bitter,
dimpled mug of Jeff Bezos
01:40:44.913 --> 01:40:48.542
shot himself up into space,
dressing the stratosphere in black carbon,
01:40:48.751 --> 01:40:51.002
and so did the likes of
Richard Branson.
01:40:51.004 --> 01:40:53.999
And Elon Musk kept shooting those
little rockets up all the time,
01:40:54.002 --> 01:40:59.178
dreaming the escape of a planet that we
all know they've never actually been to,
01:40:59.178 --> 01:41:02.639
daring the ghost of Icarus to save us
all from their vision of the world.
01:41:02.973 --> 01:41:06.143
And along with their rockets
and plantations and industry,
01:41:06.393 --> 01:41:10.105
all of the emissions reductions
of the anthropause were erased,
01:41:10.355 --> 01:41:14.109
and the mega billionaire class
added $1 trillion to their wealth.
01:41:14.443 --> 01:41:17.321
And COVID cases went through the roof,
01:41:17.321 --> 01:41:20.449
and the emissions which had fallen
went through the sky.
01:41:20.824 --> 01:41:23.994
And our politics once again
devolved into a contest
01:41:23.994 --> 01:41:27.331
between mega fascism
and neoliberal corporate control.
01:41:28.540 --> 01:41:31.126
We didn't stop worrying and
stop everything else
01:41:31.126 --> 01:41:33.504
and learn to love the anthropause.
01:41:33.504 --> 01:41:35.964
Instead, cyber pioneers hell-bent
01:41:35.964 --> 01:41:40.385
on colonizing our minds built AI,
which can track our every move
01:41:40.385 --> 01:41:42.304
and knows our every inner desire.
01:41:42.304 --> 01:41:43.680
Well, it's 2025.
01:41:44.098 --> 01:41:46.266
And once again, you-know-who
01:41:46.266 --> 01:41:47.643
is you know where.
01:41:47.643 --> 01:41:49.186
One of the first things he did
was to create
01:41:49.186 --> 01:41:52.773
an executive order to cut down
most of America's remaining forests.
01:41:53.065 --> 01:41:56.860
280 million acres, about three times
the size of California.
01:41:56.985 --> 01:42:01.198
A proposal to kill or make homeless
millions upon millions of bears,
01:42:01.240 --> 01:42:04.493
bunnies, bees, deers, beavers,
and all the souls and species
01:42:04.493 --> 01:42:07.204
that keep this country
a little bit more than human.
01:42:07.204 --> 01:42:12.000
In addition, you-know-who appointed
an actual Nazi parading around
01:42:12.000 --> 01:42:13.999
with a chainsaw,
the richest man on Earth,
01:42:14.002 --> 01:42:17.631
to dismantle the CDC and
defund the NIH,
01:42:17.923 --> 01:42:21.760
which, you know, gives us info
about pandemics on the rise.
01:42:21.885 --> 01:42:24.847
He chainsawed all foreign aid,
which among other vitally
01:42:24.847 --> 01:42:28.267
important things like keeping millions
of children alive around the world,
01:42:28.267 --> 01:42:32.312
also keeps diseases in check,
like Ebola, Polio.
01:42:32.396 --> 01:42:35.065
So maybe the next pandemic
could be a throwback.
01:42:35.065 --> 01:42:36.900
Maybe it's tuberculosis, cholera.
01:42:36.900 --> 01:42:37.818
Why stop there?
01:42:37.818 --> 01:42:38.999
Bring back the Black Plague.
01:42:39.002 --> 01:42:41.999
And then, of course, you-know-who
appointed a rabid anti-vaxxer
01:42:42.002 --> 01:42:45.659
with a worm in his brain as head
of the Department of Health,
01:42:45.659 --> 01:42:48.662
even though it was unquestionably
the vaccines that got us all
01:42:48.662 --> 01:42:50.205
out of the state of terror and death
01:42:50.205 --> 01:42:52.040
that was the first year of COVID
01:42:52.040 --> 01:42:55.752
which, you know, under you-know-who,
killed about a million Americans.
01:42:55.878 --> 01:42:59.005
And of course this government,
run by actual Nazis,
01:42:59.007 --> 01:43:02.926
pushed through $150 billion
in funding for the new Gestapo,
01:43:03.135 --> 01:43:06.722
ICE, the largest government police force
in the history of America,
01:43:06.930 --> 01:43:10.809
to deport people to concentration camps
both here and abroad, and making it
01:43:10.809 --> 01:43:14.605
scarier and scarier to be an immigrant
or a dissident or a scientist
01:43:14.605 --> 01:43:16.190
in you-know-who's USA.
01:43:17.941 --> 01:43:20.951
And so it's on us to be
on the right side,
01:43:20.954 --> 01:43:22.654
more than it ever has been before.
01:43:23.071 --> 01:43:26.074
We cannot heal ourselves
without our forests.
01:43:26.325 --> 01:43:27.492
We cannot stay healthy
01:43:27.492 --> 01:43:30.871
without science, love, technology,
intelligence and community.
01:43:31.413 --> 01:43:33.498
And where, where is our power?
01:43:33.498 --> 01:43:34.958
Where are the movements
01:43:34.958 --> 01:43:37.878
which are the design of justice?
01:43:37.878 --> 01:43:41.590
Will we come back to beat back
those genocidal forces?
01:43:41.924 --> 01:43:44.927
Will we adopt new family members,
01:43:45.928 --> 01:43:48.780
a new family of survivors, each other,
01:43:48.782 --> 01:43:51.183
the trees, the beavers, the earth,
01:43:51.350 --> 01:43:54.353
which are all of our relations?
01:43:55.687 --> 01:43:58.774
Perhaps out of the terrestrial memory
01:43:58.774 --> 01:44:02.778
of the anthropause,
a new consciousness can be born.
01:44:03.612 --> 01:44:07.999
That memory, cellular and deep
within all of us,
01:44:08.001 --> 01:44:11.793
shows we can scrap climate change
01:44:11.795 --> 01:44:15.005
and reverse our apocalyptic ecocide.
01:44:16.750 --> 01:44:18.210
Can you remember the Earth
01:44:18.210 --> 01:44:21.546
with each decision you make,
with each breath?
01:44:22.923 --> 01:44:24.999
♪ Many good men have fought and died ♪
01:44:25.002 --> 01:44:28.136
♪ so we could be here side by side ♪
01:44:28.136 --> 01:44:30.387
♪ Keep your hand on the plow ♪
01:44:31.001 --> 01:44:34.351
This civilization wants us to forget.
01:44:36.977 --> 01:44:38.021
Forget our history.
01:44:38.272 --> 01:44:39.999
Forget the genocides.
01:44:40.002 --> 01:44:40.983
Forget the dead.
01:44:40.983 --> 01:44:42.317
Forget the forest.
01:44:42.317 --> 01:44:45.320
Forget who we are.
01:44:45.529 --> 01:44:47.613
But the survivors remember.
01:44:48.699 --> 01:44:52.327
And the land remembers, too.
01:44:52.828 --> 01:44:55.372
Which side are you on?
01:44:55.372 --> 01:44:58.375
Will you remember that
moment we stopped
01:44:59.251 --> 01:45:02.254
and the Earth took a breath?
01:45:02.796 --> 01:45:06.091
Will you remember that
you are the earth?
01:45:08.927 --> 01:45:12.097
And that the earth
needs you to survive?
01:45:19.604 --> 01:45:20.856
Will you hold on with me?
01:45:23.650 --> 01:45:27.446
Will we be the earth rising up
to defend itself?
01:45:32.540 --> 01:45:34.840
♪ Keep your hand on the plow ♪
01:45:41.835 --> 01:45:43.128
Will we see
01:45:43.128 --> 01:45:46.131
that the edge of nature is us?
01:45:48.008 --> 01:45:50.969
The birds are singing.
01:45:50.969 --> 01:45:53.972
I wish I knew what they were saying.
01:45:54.389 --> 01:45:57.392
I feel like I know what
they're saying, though.
01:45:58.477 --> 01:45:59.999
Don’t you?
01:46:11.899 --> 01:46:18.799
(Music: Pete Seeger,
"If I Had A Hammer")
Distributor: Bullfrog Films
Length: 108 minutes
Date: 2025
Genre: Expository
Language: English
Grade: 10-12, College, Adults
Color/BW:
Closed Captioning: Available
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