Sleeping with the Enemy

Sunday’s visit to Weyerhaeuser’s Bonsai Garden certainly reminded me that I am irrevocably a postmodernist.

I enjoy Bonsai and have for many years. I am not, however, a fan of Weyerhaeuser and their clear-cutting policies. So, I had mixed feelings about visiting their home office. Despite my reservations, I’ll admit that I’ve never seen a more beautiful, greener, in all senses of that word, business campus than their campus. It is a delight to visit.

Still, while reading about a tradition in Bonsai of representing whole forests with a single plant on a miniature scale,

I couldn’t help but comment to Leslie that if Weyerhaeuser had their way this would probably be the only forest any of us would ever get to visit.

Was Weyerhaeuser’s attempt to create a “green� campus merely a PR move? Or, do they really love the woods that they seem to be inevitably destroying, euphemistically calling it “harvesting� which suggests they are cutting trees they planted, though I don’t see many 150-year-old Weyerhaeuser employees, especially ones who could have planted these forests.

Perhaps they have more faith than I in

the regenerative power of nature, a power often celebrated in Bonsai and one of my favorite themes. Though it’s a quality I’ve always admired in trees and plants found at timberline and in the desert, I’d prefer not to have to depend on it for my grandchildren’s survival.