Soon we find the road blocked with burning trees, but we are four with two machetes and we clear the way. With us this day are Melvin Merida (veterinarian WCS), Alejandro Morales (veterinarian ARCAS) and Kender-Tut Rodriguez, climber and tortilla maker par excellence. Further on there are more downed trees and if we can’t cut up the trees and pass on the road, we make a path through the forest and go around.

Atop a hill we find telephone reception and call WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) headquarters to let them know of the threat and they send their biologists to the field for the next several days to clear out brush around the nest trees so they won’t burn. Over the weekend it seems that WCS personnel are alone in fighting the fire and saving what life they can. There is a tremendous shortage of resources, and perhaps coordination and will as well. We leave the last nest unclimbed because it would mean we would be driving at night and this could be dangerous if we encounter more fires and blocks in the road, which we in fact do. It’s a long drive out from the fire area as every kilometer or so we disembark with machetes to find a way forward.

What is the way forward? How do we look at a dying bird and see a smile shining through it, feel the glory? (see previous post “Preying and Praying for Life”) How do we determine what is killing our planet and what is ours to do?

I leave these questions unanswered for now for I leave tonight for Guatemala City on an overnight bus, to catch a flight on Tuesday, April 21. Suggestions for which bus to take are abundant, and part of this discussion includes which ones are most likely to get robbed. This is mentioned as casually as the other considerations such as likelihood that the air conditioner will work, that the bus will be late, and that I will be able to get any sleep. I experience confusion as well as gratitude that I have privileges and can afford safe transportation, when others ride in terror. Since January 1, 2009, 43 drivers and driver assistants have been murdered in Guatemala. This happens during robberies and when a particular driver refuses to pay the extortion fees to the gangs that roam the streets. It is perplexing to me that we live in a world where violence and harm are taken for granted, where we allow forests to burn with little intervention and people to be murdered in the streets.

Not everyone is passive. Every week in the paper there are reports of towns that hunt down those committing violence or robbery, and hang them, burn them, or both. My path does not lie in that direction, of using more violence to end violence. The world and my heart have experienced enough of that. Instead I look to the work of WCS and ARCAS. They yield machetes, hammers, syringes, binoculars, cameras, and computers as they fight, sweat, and toil for what they love, with their love. Their hearts lead the way through the darkness as shining chalices of hope. In the forest my eyes burn from the smoke, my tears mix with the ashes of the beloved forest, and I lend what moisture I can to a world on fire as my heart fills with joy for knowing these people and their land.

Around the year 500 CE “Fire is Born” came from Tenochuacan (current Mexico City) conquering Mayan cities, including Tikal. The first evidence of him entering the Mundo Maya (the Mayan World) is on a stella in El Peru, where I spend my last night in the forest.

I go to sleep, my dreams dancing with moon and stars and wonder what shall be born from this experience of fire. My dear people, what sparks in you that we might turn to one another with the hope of love, and a prayer of forgiveness and peace in our hearts?

MORE PHOTOS

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