Cedar Potpourri
Sylvia Shawcross
At the front of my hovel is a cedar bush long overgrown now. The birds love this bush and often nest there. The robins love it most of all for some reason. The scent of cedar is like no other. You can crush the leaves and transcend reality for a little while with that aroma.
It speaks of a wilderness of nature much like the fertile rich scent of fresh earth after a heavy rain.
The reminder of our existence in nature is all around us, even as we plod our ways to the cities like vagabonds cluttering the machinery of civilization begging for our pay checks. We don’t belong there. We are just passing through. And that is a realization that usually comes late and at a price for us humans.
It was always this way perhaps but it seems more pronounced these days with the threat of 15-minute cities and any wild nature around us to be relegated to occasional holidays.
The cedar bush is wet with the heavy rain which is a remnant of some hurricane no doubt. When it rains you can almost smell the cedar in the wet wind and that reminds me of the Esh-Shouf Cedar Reserve. I’ve never been there and likely never will be but for some reason cedar always reminds me of Lebanon’s Cedars. I think of it looking at people’s cedar decks or young bride’s cedar chests.
I’d like to say it is a case of old people when everything reminds them of something else so in fact old people never really do experience anything in real time anymore. But that is not the case here. I have always been this way with cedar.
Esh-Shouf Cedar Reserve is in the middle of Lebanon containing 25% of the now endangered famous cedars of Lebanon. Whenever the cedars of Lebanon are described there is a feeling that washes over me, a residual biblical thing perhaps or a sense of time and history or maybe even a past life memory if you can believe in such things.
And I’m reminded of all this because even as I write, in the corner of my screen I am watching bombs going off in a place called Tyre, Lebanon. It is that ancient grievance and tit for tat horror that seems to deluge the Middle East regularly. No one wins.
But it is always believed that war is peace and it isn’t. It is just war. It is a tribute to the failure of diplomats and government panic and the greed of the military industrial complex and banksters and privileged others. That is all it is. People die on both sides and the world continues on, even more cynical about human nature than we’ve been before. No one knows how far humans will go with this war. We shudder to think. So we don’t.
But there, on the screen is a beach in Tyre with a turquoise sea washing a scalloped damp fringe into the sands and in the far hills the bombs make grey smoke to the sky. The area is a World Heritage Site for archeological finds and nature in some cases, not that these designations seem to matter when it comes to war for any region of the Middle East.
Up there, in those hills I imagine there are some cedar trees. They were used by Solomon to build his temple, it is said, and underneath them one can easily imagine Alexander the Great pacing the soft ground thinking about his empire. Or perhaps the Sumerian hero Gilgamesh and his friend Enkidu cutting down villains and trees in their Cedar Forest. And the Phoenicians building their ships.
I wonder what they’d all make of the bombs overhead now. I suppose it doesn’t matter. It is all the same. Then and now. Why is it that humans will blow the past into smithereens in order to create a future? The disconnect between the past and the future is why we never win. We muddle our present in rhetoric and emotion and unbridled greed and power. We never learn.
But that being said, we must remain optimistic that we can learn. Some day. I don’t know how. It has all been tried before. But perhaps someone knows. Or perhaps it is all playing out as pre-ordained. How do we know?
Here’s an earworm I’ve done before but I don’t care anymore.
Well…today anyway.
Sylvia Shawcross is a writer from Canada. Visit her SubStack if you’re so inclined.
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Thanks for this. The world has long since forgotten nature, of course, but trees specifically. As if they exist for one reason only: to provide wood for our houses. The price of wood continues to rise as trees become ever scarcer. No one has ever thought to charge a fortune in fines for killing even one tree. If it’s in the way, or if it can be of use, cut it down to human size until nothing is left of it.
Trees are the oldest living beings on the planet. The very oldest, the Prometheus Tree on a desolate California mountain, was cut down in 1964 to verify its age (isn’t Science wonderful that all it has to do is destroy something to identify it?)
What we are witnessing is another outcome of British interference, this time manipulated by the arch-Zionist Rothschild family. By controlling finance, banking families that control all central banks now control Governments, the Media, and all major corporations.
War and desperation, illusionary disease and climate destruction, poverty and starvation, child abuse, sex and organ trafficking, slavery, terrorism, and on it goes. Its all the bankers making to hide by stealth their globalist power grab.
We now need to understand we dont have a government of the people. We have a criminal in the form of Keir Starmer in charge of brain dead, in it for themselves, puppets who stamp through the banker’s agenda.
Who in their right mind and with a brain cell would support the massacre of tens of thousands of men, women and children. The British, US and the EU of course. Well not really, only bought and paid for politicians, Friends of Israel (enemy of everyone else), and ultra-Zionists The people have a heart and would stand against the powerful war mongers all day long. The media goes out its way to hide the fact that many good kind Jews do not support this genocide, but we need to realise that its not about religion, colour or gender as these are only tools to divide us. We are all the people and need to stand together.
I’m sorry, and maybe it makes no difference to your argument, but, for the record, native Canadian junipers, known as “cedars,” much as native Canadian thrushes are called “robins,” are not the same species as the Cedars of Lebanon. The native cedar is more or less a shrub, while the Lebanese cedar is a tall stately, imposing tree.
Our grazing families experience petrichor daily
A Brahman just winked back in agreement..
..on the left hand side..pass it
Many year ago I noticed that one of the young ladies that I was working with had a problem with one of her hands, it was stuck in a semi-clenched state so she had problems picking up things. When I asked what had happened she remarked in a matter of fact way that she was originally Lebanese and it had been injured by shelling when she was a child. (’nuff said?)
This was decades ago and nothing seems to have changed in the intervening years. Being a neighbor of Israel appears to be quite dangerous, especially if you’ve got resources that they want (for the immediate neighbors in the north its watersheds — Israel has always had a chronic problem with water supply). Israel is a heavily militarized society with a penchant for “preemptive defense” which my rather cynical mindset translates to “Attacking countries that can’t strike back (while all the time claiming that you’re the injured party that’s under threat)”.
Thanks Sylvia.
I’ve just finished reading Richard Power’s ‘The Overstory’:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-powers/the-overstory/
I’ll never look at trees the same way again.
Cedar played a key role in the construction of Solomon’s Temple. The cedar logs hewn from the mountains of Lebanon being floated down the Mediterranean Coast from Tyre to Joppa and from there inland to Jerusalem.
Hiram (whose name in Latin means ‘living exaltedly’), King of Tyre, was a long-standing friend of Solomon’s father David. He thus made a good trade partner for the necessary timber. He received wheat & oil in return for his cedar & gold. Tyre is related to ‘Tyrus’ (and to ‘strength’, ‘rock’, ‘sharp’), from which we get the word ‘tower’.
Similarly ‘Gaza’ (or ‘aza‘) in Hebrew means ‘strong’. The subduing of these territories is thus like the subduing of human strength and pride; the hewing down of large towering cedar trees or Goliaths for constructive, more noble purposes.
Solomon, whose name means ‘peacemaker’ (cf Shalom, Salaam) was allowed to build the Temple, whereas his father David was not permitted to do so, being too much a man-of-war. Solomon’s reign (unlike David’s) was characterized by unbridled peace and he was the only ruler of Israel, at least to my knowledge, to have actually reigned over the whole of the Promised Land.
Netanyahu, being a protégé of David [ben Gurion], may like the aforementioned David have shed too much blood (at least indirectly) to be worthy of rebuilding the Third Temple – a more peaceful successor may perhaps prove worthy in more peaceful times.
The Zionist/AshkeNAZI infiltration and take over of the Jewish tradition has guaranteed that the Third Temple’s foundation has already been destroyed and that Third temple will never be erected. It seems Albert Pike’s prediction is coming to a bloody fruition.
Zionism has been integral to the Jewish tradition from the Exodus to the Babylonian Captivity to the fall of Jerusalem/Masada in the 1st century onwards. If the Jews had been better treated elsewhere in the world (most notably in 1930s/’40s Germany), then maybe things would have been different.
Otherwise it’s the just dream of any mistreated people exiled from their homeland
cf the Book of Lamentations
Most of us in the US descend from “mistreated people exiled from their homeland.” It isn’t a feature of humanity limited to Jews alone. In fact, as per a book (which I have been unable to find) titled “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” by Yosef Grodzinsky, many of the survivors of the Holocaust did not wish to leave their European homeland but were forced to so as to establish a European foothold in the Middle East.
Solomon was a sorcerer, the seals of Solomon as my proof. Careful to cleanse yourself properly before and after viewing them.
I don’t believe that he was ever a sorcerer, although he did go a bit wayward in his later years. Primarily to please his pagan wives, it would seem.
Solomon’s Temple comes from “The temple of Solomon” viz “The temple of The Gods“, but it takes a fair bit of research to get beyond Solomon=Shalom=Peace.
Jerusalem has a similar origin, i.e. “The place of The Gods“.
Suffice it to say that Solomon’s Temple was built in Jerusalem, where it still stands today.
Hint: Modern ‘Jerusalem’ is not ‘the place of the gods where the temple of the gods was built‘.
Ultimately, everything going on in the world today is down to Solomon’s Temple.
After all, why is my icon similar to a Templar Cross?
I’m not sure how you derive ‘the gods‘ from ‘Solomon‘, but Josephus in ‘Antiquities’ associates Jerusalem more with ‘security’ than with ‘peace’, although the concepts are undoubtedly similar:
The Templars were a medieval phenonmenon that came and went (c. 1119 – c. 1314). So-named because their base was actually at the Temple site. They reportedly constructed tunnels underneath it (which may still exist today) which were subsequently closed off by the Muslims [cf ‘The Knights Templar’ by Sean Martin (2009)]. They also had a big base at Akra, I believe.
Fighting in the Holy Land, the Templars will have undoubtedly picked up a few relics along the way. One of their traditions (as I recall it), was that initiate Knights had to kiss a cloth with an image of Christ. Quite possibly ‘The Turin Shroud’, which has recently been dated back to the 1st century using the latest laser techniques (refuting earlier DNA tests on a contaminated corner sample)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/04/how-old-is-the-shroud-of-turin-christ-scientists-bari/
That cloth may in fact contain an image of the true Third Temple (according to Christian tradition), aka Christ
Wikipedia and the readily accessible history books will give an incomplete and distorted picture (often, intentionally so). The specific ‘Knights Templar’ military order may well have been officially established in 1119, but the Templars (guardians of Solomon’s Temple) arose in the early 9th century.
The Templars were there BEFORE the pilgrimage started. It was precisely because of their discoveries (Ark of testimony/covenant in Holy of Holies) that the great & good travelled from far around (to the consequently holy land) to see for themselves. Relics* then moved to Mecca & Santiago, and redirected the pilgrimages respectively.
* Jacob’s Altar = Altar to the LORD/of the Gods = Solomon’s Temple = Temple Mount. Thus, ‘Relics from Jacob’s Altar’ become ‘Relics of St. Jacob’. St.Jacob -> Iaco ->Iago -> Santiago.
Reply went to pending, but for accounts of the construction of the 1st Temple, see
1 Kings 5+
and
Josephus’ account in ‘Antiquities’ (Book 8, Chapter 2+)
or for a spiritual interpretation of each aspect of its construction, there’s
Bede’s “On the Temple“
Thanks. That brought back some very good memories. 20 years ago my wife and I were living in Qatar and took our Spring break in Lebanon. My thinking at the time was that when a Middle Eastern country prone to war is in a lull of peace, seize the opportunity and go see as much of it as you can. We drove from Tripoli in the North to as far south of Tyre as we could, a UN checkpoint that would allow us to go no further. I had my surfboard with me, which caused confusion at the Syrian Army checkpoints, but also gave me the opportunity to join the locals in the water and engage in an activity that had as little to do with war and death as can be imagined. I probably even surfed that golden beach outside Tyre that you mentioned in your essay. The people were as welcoming and as friendly to a couple of lost Canadians as you can imagine. We were welcomed into homes for tea and welcomed to the country everywhere we went. The little Christian mountain towns in particular were very friendly. When put in to context of the brutal fighting that they’ve endured over the past decades it gives you the impression that the Lebanese can survive just about anything with their culture and humanity intact. After a visit to Baalbek we found the cedar reserve too late in the evening to enter, the winding roads had us lost much of the time. We walked the edge of the park as the sun set and marvelled at the view out past the cedars to the mountains and valleys in the West. I like to think we could see all the way to the Sea, but I may be making that part up. It was 20 years ago. All this to say that in my mind Lebanon is as tenacious and resilient as a country can possibly be. They’ve been sitting in the middle of the highway of history for eons and it’s toughened them to war beyond what us Canadians can imagine. I hate what’s happening to them, yet again, but I’m also confident they’ll come out the other side.
Wonderful. Thank you.