Dynamics and Resilence

I saw these two chairs sitting on a bare patch of earth a little ways up off the trail. I thought it was odd when I first saw them, that there were two chairs just sitting in the middle of a forest. But then I started asking questions like: Why are they here? Why are there two of them? Who brought them here? I also thought about the chairs being made of wood and the irony of them being surrounded by living trees. These chairs in and of themselves represent an anthropogenic disturbance. Not only was a forest likely destroyed to make the chairs, but whoever then carried them into the forest disturbed the environment by stepping off the trail, crushing small plants, displacing soil, leaving behind foreign objects, and who knows what else. However, I remember what Kruckeberg said about the living landscape as continuum, and that in an natural area in an urban center like North Creek, human and natural environments are neither separable nor independent. Like how Douglas Fir ecosystems bled into subalpine meadows and so on, urban and natural merge. In conclusion, this image represents an anthropogenic disturbance that could one day right itself. I can imagine these chairs being reclaimed by the forest, being overtaken by native Sword ferns, maples and Indian Plum. This image would then look very different.

Done