I don’t have heroes; most of the people put up before us for admiration simply don’t impress me. They may be rich, beautiful, or exhibit a superb level of athletic prowess. But they cannot command my attention for possessing such superfluous traits.
And so it came as a surprise to me yesterday when I met a woman whom I now consider a hero. She has been living on a platform sixty meters (200 feet) up a tree since December 14, 2011. She’s got a wind turbine, solar panels, a camera and a computer. She’s got walls and a roof made out of plastic. And she’s got more passion, determination, and focus than most people will ever have.
Her name is Miranda Gibson, and she climbed a rope into the tree to help protect Tasmania’s dwindling wilderness. But to my mind she is protecting something far more valuable than a cut block; she is protecting the wilderness of the human psyche, something most people are not even aware exists let alone could care less about. She is protecting that place inside us all that draws a line in the sand that says: NO MORE! She is letting the world know that she has a boundary, and that the wholesale slaughter of old growth trees is inside that line. She is a living testimony to personal integrity: she has taken a stand for something she believes in, and she won’t back down. Instead of exchanging her birthright for instant gratification in a world of bubble comforts, she has chosen to brave what the natural world would deliver from the vantage point of a forest canopy. And she has been doing it for months…
When the chips are down and the gloves come off; when the brave and free become the clones and cowards; when the spectacle is revered and the truth reviled; in the words of the immortal William Blake:
WHO CAN STAND?
