Queue 'Conservation Nation Banner'

Rebecca Pike, I love you

Submitted by khamilton on Tue, 02/20/2007 - 01:00

You may not know Rebecca but youâ€™d be a better person if you did. Altered, at the very least.

Rebecca has directed dozens of SCA trail and restoration projects. She is wise, optimistic and caring. Tender, patient, and a bit shy; she would probably prefer that I not post this. But most of all, she is passionate. About nature. About stewardship. About life.

I havenâ€™t seen her in years and I miss her. Sheâ€™s been in the Yuha Desert, leading a steady rotation of volunteers in erasing the braided tracks of off-road vehicles from acres and acres of wounded landscape. The work is tedious. â€œWe move rocks [and] sweep the sand off the desert floor to another place on the desert floor,â€ she recently reported in her typically understated way. But itâ€™s also effective: overwhelmingly, riders have left the restored areas alone.

Rebecca used to be based at our NH HQ where weâ€™d talk often. Politics, relationships, music. One day she simply refused to accept the widely held characterization of Neil Young as the â€œGodfather of Grunge.â€ But what I most recall is her environmental fervor. She would weep at the thought of desecrated lands and cry equally over the selfless efforts of her trail crews. I envied the volunteers who drew from her daily inspiration and applauded when she won an organizational award for epitomizing all that is SCA.

I was listening to iTunes the other night when Neil Youngâ€™s â€œBe the Rain,â€ a lumbering green anthem, suddenly poured out of my buds. I thought of Rebecca â€œbeing the rainâ€ that washed over the desert and baptized so many into the congregation of conservation. I thought of our last conversation, too long ago, about what motivated her to deal with the relentless heat, blowing sand, and complete absence of Ben & Jerryâ€™s.

â€œThis desert may not have the grandeur of Yosemite, for example,â€ she told me, â€œbut itâ€™s still primeval. These vast expanses matter because theyâ€™re all we have left.â€

Thatâ€™s the rain I remember falling.

Be the rain, Rebecca. Be the rain.

I had the incredible

Submitted by Elli (not verified) on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 13:33.

I had the incredible privilege to spend eight months in the Yuha with Rebecca last year. Quite a way to be introduced to SCA, to conservation, and the desert. Working and living with Rebecca left an indelible mark on me in the form of true compassion for other people, of willing myself to grow beyond my own predetermined limits, of keeping at it every day, even when I doubted whether our work was making any difference at all. I saw Rebecca again this weekend at SCA’s first 50th anniversary event, held in the Yuha. I returned to find that Rebecca is still at it, inspiring and teaching but also learning and growing as much as those she influences. I returned to find that our work, in fact, has made a difference, that it has lasted and that it was worth it after all. I returned to find that the BLM in El Centro has opened their arms and hearts to Rebecca, to the DRC and to SCA after a stormy beginning four years ago, when the relationship looked more like a war zone than a partnership. I returned to find the incredible strength of a woman who believes that every day, every moment, every heartbeat is a new opportunity to become what you’ve always meant to be. I wish there had been more time and more of Rebecca to go around. I wish for weeks and months again, for days of working by her side and learning from her experience and passion. Lucky for me, her wisdom is portable and I carry it with me wherever I go: a desert rock, a photograph, a memory.

reply

What a perfect tribute to

Submitted by Josh Stearns (not verified) on Wed, 01/14/2009 - 13:27.

What a perfect tribute to Rebecca… When I served in the Adirondacks we would always look forward to Rebecca’s visits. We knew she would come with some bit of wisdom-new work skills, new camping tips, new wilderness medicine suggestions-but more than that we knew she would bring with her new forms of passion and compassion. She taught us to love the sharp edges of tools, and that stewardship meant not only caring for the land, but also our equipment, and each other. In addition, she always brought poetry. She seemed always to have her finger on just the right phrase, just the right quote, just the right story. In the woods her tools had sharp edges and worn handles, and somehow those same characteristics found their way into her words. She read a quote from “On The Loose” by Terry and Renny Russell, a book that has been out of print for decades. Her copy was held together by threads. This is what she read: “So why do we do it? What good is it? Does it teach you anything? Like determination? Invention? Improvisation? Foresight? Hindsight? Love? Art? Music? Religion? Strength or patience or accuracy or quickness or tolerance or which wood will burn and how long is a day and how far is a mile and how delicious is water and smoky green pea soup? And how to rely on your self?” “How far is a mile? Well, you learn that right off. It’s particularly different from ten tenths on the odometer. It’s one thousand seven hundred and sixty steps on the dead level and if you don’t have anything better to do you can count them. It’s at least ten and maybe a million times that on the hills and no river bed ever does run straight.” “Red exhaustion rips at your throat and salt sweat spills off your forehead and mats your eyelids and brows and drips on the burning ground and your legs star to turn to rubber and collapse like a balloon. ‘Pretty soon I’ve got to rest. How much farther? What’s the good of this God damn work anyway?’” “The long distance runner is paid by the snap of a white thread across his chest. You are paid by the picture at your feet.” “You can feel the muscle knots tightening in your legs and now and then you reach down to test the hard lumpiness. The passes get easier and finally you’re just laughing over them. Every step and every strain and hard breath and heart pump is an investment in tomorrow mornings strength. You’re watching the change with your own eyes and feeling it under your own skin and through your own veins. Fibers multiply and valves enlarge and walls thicken. A miracle.” “At least if the species has lost its animal strength its individual members can have the fun of finding it again.” Keep your words sharp and smooth Rebecca.