Save the Forest In Forest Lawn Glendale Cemetery, before all that's left is the Lawn!

The spirits of ancestors say, “Preserve the Forest in Forest Lawn Glendale!”

The spirits of ancestors say, ” Preserve the Forest in Forest Lawn!
That is right! If the voice of the one hundred thousands of people that chose Forest Lawn as their final resting place could be heard, they would most likely be chanting a loud plea. “Save the Forest in Forest Lawn before all we have left is the Lawn!” Unfortunately the forest in Forest Lawn Glendale is slowly disappearing. For the last ten years I have witnessed the sad deforestation in what can be considered a miraculous surviving lung in this vast metropolis we call Glendale, in La County and in California; On Mother Earth.

I have witnessed a multitude of healthy giant pines, eucalyptus and other species of trees that have made up the beauty of Forest Lawn for over 100 years cut to the ground with out any credible explanation to the patrons, or all the millions of visitors that visit Forest Lawn Cemetery on a yearly basis. Every time I have asked why they are being cut, I get the same answer, “They were sick”, they were too old”, Yet the remaining trunks of the many seventy to one hundred year trees, I have personally inspected show no signs of decay or illness. The same goes for the young 10 to 20 year trees whose severed stumps I have closely examined. I have found no satisfying explanation as to why these beautiful giants or the younger trees are being cut with out regards for their importance to the echo system, or respect to the memory of those buried under their majestic energy or that of their surviving family and friends, and the millions who feel attracted by their majestic healing beauty.

When my dear friend Jose Gerardo De Leon explained to me that he wanted his body to rest among the peace of this forest, I never imagined I would be writing this letter asking that his wish be respected, He loved the hill where his body was put to rest in 1996. As he explained to me, as his life faded away to cancer, he imagined that his spirit would be content knowing that the hill in which he chose to lay, had this enchanting overview of the forest; Something I believe he wanted to share with those of us that would visit his grave twenty years later; A sacred desire that may not longer be possible. At the rate that the Forest Lawn administration is exercising the symbolic Roman thumbs down to the lives of hundreds of trees, we may not have a life saving filter in the lung that is the Forest, in this intoxicating metropolis any more.

A few years back I found that the workers, who had just cut a beautiful healthy giant tree, had set a nest of squirrels with the baby squirrels still inside  aside. I called the director and made him aware of what I had witnessed. I made him aware of other animal species, a variety of birds, huming birds,ducks, eagles, hawks, owls, parrots, flocks a great variety of butterflies, praying mantis, beetles, raccoons, skunks, and even the enigmatic coyotes and Canadian geese that migrate to the forest yearly. I did not receive a positive response so, I wrote to him an email in which I said that the seedlings of the forest might have been here under the care of the Tongva or Chumash people long before the cemetery. Which means that before this cemetery there could have been another cemetery a sacred Native American cemetery which along with the village and forest seeds can be buried under what became Forest Lawn, but of course as always the rights of Native peoples to this sacred land were not respected and those of the ancient protectors of this land forgotten. For me, that alone makes this Forest even more sacred, and imperative to protect and preserve. All I got in response from him at that time, was a sort of warning email from a Forest Lawn attorney. I knew then that I would get nowhere with that Forest lawn administration.
Lets help the Ancestors Save the Forest in Forest Lawn Glendale before all we have left is the Lawn. Please help by signing this petition.