Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Von Lee, executive editor of Emergence Magazine. Each week we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. In this essay,

staff writer Chelsea Steiner

Scudder brings you into the sacred groves of India.

Fifteen years ago, the villagers of Piplantry in Rajasthan

had little access to clean water.

Rampant deforestation and the expanding marble quarry next door had drained the water table and depleted the ecosystem.

In Piplantry, like much of India, girls have been considered and treated as great burdens to their families. A dowry for marriage is often a source of crippling debt.

In 2006, the village mayor began a tree planting project

to empower girls and restore the ecosystem.

111 trees tells a story of a community redefining its relationship to the forest and to the girls

charged with its care.

Goddess of Wild and Forest, who seems to vanish from sight.

How is it that you seek not the village? Are you not afraid?

What time the grasshopper replies and swells the shrill Sequel's, Seeking to sound with tinkling bells,

The Lady of the wood exults,

and yonder cattle seem to graze.

What seems a dwelling place appears,

or else at Eve the lady of the forest seems to free the wanes.

Here one is calling to his cow,

another there has felled a tree. At Eve, the dweller in the wood

fancies that somebody has screamed. The goddess never slays unless some murderous enemy

approach. Man eats of savory fruits and then takes even as he wills his rest.

...