Let me begin with an old tale. Perhaps you already know it — and by a different name, depending on where you are from.
In Korea, there is 'The Fairy and the Woodcutter.' One day a poor woodcutter hides a deer fleeing from a hunter, saving its life. In gratitude, the deer tells him of a pond where fairies from heaven secretly come down to bathe. There the woodcutter hides one fairy's winged robe. Unable to return to the sky, she marries him and bears his children. Years later she finds the hidden robe, and at last flies back to heaven. Left alone, the woodcutter longs for the fairy who rose to the sky — and is said to have become a rooster, climbing to the rooftop to cry toward the heavens.
In Indonesia, there is 'Jaka Tarub and Nawang Wulan.' Jaka Tarub, a young man living at the forest's edge, one day hears women laughing deep in the woods. Following the sound, he finds heavenly maidens (bidadari) bathing in a pond. He secretly hides one maiden's winged shawl (selendang). Unable to return to heaven (Kahyangan), Nawang Wulan marries him and bears a daughter. Years later she finds the shawl hidden beneath the rice in the granary, and at last flies back to the sky. But she leaves a promise: "When the full moon rises, bring our child outside. Then I will return."
The two stories are remarkably alike. It is no coincidence. A woman come down from the sky, a stolen pair of wings, a bond formed, and an ending where she reclaims them and departs — this is one old tale scattered across Asia. Korea and Indonesia, without ever having met, have each cradled the same story in their own tongue.
But these two men share one more thing: their trade. The woodcutter made his living cutting trees on the mountain and selling them as firewood. Jaka Tarub, too, lived by leaning on the forest. Both were men who drew their livelihood from the trees of the woods.
And come to think of it, this is our own very old trade as well. For we, too, are people who take trees from the forest and turn them into fuel. Where the woodcutter of old carried dry branches on his back to light the hearth, we shape those trees into small pellets to light the furnaces of distant lands. The tools and the scale have changed, but the essence is the same: turning the strength of a tree into warmth for people. We are, in a way, the distant heirs of those old woodcutters.
So we would like to read this story a little differently — through the eyes of people who plant and raise trees, and who do the very same work.
Both men in the tales met something precious in the forest. And both made the same choice: they hid it, and tried to keep it. They concealed the robe, the shawl, to bind it to their side. For a while they were happy. As long as Nawang Wulan stayed, the rice in the granary never dwindled, and the household wanted for nothing.
But what came from the sky returned to the sky in the end. What was hidden and held by force did not last. From its hiding place the wings were found again, and the woman left. The stronger the wish to hold her, the more painful the parting.
but something to walk with by giving back.
We, too, take something precious from the forest. We cut trees to make fuel, and with it we light the fires of distant lands. But if, like those two men, we only hide and keep, one day the forest too will return to the sky. A mountain only taken from and never given back to grows bare in the end, and leaves the people. That, too, is something that has truly happened in many places around the world.
So we mean to be a different kind of woodcutter.
Instead of hiding what we take from the forest, we mean to give back more than we take. Where we cut, we plant again — and more. So that the mountain does not shrink, but grows, little by little.
We mean to return what we receive to the land and its people. Just as Nawang Wulan filled the granary richly while she stayed, we hope that abundance flows also to the land where this work takes root, and to the people there.
Then the forest does not leave. Just as Nawang Wulan promised to return with every full moon, a forest treated with giving comes back to us year after year. This is the cycle we believe in. Wings hidden in secret are one day discovered and gone — but a forest raised with care returns with every season.
The two men of old lost what they tried to grasp. From their story we learn the opposite path — to keep by not holding, to stay together by giving back. We mean to become woodcutters who know how to plant. And we hope our forest, like the full moon, will always return.