nature – Muse & Metaphor

The Erie Pathway

Monday night, a few things happened:

New Moon
Another International Space Station pass
The Tau Herculids meteor shower

My stepdad and I watched the ISS pass together on the front lawn. It’s really something special to see — and beautiful, like a star floating through my human view of the cosmos.

For the Tau Herculids, I drove to Lake Erie with a blanket and sat by myself watching for any movement in the sky. I didn’t see any massive meteors like I did a couple of years ago during a rare cloudless Michigan Perseid show, but thanks to the New Moon, I was able to catch a few of them. Regardless of size, they never fail to leave me in awe and inspiration.

Taken at Showse Park on the night of the eclipse. There is a lake there I promise!

Just a couple of weeks ago, I got to witness another astronomical wonder in the form of a total lunar eclipse on a full moon night. I had driven out to Lake Erie just to be near the water for a while. I did a bit of ritual work and made some offerings — things maybe she has never seen before, or recently. A couple of stones from her sister, Lake Michigan, an assortment of herbs, and I meant to leave her a feather from my collection, but there were a lot of people there and not much wind. It was the most still I have ever seen Lake Erie, actually. Despite that stillness, she seemed moody to me. I didn’t mind at all. I vowed to bring the feather back another day.

Monday night, as I visited the same place hoping for a meteor sighting, the wind seemed to pick up significantly, and I released the promised feather along with a lot of love onto her slightly more turbulent waters.

Monday night to Tuesday morning as I slept, I dreamed I was free-diving deep underwater. I was following another being, although I can’t remember who or what — they were a vague but familiar shape, almost like a raindrop but not quite a whale. We were looking for something (I don’t know what… a treasure maybe?), and the tone was rather playful and joyful. But eventually, I began to feel the panic of having held in a breath for too long, and I remembered that exhaling can help relieve that feeling. In doing so, I accidentally inhaled a little immediately afterward & found that I could take in a bit of oxygen. I was too afraid to take a big breath and so I made my way to the surface where I woke up in my own bed. I would like to think that I was swimming with Erie herself!

I think about all that she has been through since we modern humans burst onto the scene. Of all the five sisters, Lake Erie has been the most exploited by industry. Attempts at her ruination have been so severe, she has inspired laws offering her personhood. As you follow the coastline where I live, you can witness for yourself the impacts of that exploitation. Her shores teeter back and forth between shabby apartments, luxury homes, and industry all in a few short miles. For me, it’s a very strange mixture to see. Each area provides a decidedly alien feeling from the next.

It happens way too frequently that we, as humans, impose ourselves on our environment without consideration of the ways we affect it, and then we seek to blame that place for the problem. We do it all the time when we refer to a place as a shithole, or a dump, or what-have-you. But it isn’t the fault of the land, is it?

Despite all that has built up and torn down all around her, and the pollutants she has been exposed to, Erie is lovely. She’s moody, a little sassy, and sometimes crass, but she’s got a heart of gold. We cannot blame her (or any other place) for something the folks with opposable thumbs & capitalism did.

We do the same thing to ourselves — trashing our bodies and blaming them for it. My own body, my own ecosystem, has been badly damaged by my own hand. It hasn’t (usually) been on purpose or consciously willful, but it has been done nevertheless. Bodies are designed for adaptation. They respond to internal, external, emotional, and physical stimuli — even etheric, spiritual stimuli — and they warp, shift, move, and change based on that stimuli. In studying for my foot reading certification, this was a concept I became hyper-aware of. Many of the changes in our bodies, regardless of the kind of stimuli present, show up in the form of markers on our feet before we are even aware of them. These are all pieces of the grand puzzle that makes up a person, and no two are exactly the same.

I have recently begun a regimen of intermittent fasting because I want a better relationship with my body, and when you challenge the brain, stuff comes up. I have been on an 18:6 schedule, today I moved to a 20:4 — that is to say, I fast for 20 hours a day, and I have a four hour window in which to eat. During that window, I try to consume healthy, nutrient rich foods. It’s really not difficult… until it is. Without fail, my brain starts making claims that I am starving or doing something horrible which is completely untrue. The level of hunger required to actually be starving is far beyond than anything I have ever done. Still, I try to pay close attention to the shit my head says to me, questioning the thoughts as they arrive. The thoughts that come are like little fish jumping for insects, disturbing an otherwise quiet pond, only seen for a moment before disappearing beneath the surface again — but now I know they’re there. As I get further into it (I am only on day 10), it’ll get easier, and will pave the way for some longer-term fasts. For now, I choose to lean into the discomfort of hunger, and the discomfort of change. This discomfort is necessary, it’s temporary, and it’s fine. It’s just discomfort.

Healing is like that. It’s full of things that are unpleasant to look at but necessary to get through. I am on a Lake Erie pathway. As she fights to regain herself, her health, her autonomy — I do the same for myself. I push into the deep of my psyche, and I find that I can, indeed, breathe under this water.

Rites of Spring

We live near a reservoir which butts up to a beautiful woodland area, packed with wildlife. Although our yard is fenced in, we can see the water from our deck. During the day, the area is filled with pedestrians and their dogs walking the trails. At night, after the college students have sufficiently partied and stumbled home, the air is filled with the sounds of coyotes, frogs… life everywhere.

I have encountered a beaver, muskrat, deer, a couple of blue racers, geese, and many other birds and bugs here. There is a myriad of plant life providing nourishment and shelter to all of these many beings. In our own yard lives a massive oak tree whom we call Velda. She’s a stunner, and she has this undeniable and palpable benevolent presence. I am so grateful for her and to her.

Knowing that trees are connected, I wonder how Velda was affected by the city cutting down another old one last November? I was really upset by this killing. This big beauty was covered in vines and was absolutely teeming with birds in the springtime. I had a great view from my bedroom window, and the cats adored watching the busyness of life occurring on that trunk. I watched as they sawed and took the tree, piece by piece until only a stump remained. Although I wanted to, I couldn’t do anything about it but feel the range of emotions I had. It just seemed so unfair. Then on Thanksgiving Day, workers came and ground the stump into mulch. It was really, really sad. The mulchy remains are still where the tree once stood, now home to some burrowing creature.

Lumi thoroughly enjoying the bird activity.

Recently, we noticed the dogs getting more excited than normal in the backyard. At first, we weren’t sure what they were after. Often, it’s the regularly visiting fox squirrels causing the stir, but they tend to stay on the deck when chasing those sassy little things. I thought maybe they’d spotted a mouse. The house we live in is really old, with lots of old house issues, and is susceptible to invasions here and there. Just the other night, Henry caught one and brought it into the living room. He promptly dropped it and it got away, so naturally, he and Lumi were hunting all night long and well into the morning. They wore themselves out and didn’t come downstairs all day. Long after they both went to sleep, the little mouse came out from its hiding place and lingered under the window sill behind the vacuum that hadn’t been put away yet. I keep a plastic shoebox of random doodads near my chair. I dumped it out and somehow managed to scoop the little creature up before it could make a run for it. I took it out to the bushes and set it free.

There were other possibilities. Last year, my mom’s dog, Max, attacked a snake. I was able to get her away from him, moving her with a stick to a spot out of his reach, and then I shuffled both dogs inside. I thought she was mortally wounded at first, as a long string of apparent blobs hung from her, but I was wrong. The blobs were tiny, adorable coiled up babies, seemingly fully formed, but still in their sacs and not yet ready for the hard world they were thrust into. None of them survived.

That day, I learned that:

1. some snakes give live birth, such as the garter snake I encountered.

2. baby snakes are really, really cute, and my instinct to “protect baby” was still present even for a reptile (<3).

3. they can spontaneously expel their young when attacked in order to make themselves faster – a sad but potent defense mechanism.

But the commotion this year wasn’t snakes either — it was bunnies.

Max and Clara found a nest under the deck and ousted them from hiding. I am not sure where Mama was, but there were three babies in total. Two survived, having run to Velda. They ran straight to her roots, flattening themselves against her trunk. For the second time that day, I emptied a plastic shoebox of its contents. I held the wild bunnies in my hands only for moments to gently shuttle them closer to their nest under the deck. In shock, they didn’t fight me a bit until it was time to take them out of the box. The dying baby I held to my chest, petting her head as she took her last labored breath.

I buried her near the mulched stump of the old tree where the burrowing creature now lives, and found that the fuzzy discarded shells of magnolia buds everywhere looked, rather serendipitously, like bunny ears.

When things like this happen, we are challenged to find a reason for them. I think it comes down to the fact that wherever life is present, so is death. Springtime, though filled with newness, is often filled with pain as well. We can try to avoid it, but we will fail because it’s inevitable that we will be touched in some way by loss. The animal world knows it well and takes nothing for granted.

It is both a privilege and a hindrance to us to be so tightly bound to our conveniences. So here’s to Nature – the great Mother, the great Teacher, the great Reminder – that death is guaranteed, but not necessarily today, so go and find your joy already. Revel in it. And when you find the sadness at its end, drink that in, too.

Update

I know have been absent for a while now — initially because I was busy with my copyediting coursework, but for the last month, it has been because I have been locked inside myself trying to figure some things out. There have been catalysts for this disruption, but there isn’t anyone to blame. No one but me, here in my confused head. Nevertheless, it’s been a lengthy hiatus, and I am sorry to any frequent readers who have wondered where the fuck I have been. I also knew there was a potential that I would burn out on posting weekly, and I have. I may get back to that, though I would like to explore it in different ways… maybe videos… maybe art posts… maybe magic things! This is partly because I like doing different things, but also because I have some writing projects in the works and I want to devote more time to those. I want to push myself, of course, but I don’t want to force anything. I don’t want this platform to feel like a chore, so I am allowing myself a lot of grace around my absence. I will not be pushing for weekly communication any longer. I will be pushing for regular creation though… I have been working in Yellow Door (my workspace) a lot lately, trying to make it exactly what I want it to be. I will have a few products available on my Ko-fi store very soon.

My friend, Matt, and I walked a mountain mile to see this waterfall when he visited in December. It was worth every sore muscle I got.

On the subject of writing, I hadn’t intended to keep myself locked (predominantly) into a singular subject, but animism is a really important part of my life. For the last year, I have been studying animism with Cyrene Harding in her Animist Study Circle, which just concluded in December. Through the weekly prompts and exercises, as well as our live video calls, I feel my connection to nature has increased 100 fold. Animism informs all that I do, all that I see, and how I see it. While I have always been an animal and nature lover, this course of study has enriched my life and my perspective in far greater ways than I can currently articulate, and I will be forever grateful for the connections this work has inspired. I have joined for a second year, and expect that I will go even deeper this time.

As seen on the mountain. Aren’t they beautiful?

Also, I did finish my copyediting course! I am still in the process of figuring out my freelance career, but that’s on its way as well. I am rather stuck on pricing after having my confidence shaken a bit this fall. I honestly don’t know what I should be charging. I don’t want to low-ball myself, but I don’t want to overcharge either. The other matter is trying to decide on what services I want to offer. How niche do I want to go?

And, as is my way, I am probably overthinking it. Ugh.

Anyway, I suppose that’s all. 2021 was its own mood. It was often delightful but often strange, too; and now I am here in 2022 experiencing the first real wintery part of winter. I haven’t left the house in I don’t know how long. I mean, I know it was kind of recent, but I honestly couldn’t tell you why or what date. I haven’t got a major schedule right now so it’s easy to get lost in time.

Stay tuned! I have a lot of irons in the fire and I can’t wait to share them with you!

Solstice

I will be returning soon, and so will the sun!

Treeline

I am not feeling very writerly right now, so instead, I am spending time in the Yellow Door Workshop/Hag Room. I have been (foolishly) neglecting getting it organized and usable, and I am starting to really get mad at myself and my reluctance to create new things.

I will return next week, hopefully with a few additions to the ko-fi shop, but definitely with a usable workspace. This week please enjoy Treeline–a beautiful (and short!) documentary about the earth’s most ancient inhabitants.

We Are Not Visitors Here

On one of my recent trips to Michigan, I was listening to Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me! on NPR. I didn’t know this before, but female octopuses throw things at those who annoy them! On the show, they jokingly mentioned that this lot included people who try to “My Octopus Teacher” them, and I wondered if people were actually trying to snuggle with cephalopods after watching that film.

Then I remembered seeing this article where people had passed around a baby dolphin for selfies, and the baby died—so I guess anything is possible. Honestly, I don’t know why we are still having this conversation. You would be horrified if a group of people walked into your home, stole your baby, and ignored his/her/their needs to death just for a cute photo op. And this issue is not at all limited to a handful of species. It may not always result in an untimely death for the creature, but it nevertheless results in damage.

As for My Octopus Teacher, I have seen a lot of criticism about it on the wider internet, some even sexualizing the bond (which is gross, and I think says far more about the thought processes of those people than Foster’s relationship to this creature). One opinion I read even refers to the cephalopod as his mistress, simply because of the way he spoke about her beauty. They questioned where his wife was the whole time he was falling in love with this creature. I shouldn’t need to specify this, but the film wasn’t an autobiography about him or his marriage. We can’t know how his burnout affected their relationship, and frankly, it’s none of our damned business. I mean, have we really become such fucking literalists? Are we so shallow and reductive that we can’t see the beauty in what took place? Clearly, some of us are—a fact which saddens me.

Many other criticisms aren’t nearly as nasty, but they appear equally reductive. In Pippa Bailey’s thoughtfully articulated piece in The New Statesman on May 12, 2021, she writes, “Foster imagines the octopus as being like “a human friend”, waving to say, “Hi, I’m excited to see you”; he can feel her trust for him, he says, her invitation into her world. He wonders what she’s thinking, what she dreams about. In places, their “relationship” feels fetishized, held up as spiritual and sacred.”

I disagree with this on a couple of levels. First of all, I never felt like Craig Foster lacked understanding that the octopus was a wild animal. He knew very well she was wild. Not once did I feel like he approached without a deep respect for this creature. When connections like this happen, I think it’s really difficult to articulate. So much of the communication goes beyond what words can express. The relationship—that is, the part that happened to him, that he experienced—was spiritual and sacred. It may not have been so for her, and that’s okay.

“I fell in love with her but also that amazing wildness that she represented and how that changed me.”

Secondly, I didn’t feel as though he assigned her human attributes. He wondered what she dreamed about, true. But before that, he wondered if she dreamed at all. He fully acknowledged their differences, even as there may be some similarities. He spoke of feeling like he, himself, had been dismembered when she lost an arm to a pajama shark. To me, this felt like something akin to a shamanic experience brought about by a deep sense of compassion for this creature. Sorry, not sorry—that’s a spiritual experience. He was going through something within himself, and it’s natural to identify with others—even non-human ones—during those times. Her purpose in life was not about him, and yet she gave him a sincere gift, even if she did so unknowingly.

In another sense, I agreed with Pippa:

“Animals are not there for us, to be treated as commodities or companions as we see fit; to be reduced to their usefulness to us. Nature does not exist to alleviate our restless emptiness, much as it may do so.”

The natural world is not ours to commoditize. Yet we do it with animals, plants, water, and land. We do it to the detriment of all beings, ourselves included. It’s wrong, but I don’t feel this was what Craig Foster did at all. He recognized the necessity of every part of the ecosystem. From his experience, he founded the Sea Change Project, which seeks to use storytelling methods to “protect South Africa’s marine environment by making the Great African Seaforest a global icon.”

What Foster engaged in was immersion.

Perhaps it seems like he just jumped into the water and started playing with the octopus, but the relationship Craig Foster forged with that magnificent being was cultivated over a significant length of time. It couldn’t have happened if he hadn’t allowed himself to become part of the environment. He even ‘discovered’ several never-before-seen species of shrimp during filming.

I have talked about immersion before, and I will refer to it again and again. Joe Hutto understood this with his turkey family. Craig Foster understood this, too. He understood it from his first longings echoed with the San Bushmen in the Kalahari years before. He understood it when he dove without a wetsuit to be fully present in the water—to become part of the water. I believe the despair he felt before came from the disconnect between himself and the natural world, and I think this is something many of us can find resonance in—I know I can. In our modern world filled with walls and towers, it is easy to think of ourselves as apart from Nature.

“What she taught me was to feel that you’re part of this place, not a visitor. That’s a huge difference.”

Relationships must be cultivated. Generally speaking, they aren’t formed in a split second, no matter how short a film makes them seem. What may happen in a short time is a soul recognition of bonding potential. I don’t think Foster’s relationship would have occurred with a different cephalopod—this was a chance meeting between two curious beings. She had to have the willingness to interact, and she seemed to. He reached out—not to “tame” her, or make her submissive to his will, but to connect… and she reached back. Unlike the people with the baby dolphin, he wasn’t there for the spectacle; he was there for the spectacular. That’s the difference.

What I saw in this film was a man diving not just into the ocean, but into a remembrance of his own connection with the wild. He was changed because he allowed himself to be moved in accordance with his own soul’s longing. He answered a calling and offered it as poetry to the world. That little cephalopod was the catalyst. Although her life had meaning before her encounter with Foster, the impact she has had on those of us who allowed ourselves to be moved by their interaction cannot be understated.

Rooting Deeper

I don’t feel at all positive about having missed my usual posting time this week. I was going to take an entire week off because I am having a lot of difficulty focusing on my work and connecting to exactly what I want to say and how to say it. This is particularly frustrating since I have been wanting to work heavily on my connection series, but it’s just not flowing the way it should! I thought I had it together, but what I intended as one piece was actually four or more, but none of those individually had enough info to fly solo, if that makes sense!

I have been feeling a little disconnected in general. I am going to chalk it up to the retrograde season we’ve been in — not that I am an expert on such things! Also, my beloved trail is closed to the public right now, and that was my primary source of physical activity. My body feels strange to me, my face looks weird, my hair is… blah, whatever. I feel frozen in place. There is a TON I want and need to do, but getting into anything sets my brain into a panic.

Also, I started a certification class. I know damn well this class has the potential to change my life and offer me a prolific career within the writing world, and that scares me a bit! Consequently, I have been doing everything under the sun to avoid my work, including spending hours learning how to tie beautiful knots, which didn’t start as avoidance! I was trying to create artwork for Muse & Metaphor, and it is far easier to draw knots with a visual reference. If you read my last post, you may have noticed that knots had quite a presence. I thought knots could be a sort of connection mascot. And now I am feeling both stuck and behind in my work.

To help move myself away from the struggle bus, I have taken a cue from trees and other plant life this week.

One of my most beloved observations in nature has been seeing the way the base of an old tree twists as it comes up from the ground in a perpetual spiral toward the sun. Plants instinctively know how to find the light and move themselves toward it. This is why we turn our houseplants periodically so they grow evenly. It’s why plants at the edge of a wooded area lean toward a clearing where the sun touches everything.

Roots work similarly. They instinctively know how to maintain their stability and growth, constantly moving deeper and reaching further to where water and nutrients are present. Without these capabilities, trees would not survive the seasons and storms they have no choice but to weather. And yet, as far as they spread and as tall as they grow in their searching, they are always home.

No singular thing can be the source of all my inspiration. No one person or thing can meet all my needs, nor can I meet all of theirs. In moments like I am having now, where I am struggling to find my footing or to feel nourished, I know I need to root deeper. When I can’t find the proverbial light, it doesn’t mean it’s not there—I just need to turn.

My Animist Values

I try to bring a little bit of the sacred into my everyday existence, even if it’s just taking a 5-minute walk through town and visiting with the glorious Beech tree, the ever-so-magical Dawn Redwood trio, or any of the other lovely beings living there. It doesn’t have to be long or complex to be meaningful, and there are no special tools required — just a willingness to connect with the life surrounding me, human and otherwise.

Connection is a word I use tirelessly because, for me, it is an absolute necessity. Connection is everything, and behind nearly everything I do. If I do not feel connected to what I am doing, the home I live in, the land I occupy, the people I am spending time with, or the things I surround myself with, then what’s the point? Where’s the actual magic, if not living within the connections we foster?

Over the last several months, I have been working to define my values as an animist through a course of study with the oh-so-wonderful, magical Cyrene Krey of Shadow Animism. I have talked a bit about some of my foundational beliefs in past posts, but I want to take a little time to highlight what I have come up with thus far, as this exercise in definition has enriched my experiences and increased the depth of connection I feel to the world. These may shift a little as I continue to cultivate my path, but the bones are here and ready for the flesh.

Allowance

I honor other beings without the expectation that they conform to my ways of expression and behavior. I allow them to exist as they are, rather than as I am. I lower my demands on their existence, as they are not mine to rule or preside over.

Connection & Communication

I understand that communication and expression aren’t limited to my human ways. I allow myself to connect from a deeper source of understanding beyond my oral language; and to be moved and changed by releasing, at times, my modern human logic and desire to explain away my experiences.

Creativity & Deference

As I belong to the Earth, I offer my deference to Nature as greater than myself. I use creativity to move through challenges presented to my person. I pay tribute to my experience of other beings through creative means.

Equality

I hold all beings as equal to myself with the recognition that they each have spirit, consciousness, intellect, wisdom, and emotion — even when their expression differs from my own. All beings are valuable by merely existing. All beings deserve respect. I actively work to shift my language to foster inclusivity among human and nonhuman beings alike.

Gratitude

I hold high the intricacy and beauty of life, even when it proposes an inconvenience to me. I express my gratitude to the land I occupy and the beings I share it with.

Of course, this is my pathway and my set of values. Defining them, for me, has brought a greater sense of peace and meaning to my life and all the encounters in the natural world that I have been blessed with (I have several stories that I’ll share down the road), deepening my sense of connection to my world. Your values may look a little or maybe a lot different, but I would encourage you to take a look at them and try to define them clearly for yourself. The truth is we are all here on the Earth doing the best we can to live our lives. We all arrive at our understanding of life and the divine at different times and experience it in different ways. Regardless of these differences, I think we can agree that a life without connection is no better than an empty, obligatory handshake.

Avalanche

A while back, I was sitting outside at night listening to the frogs singing to one another across the reservoir. The wind was picking up pace and creating a song of its own through the branches of the giant oak trees in our yard. I had been feeling on edge all day as it was, but sitting there by myself with only night sounds and my own undercurrent of thought to keep me company, I started feeling angry. Although I couldn’t seem to name its source, I knew there had to be one — emotions don’t happen for no reason. I didn’t want to spend too much time trying to analyze it though, I just wanted to move through it. For me, this meant finding a way to express it without causing damage to myself or anyone else.

There was a time when I’d have just let it fly. I’d storm around, yell over seemingly nothing. If there was no direction to point in specifically, it got pointed in all directions — including at the people I love. It wasn’t simply that things annoyed me — those were merely the surface I could see. And yet, I would lose my shit on the regular over these little things, unwilling or unable at the time to look at what was happening underneath. Anger wants a reason — a harbor for blame — and if we can’t find one that fits, it will happily take up residence in places it doesn’t belong, causing us to misfire and do harm. Don’t get me wrong, anger has a purpose and can be wonderful and powerful fuel for change. I don’t think negative emotions have to be “bad” unless they’re left to fester. It’s what we do with them that matters.

This tendency to pop my cork bothered me. I didn’t want to be known as someone with a short fuse anymore, or someone who just seemed to always be angry. Through a lot of reflection, I noticed a pattern in myself. When I am hurting, I cannot always express it in the beginning. Sometimes there’s quite a lengthy delay. I spent a such a long time dumbing down my feelings for palatability because I scale toward people-pleaser. The trouble is that, without expression, our pain can turn malignant. Suppressed, misdirected anger is one of those malignancies, and I think for me, a lot of that came with the lowering of my boundaries or failing to assert them at all. On some level, knowing my wounding, I’m sure I thought this leniency would lead to more love, more acceptance if I allowed more bullshit. As you might imagine, it didn’t.

That night, sitting with my anger, I thought about how good it might feel to just scream it out and have a full-on tantrum, but since I live in a neighborhood with neighbors and stuff, I figured it probably wouldn’t be a great idea to try. As my thoughts carried on, I accidentally pictured myself on top of a mountain, completely isolated. This could work, I thought. I started remembering the smell of cold, and how it feels entering my nose and lungs. I remembered the way snow sounded as it crunched beneath my boots… the feeling of fine, icy powder turning to mist as it touched the warmth of my face. I remembered how it felt when the cold settled into my skin, making it difficult to flex my fingers.

I started thinking about avalanches and the old myth that screaming in a snowy mountain landscape could cause one.

Avalanches aren’t caused by screaming (not in real life anyway), although I suppose they could be caused by a toddler-style, throw-yourself-on-the-floor tantrum. Although 90% of them are triggered by human activity, they also occur naturally. The conditions have to be just right — the right angle of slope, snowpack, temperature, and sudden changes in the environment. The mountain, bearing all that weight, would have to be ready to let go, so to speak, unless a “controlled” avalanche was triggered for safety reasons. I started to really worry about this because some of these avalanches can wipe out forests… or even entire villages. I ran with the thought before I reminded myself that this landscape, while based in reality, is my creation and I can do whatever I want. There doesn’t have to be a village or a forest at the bottom if I don’t want there to be, and I can cause an avalanche with my screaming, however impossible it is in the physical world — it’s my fucking landscape.

Maybe it sounds silly, but it didn’t feel silly. The idea of expressing myself loudly and drawing attention to my person is very uncomfortable for me, even when no one is around — even in this format. It felt like something truly powerful to visit this place. Staring at these amazing ancient earth formations, high above the altitude I am accustomed to, I wondered how effective this visualization could be if no one was there to witness me. I think having our emotions witnessed is important. Being seen is important. I wondered, could an experience be a true catharsis without someone there to see it? In other words, If a tree falls in a forest and there’s no one around, does it make a sound?? After considering this for some time, I came to this notion: The mountain range is a place inside myself, and I exist. Whether I choose to exist loudly or softly, every cell in my body bears witness and reacts accordingly. I am never alone.

Imagining the weight of the snow on the peaks as my own unexpressed emotions waiting to be released, I recognized myself as of the Earth. I let out my scream, stomped my feet, and jumped up and down, allowing myself to run the full gamut of tantrum-having. The mountains rumbled as the snow galloped wildly down the slope in a holy celebration of release, knowing the exact path to take from start to finish. Rocks, trees — the very air itself — bore witness to me. The Earth, in her ancient wisdom, took the anger — knowing exactly what it was even though I did not. She took it, diffused it, and turned it into something useful, as is her way. Nothing is wasted.

Taking in a final deep breath of frigid air, I opened my eyes. I was back beneath the trees with the frogs singing, and the wind still dancing through the branches. A sense of relief washed over me – I felt lighter, as if a tremendous burden had been lifted. The sounds around me felt different, too. Whereas before they were filtered through my angst, I could now hear their ecstatic joy.

I still get angry sometimes without fully understanding the source. It doesn’t happen terribly often anymore, but when it does, I know I can visit this place within me and tend to my needs. It is not a place of blame, but of reclamation. Here, I stand fully within my power. I can create and destroy at will. I can take back the power I have given away, I can take back all the places where stakes were driven in, and the gifts of my being exploited. Each time I do, I feel closer to the truth of me, and the truth is — I can move mountains.

Some Thoughts on Nature and Culture… (and the nature of culture)

Just going to toss this out there and get right into it…

Animals and plants have culture.

This statement is one of my core beliefs and has guided me to name animism as the cornerstone of my spiritual path. By the current scientific understanding of what culture is, you could easily tell me I’m wrong. (I mean, I’m not wrong, but you could say I was if you really wanted to.) By definition, culture is a human-centric concept held together by “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group…” Animism asks us to broaden our concept of what culture is to include everything in our natural world — to expand our understanding of what life, sentience, consciousness, and soul are. One of the ways we can do this is through cultural immersion.

Consider how we learn other languages. It’s all well and good to take a class and study them from a book or an app, but the deepest understanding of a language is acquired through exposure to people who live the language, and by experiencing the culture from which it sprang. Otherwise, one word can run into another, and much is lost in translation. For instance, in Sanskrit, there are 96 different words for love, and they all have their own variation in meaning. Use the wrong one and you’re conveying the wrong thing.

The same goes for nature. We can memorize facts until our faces turn blue, and those facts will be true. They will also be cold — lacking in nuance and dimension like office metrics. We can still love nature from that distance, but there is no replacement for digging your toes into the soil. There’s a magic that occurs when we stand in a space of allowance for the notion that the millions of other beings we share the earth with, just like you and me, are individuals with their own needs, desires, opinions, and preferences.

For a spectacular example of what immersion can do, check out the 2011 episode of Natural World from PBS, My Life as a Turkey. This is a reenactment of the experiences of naturalist, Joe Hutto, as detailed in his book Illumination in the Flatwoods. I have watched it numerous times now, and I’ve found it deeply moving. I hope you will as well! Once you’ve checked that out, I recommend you read the Q&A that took place afterward, as Hutto provides some wonderful insights about the program and his experiences with the turkeys.

Without immersion, Hutto might not have been able to witness variants in their personalities, or the subtleties in their appearances that made them unique from one another. While wild turkeys are thought to have 29 calls, it was because of immersion that Hutto identified more than 100 calls, acknowledging there were even more he couldn’t catalog. These are just a few examples, but he experienced these things when he chose to become a turkey instead of asking the turkeys to become human.

Of course, we can’t all imprint on a clutch of turkey eggs (nor should we), but we don’t have to. We simply need to see that, just like people, not everyone in a species is the same. We all communicate differently, learn differently, and emote differently. And we are all here together—individual and valuable beyond the meat on our bones.