I shared the story of the meadowlark with my 15 year old on a walk through our neighbourhood. It helped her break out of her loops of concern and frustration about classroom politics. We both allowed some fresh wonder to come in about what the plants around us might be saying...
Beautifully written piece. This part of your essay resonated with me and reminded me of Linda Hogan’s book, Dwellings (highly recommend!): We need leaders of communities that are just as “ecological as [they are] cultural or psycho-spiritual. Both the human and the wider earth community need you in your fullness.”
Awesome-loved the story about Chauncey. I agree, if we’re going to find a way out of this mess it’s going to mean developing not only the left brain but the right as well. The Pachamama alliance is doing an initiative called “earth listening circles” and my goal is to take this model and make it part of my paid features.
The type of relationship that you are describing is grown over many generations of full physical and cultural immersion with the landscape. What possible path do we have to re-insert ourselves in that web, after centuries of dissasociation? Who will teach us to listen, to see, to understand again?
Truly. So many in the modern world yearn for such connections but miss the inter-generational ties of relationship, reciprocity, respect, kinship, commitment, intimacy and disciplined care from which they emerge. I'm sitting with your questions...they are profound
You’ve written about the very things I’ve been scratching notes about, painting and drawing for the past few years. I started this journey after leaving a nursing career in homeless and carceral health 3 year ago, starting the creative work I’ve always wanted to do. What you’re describing, with relationship and learning to listen to the land, get to know our ‘kin’ again, is the driving force of my work. That, and ancestral medicine. I’ve wrestled with how to describe it at times and you’ve done it so beautifully. Thank you, I relate and I appreciate your writing! 🫶🏻
Thank you so much for these words Alicia! I just had the chance to browse your beautiful artwork....the birds and plants. Your milk vetch picture took me back many decades....I remember harvesting and learning to prepare it in South Dakota! Wild blessings on your journey!
I write about this too (I Lean Liminal) -- sharing my meager but undeniable experience with readers in order to encourage them to similarly try. This is not some talent that only chosen people have (though that happens, too) but an innate ability that each of us needs to coax out of hiding.
Thank you Kathleen! So often we just need a little encouragement to step outside the gate...and remember what we have always known. As you say, it's 'innate'...we're 'born into' it!
Thank you for this. This what Bucky Fuller’s geometric systems thinking is about. David Bohm talked about the value of division but not for separateness. His Undivided Whole view is still blocked by materialist, machine metaphor views of Divided Whole. As a colleague has labelled “separation sickness”. We still follow our grade school arithmetic that the sum of the angles of an equilateral triangle is 180 degrees not the 1080 degrees of its inside-outside angles. We are of Nature, not separate from. Outside our 180 degree ME views (me, my family, my culture, my nation, my everything) is not irrelevant, dangerous, expendable, eradicatable, exploitable …..
Richard...your example of the 'inside' and 'outside' angles is such a poignant reminder of how we keep replicating the power, partiality and heart-breaking loneliness of the separated self. Thank you!
I shared the story of the meadowlark with my 15 year old on a walk through our neighbourhood. It helped her break out of her loops of concern and frustration about classroom politics. We both allowed some fresh wonder to come in about what the plants around us might be saying...
That's beautiful Will! We could all use a dose of 'fresh wonder' in our lives!
A beautiful woven web of experience. You're absolutely right- the relationships must be experienced as a living reality, not a rationalized network.
Thanks John! Love your website!
Beautifully written piece. This part of your essay resonated with me and reminded me of Linda Hogan’s book, Dwellings (highly recommend!): We need leaders of communities that are just as “ecological as [they are] cultural or psycho-spiritual. Both the human and the wider earth community need you in your fullness.”
Awesome-loved the story about Chauncey. I agree, if we’re going to find a way out of this mess it’s going to mean developing not only the left brain but the right as well. The Pachamama alliance is doing an initiative called “earth listening circles” and my goal is to take this model and make it part of my paid features.
Pilamayelo 🙏
OPEN SYSTEM
I choose to be the open system
unfolding through myself
wind ever blowing
tree ever growing
river ever flowing
I choose to weave this story
from luminous threads of ineffability
a mortal personality
worn by secret immortality.
I choose to trust
in the unmanifest
and so invite it
to become.
to wander
and remain center.
to hold the vision
in the dark.
to forgive
and remember.
to be mistaken
and so come to truth.
I choose to realize
that there is no separate basis
for any of this
and in so realizing
to float upon the infinite ocean
of oneself.
I choose to be ever learning
that I have known all along
that the mystery of being
is all that I am.
I choose to be the open system
liquid crystalline coalescence
upon a breath
writing this poem
that I’ve just finished reading.
Roots intertwine deep
Mystery breathes through our words
One tide, many shores
🙏🏼
This is beautiful- full of a deep love for earth and all within earth’s care. Thank you - so needed
Thank you for taking the time to share these kind words Jayne-Louise!
The type of relationship that you are describing is grown over many generations of full physical and cultural immersion with the landscape. What possible path do we have to re-insert ourselves in that web, after centuries of dissasociation? Who will teach us to listen, to see, to understand again?
Truly. So many in the modern world yearn for such connections but miss the inter-generational ties of relationship, reciprocity, respect, kinship, commitment, intimacy and disciplined care from which they emerge. I'm sitting with your questions...they are profound
You’ve written about the very things I’ve been scratching notes about, painting and drawing for the past few years. I started this journey after leaving a nursing career in homeless and carceral health 3 year ago, starting the creative work I’ve always wanted to do. What you’re describing, with relationship and learning to listen to the land, get to know our ‘kin’ again, is the driving force of my work. That, and ancestral medicine. I’ve wrestled with how to describe it at times and you’ve done it so beautifully. Thank you, I relate and I appreciate your writing! 🫶🏻
Thank you so much for these words Alicia! I just had the chance to browse your beautiful artwork....the birds and plants. Your milk vetch picture took me back many decades....I remember harvesting and learning to prepare it in South Dakota! Wild blessings on your journey!
Bravo, Julian. I think you nailed it!
I write about this too (I Lean Liminal) -- sharing my meager but undeniable experience with readers in order to encourage them to similarly try. This is not some talent that only chosen people have (though that happens, too) but an innate ability that each of us needs to coax out of hiding.
I also talk to the ancestors.
Thank you Kathleen! So often we just need a little encouragement to step outside the gate...and remember what we have always known. As you say, it's 'innate'...we're 'born into' it!
Thank you for this. This what Bucky Fuller’s geometric systems thinking is about. David Bohm talked about the value of division but not for separateness. His Undivided Whole view is still blocked by materialist, machine metaphor views of Divided Whole. As a colleague has labelled “separation sickness”. We still follow our grade school arithmetic that the sum of the angles of an equilateral triangle is 180 degrees not the 1080 degrees of its inside-outside angles. We are of Nature, not separate from. Outside our 180 degree ME views (me, my family, my culture, my nation, my everything) is not irrelevant, dangerous, expendable, eradicatable, exploitable …..
Richard...your example of the 'inside' and 'outside' angles is such a poignant reminder of how we keep replicating the power, partiality and heart-breaking loneliness of the separated self. Thank you!
Thank you for this beautiful writing, I will carry its spirit and messages with me as I attend to where I live
Thanks Sally! I just had the chance to dip my beak into Psyche's Nest - what a brilliant and inspiring sanctuary
Thank you Julia, may the whole world become a sanctuary, as we learn to love and listen to our places