the song of the earth

When I was growing up the word ‘pollution’ was something people actually heard. It didn’t put your mind asleep. You had to twist it around your head.  It forced meaning upon you. It’s totally different today. We’re shut down to words like pollution and cancer. Everyone in my family has died from cancer. These are big words meaning big things; entire eco-systems, our bodies’ immune system. 

     Entire regional ecosystems are in danger. It’s not just any longer about how many hectares or acres a tiger needs in order to be a tiger.  It’s not just about the curves in a river a salmon needs in order to be salmon.  Finally, in our lifetime, we’re seeing some dams taken down. We wait for the salmon to wiggle waggle up the river again.

     Today, we know that major dams, the largest constructions in the world, can cause seismic activity. We’re talking earthquakes. But the earth’s health is not even just about this sort of thing anymore either. It’s about how we’ve become threatened by our own existence. 

     Every day we hear about new extinctions.

     How do you talk about this enormous loss that all of us are facing?  Those that have little ones. Those that like to think about futures.  Like to think about the summer sun or kitchen gardens feeding families in Kenya.  The movement of people and animals. Rhythms.  Maybe the drumming of the caribou influencing our music.  We don’t really know how any of the subtle or even the strong rhythms transform or change the flow of the blood in our veins. What we do know, we know so well that we’re starting not to hear it. We know that mountains in Switzerland have to be covered to protect them from melting.  We know that bugs that have natural enemies are free to destroy because the cold that would suppress them no longer does. 

     We know that our opposable thumb is unopposable. 

     How do you talk about this and relate this to the loss of someone you love without making it seem like you’ve made too much of a leap and that people aren’t important?  When people rank priorities of life, we’re always at the top of the list. Do people have to be the most important? Of course they are to you. Those that love you; those that give you meaning, and gravity and ground. But what about all those other beings and bodies living on this planet that sustain all that you love? What do you know about that?  How close are you to it?  Is your ear to the ground? 

     Enki, in ancient Sumeria, the place that gave us writing, meant wisdom. Enki literally meant your ear to the ground. Can you hear the smooth turns a salmon makes up a winding river?  While in the belly, salmon eggs learn how to follow the river and to mind their way back to the open ocean.

     Every day another extinction.  Aldo Leopold said an intelligent tinkerer saves all the pieces.  We’re losing the pieces.  Rhythms are changing.  Some of the sounds that make up the song are disappearing.  Some of the movement in the river is stopped by dams and diverted waters. We should celebrate our differences. But we have to distinguish between difference and loss.  We know that the Earth has tremendous capabilities of renewal. Some people call wetland habitats the earth’s lungs.  If given a chance wetlands not only transform toxic wastes but thrive again and become open invitations to ducks flying overhead to rest during their migration.  Every being is a significant part of this world. Every living being, every body of water, every parcel of land. How do we learn how to hear what we’ve put into the background?  We need to start listening again.

the wild blue available at http://amzn.to/13RKQ2i

the dream to be human continues

under the tree and away from the city; beneath the moon but far from the sea. salt is in the air.  grass circles around the bare earth where the deer wait and have left the bones of the tree roots exposed to the night. here is where the deer wait to become human. the tree is magic but only because it is an integral part of the whole scene. you can see clouds of air from the deer’s nostrils. it’s that cool out this evening when they’re trying to be human and their breath is that warm. there is no music in the tree because it is winter and the leaves are in another reality not even dreaming of their unfurling. winter’s brief gusts of winds have a sound. they feel lonely.

why is it that deer would want to be human?  only they know. only the human that imagined this story knows.

when we have so much trouble being the best of what human has been storied; why wish that upon an animal that can come and go in silence and know the intimacies of winter, difficult and not, that brace their sides and frost their snouts.

so much of our time together as family members or friends; as extended family or in-laws or outlaws, those of us not legally in-laws; or as people we know through work or from the stores we shop at, so much of our time together is about the experience of becoming human. each encounter a way to open up more of ourselves to this experience that in the story of the deer is something to be desired.

my friend brian died recently. for him, his leaving was a part of his experience that he believed will bring him close to his ancestors. he is on a journey. his human qualities still to unfold after leaving this life.

in this life or the next maybe we are like the deer waiting under the tree. it is the night that transforms them if they wait under the tree in the moonlight with winter near and the wind quietly passing through.

Sometimes the carrot is a feather

Sometimes you have to go back to basics to get to where you want to go. So if you think you should be further along then you are and you’re feeling sadness or shame or something not right about it – try to remember, that sometimes, everyone, especially masters in their own craft, will take deep pleasure in going back to the very basic forms to reconnect with what is important and lasting.  For a tennis player that might mean hitting against the wall to gain strength and accuracy, and the purity of the swing that is yours unfiltered by the response of your opponent.

You might not stay long in the beginning mode.  You might realize that even here your experience informs the foundation movements.  It is about that first knowing the feeling – the moment you feel it and get it and understand it on what can only be called a cellular level.  We don’t seem to be able to stay in that beginner’s awareness for a long time.  But remembering the feeling is more than halfway there to hitting the ball right.

Other things will come into play. For tennis, the physical ability, sure, that will be one understanding and development for you.  The strength, accuracy, the feeling from the deep roots of your heels up through your arms. But the real journey of a good connection, in tennis or any other sport or deeply held activity, is from the feeling of the ground running through your legs and arms and into your imagination. That’s where you can really lay into the ball and move it wherever you want. It’s also true whether it takes place on the court, against the wall, or behind your closed eyelids; or whether it’s a soft hit, seriously strong and powered or the surprising fluency from timing. 

Deep body knowing is a great gift.  It is, once you experience it, hard to define as just physical.  Just as fear or dark feelings are not just emotional and ethereal.  If you know the sense of connection that the positive experience has you might also be able to identify the difficult and darker feelings that come with uneasiness, whether you call it fear, anxiety or depression.

When the fear comes or the darkness, it is like a cloud of sand that moves between the horizon and the plain. If only it were like a water spout, magical and from a distance, astonishing. Crowded by thoughts, by weights not entered on the periodic table core iron is pulled from your blood sending you into a sea darker than any ocean shadow. 

You might forget who you are and the meaning you’ve gathered for your life. You might forget what makes you smile. How this weight can come between you and what is joyful, that is the puzzle.  There is no set itinerary for the road back. Compasses are not helpful.  Yes it is possible to survive this time and enter your home or go to work. But the going and the coming could feel empty. In the rush rush world nobody notices that you have to try to engage. You pump the clutch; pull the gear into position and nothing. You look around for hills to gain momentum and trick the engine. 

I received a feather as a gift. It was under what I call my desk map but in an envelope. I had put it there to keep the specialness of the gift close by. But I had forgotten I had it.  It was a feather blessed by ceremony and connection; by meaning drawn from the shared experience of people holding the dream of our world in their songs and visions.  As I remembered this feather’s journey to me, I knew that it was always on the wings of my soul. The light was always the darkness’ partner. The day is mine to remember who I am and what makes me smile.