Walking in a small protected forest, I constantly plunge into the dizzying effects of a landscape given freedom. There is so much to see on a small scale and so much to see looking up. So much to hear in the silence.
In reality there are probably no truly ‘old growth’ habitats left, between man and the alien creatures who follow, the balance is constantly changing. None the less I am grateful to be here now, breathing the air with them.
A friend included her list of books, which she is reading, in a letter at my request. In response, I provided a list of what captures me. Here is that excerpt, in case anything might please you too:
The way I read is perhaps odd; I tend to have a book pile and draw from it over many months. Much of it is non-fiction, so small bites work best. I usually read my fiction in gulps though. Often I hold onto them to look up bits I liked. One, that I read years ago, came to mind: Nekropolis, by Mauren F. McHugh. This is a science fiction set in a future Morroco where people bond themselves with bio/chem tech which causes them to love and obey. Very disturbing and interesting. I just read The Broken Earth series by a wonderful black woman author. She is found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._K._Jemisin. Well worth looking at; she is a well-educated woman who also writes engagingly. I love her, she includes geology in an interesting way! On my bookshelf/pile/kindle: NON-FICTION The Fruitful Dakness - Joan Halifax ;auto-bio, buddhist/ tribal/ travel. wise, mythic, insightful Art and Fear - Bayles & Orland: Observations on the perils and rewards of artmaking. The World Without Us - Alan Weisman: scientific imagery of the word recovering when man is gone. The Dream of the Earth - Thomas Berry: some marvelous insights into man vs earth on all levels; a Sierra Club book. Molded in the Image of ‘changing woman’; Navaho views on the human body and personhood - Maureen Trudelle Schwartz: an anthropologist that was adopted into a home and tribe, she provides exact quotes which challenge the reader to understand a culture so close, yet so different. Really good. From the Glittering World; A Navajo Story; Irvin Morris. This is mythology told by a contemporary Dine writer. The Hidden Life of Trees: what they feel, how they communicate - Peter Wohlleben, great stories about tree life. Fun. Becoming - Michelle Obama; revelations about herself and family. Just lovely. Educated - Tara Westover. escaping via education. worthy concept. POETRY/POETIC Dream Work by Mary Oliver: great poet, love her On the Loose by Jerry and Renny Russell: a fantastic journey in 1969, by these two young men. every Pacificas Crest hiker or wilderness lover should read it. Sierra Club. Nature - Emerson Walking - Thoreau Leaves of Grass- Whitman Letters to a Young Poet - Rilke View with a grain of sand - Wislawa Szymborska; great poems, nobel prize winner SPIRIT The Authentic Life - Bayda: Zen, 'Skillful Means’ with the saving grace of staying with the real issue: enlightenment. Emptiness - Guy Armstrong Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree; Voidness - Buddhadasa Bhikku I AM - Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj Centering in Pottery, Poetry, and the Person - M.C. Richards FICTION The Overstory : Richard Powers. Coalescing short stories with a tree. Very nice. You would like it. Terry Prachett, Neil Gaiman: basically anything they write. I like the humor and the view. Hillerman: Leaphorn and Chee series: detectives in Navajo Land. Fun. Any Medieval ‘who dunit’ (you can google this!) The Broken Earth series by N.K. Jemisin: Science Fiction well done.
Meandering. Stillness and silence lead me, waiting for something to open. During mediation all sorts of things open into my mind, then float away leaving me with a sense of insights having passed through me and moved on.
Much interconnectedness, for me, is the arising of serendipity within my experiences. Not mere accidents, to my mind, but a clarity of thought that culminates in allowing me to see more precisely how the world relates, one item to another and another, guiding me to a larger perspective. Among the books I am presently reading (and re-reading) is “The Dream of the Earth” by Thomas Berry. He charmingly dedicates this book “To the Great Red Oak, beneath whose sheltering branches this book was written”.
In his introduction, he begins with:
“One of the most remarkable achievements of the twentieth century is our ability to tell the story of the universe from empirical observation and with amazing insight into the sequence of transformations that has brought into being the earth, the living world, and the human community.”
Thomas Berry
I must acknowledge that all understanding is developed from empirical observation. From there I am forced to consider how crude our human instruments for observation still are, for all our microscopes, our scanning and calculating power, we still spend much of our time uncertain of what we observe and how to interpret it. Mr. Berry looks deeply into history, the wisdoms found in myth and ancient traditions, as well as the constant dawning of understanding from scientific exploration. From this broad view he asks: what is our responsibility to the earth?
Thomas Berry describes our relationship with earth as having phases similar to those Joseph Campbell describes in his ‘Hero’s Journey’. Humanity must let go of their childhood and move toward their own coming of age, in responsibility for the planet.
Of course this is indeed a very broad view, one that demands knowledge and understanding well beyond my own. It moves me, I can see the sense in it, the understanding that he conveys, but it leaves me trembling in my own smallness; the tiny thing that hides in the grass. So, I make my great strides with the use of small words; some borrowed, some my own, but only words. Understanding the things that cannot truly be spoken of with the use of words? Yes. How silly.
Virginia Woolf attempts it in this passage from “Time Passes” in “To the Lighthouse”:
“Then indeed peace had come. Messages of peace breathed from the sea to the shore. Never to break its sleep any more, to lull it rather more deeply to rest, and whatever the dreamers dreamt holily, dreamt wisely, to confirm—what else was it murmuring—as Lily Briscoe laid her head on the pillow in the clean still room and heard the sea. Through the open window the voice of the beauty of the world came murmuring, too softly to hear exactly what it said—but what mattered if the meaning were plain?”
According to Ursla Le Guin (lovely Oregonian author of Science fiction and so much more, recently lost to us), when discussing the style of this piece, Woolf is quoted in a letter to a friend:
“Style is a very simple matter; it is all rhythm. Once you get that, you can’t use the wrong words. But on the other hand here am I sitting after half the morning, crammed with ideas, and visions, and so on, and can’t dislodge them, for lack of the right rhythm. Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates this wave in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it.”
Virginia Woolf
in: Le Guin, Ursula K. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story (p. 32). Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Words may flicker through you and convey ‘the voice of the beauty of the world’. Ordinary magic, but magic, to be sure.
The Myth of Trees 