WHAT IF? (Part 2: What if we remembered our relations?)

    Pine Marten

While everything that humans make and do is "nature expressing itself," our “making and doing” has isolated us from many of the rest of the world’s inhabitants. We have forgotten our relations.

This seems at least partly due to the “human” and “nature” split that I talked about in the last post. When we use the terms “human” and “nature” we begin to think of them as somehow equivalent: as though “human” were on one end of a see saw and “nature” was on the other. We forget that we are just one species—ONE—among millions. One current estimate is 8.7 million. That looks like this:

1    (That’s us.)

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111………

That is only 352, but you get the point. 8,700,000 is a lot.

It is easy to forget that those zeros stand for more than the space they take up on the screen. Imagine 8,700,000 written out fully rather than symbolically. If we continued with the hatch marks, each page in a typical book would hold 2860 of them. A book with a hatch mark for every other species on the earth would be 3042 pages long. That is a very, very, VERY large book.

    American Red Squirrel

So to recognize that there is us.

AND there are 8,699,999 OTHER kinds of life that we share the world with.

This would be the place in this post where it would make sense to talk about extinction rates. Where I might mention how the usual background extinction rate is something like 5 species a year, and about how the extinction rate at this point is 1000 times that, more on the scale of the extinction of the dinosaurs. But one of the reasons I am writing these posts is that I am looking for a different route through this material. We have all heard about habitat loss and climate change, but this doesn't change how we live. I know when I hear things like that it is not really motivating; I just feel discouraged.

I get glimpses every now and then—mostly when I am still and silent—that there is a subtle but profound shift in my awareness in which I get a sense, for lack of a better word, of "okay-ness." I can't yet fully identify this shift and I certainly can't yet reliably live it. But I know that it exists, and every now and then I find it for a few minutes. Perhaps it is a sudden recognition of myself in the eyes of another creature. Perhaps it is really wondering what it means to do something as radically ridiculous as turning the other cheek. Perhaps it is actually letting in the idea that I am a light in the world.

What I do know is that motivating people to change through fear and shame doesn't seem to be working. Though it may galvanize short-term action, it also creates divisions—both in our hearts and in our communities. We can only care for what we love. And in order to love our relations, we first have to love ourselves.

    Western Screech-owl

So instead, I will start by saying that forgetting our relations is pretty normal. I don’t believe that ants pay much attention to the well-being of plants that can’t grow around their ant mound. Or that the cougar worries about the rabbit. Or that deer are concerned about grass. For the most part, this kind of worry would not be very helpful to that animal—it would simply create a creature that could not survive. This is not adaptation; it is neurosis.

Most species pretty much take care of themselves. And up until now it has mostly worked. Different species came and went, populations increased and decreased, but in the long run life on earth has become increasingly more complex and specialized and interwoven, mostly as a result of the collective effect of individuals going about their individual business.

    Metalmark Butterfly

But we find ourselves in a different situation now than the mountain lion and the ant. We find ourselves in a situation where our ability to problem solve and our communal reach has extended our impact in a way never before seen. We have not only developed more efficient ways to find food and shelter, allowing us to expand where we can live and in what numbers, we are also managing to reduce many of the factors that would have previously limited our population growth.

Human population estimates as of June 2019 (according to the US Census Bureau) list the current number of people at around 7.57 billion. If you thought the number of species is a lot, try wrapping your head around these numbers.

7,577,000,000

If it took a book 3042 pages long to hold a hatch mark for every species on earth, how long would that book be to hold a hatch mark for every human being on earth? Ready?

2,649,301 pages.

    Green Shore Crab

So this is another reason why it is easy to focus on ourselves. There are a lot of us. And we are big and noisy and interesting. We take up a lot of space. We make race cars and operas and World Cups and best sellers and satellites and movies. We wage wars and claim water rights and drill for oil. We can talk to someone from any country in the world by tapping our fingers in a magical pattern on a little glass screen. We can see pictures of ourselves (maybe even videos) from the time that we are born to the time that we die. 

There is so much about nature expressing itself as humans that is fascinating and beautiful and dizzyingly awe inspiring. And also terrifying and terrible. I do not understand a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the things that we are capable of as a species—physically, mentally, or spiritually. And I can turn on a screen that will show me pictures of human beings doing fascinating and courageous and stupid and inspiring and horrifying things from all corners of the planet at any hour of the day or night.

Where is there the time or the inclination to think about bobolinks or blister beetles?

    Blister Beetle

And this is not even taking into account the effect of wars, natural disasters, scarce resources, or just the daily effort of making a living and raising children on our ability to take the time to think about other creatures, or the systems of the earth as a whole—the air, waters, forests, fields, and lands that sustain all of life. There are many reasons why we have forgotten our relations.

I believe our relations are worth remembering. That having empathy and understanding for other creatures is part of knowing ourselves. That when we see the connections between things—can see the systems rather than just things in isolation—that we can find our place in the world. That what we do to the least of them we do to ourselves.

    White-tailed Deer Fawn

Wise men and women of all peoples throughout the ages who have known these things. Have known that life depends on other life. Have known that our well-being is tied to the well-being of the web. Have known that our nest is our nurture.

What would it take for us as a culture to remember our relations? Would it take nature developing a new mind—one that has more consciousness of the whole? Is this mind already in us and just needs practice and discipline to access? Are there indigenous cultures that know more about this? Is there a spiritual force in the universe that connects us to a larger reality?

And what would we have to give up? What would we have to face in our own hearts? What would we have to feel?

What if we were to remember our relations?

These are enough questions for a lifetime. But when I think about what it would look like to remember our relations right now, right here, today, I think of this:

“From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.” 

                       --Ursula K. Le Guin

    Coyote Pup

All photography by Tom Talbott, Jr., licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Day 114-132: Rest

In the past month and a half—spent mostly in the Mohave Desert—we have settled into a habit of hiking. Whenever we have free time, we go out first thing and spend the day wandering through washes and along the network of desert trails and roads. Sometimes we talk about what we are seeing: rocks, birds, plants, tracks, butterflies, a view. Sometimes we discuss what route to take when we come to a junction or lose the trail altogether. But more often than not, we are just walking in silence, often each at our own pace, settling deeper into ourselves as the miles pass underfoot.

This quiet is deeply healing for me. It gets in my bones. I can feel it, down in my core. As these long silent hours accumulate I can feel space opening up inside me in places that I didn’t even realize were full. I can start to see all the ways my mind keeps busy—thoughts and emotions, all the little pushes and pulls of a lifetime of experiences, the activity of life with other people. These long quiet days in the desert have made me think that perhaps the main purpose of this year for me isn’t “being open” or “learning,” as I thought before I left—perhaps the point is simply starting to rest.

A dear friend of mine gave me a book for this trip called The Relaxed Mind, Dza Kilung Rinpoche's thoughts about deepening meditation practice. I am drawn to the language of this book, as it is so different from the constant subtle pushing that is always in my own mind: that perpetual effort to achieve a goal, plan for the future, evaluate something, be more efficient, or learn and grow. This contrast is helping me see clearly the ways in which my mind is nearly always active.

When I was talking about my plans for this year with people before I left I could hear how even my best intentions had a partially false note to them. I knew that at times I was saying something not because it was completely true, but in part to justify myself or to do the right thing. The idea that the only point of this year is for my mind to learn to rest—that everything else is optional—is perhaps the first idea about it that has felt true for me all the way to its core.

I can see that this rest will make my actions more sustainable. Like a plant, I am stronger when firmly rooted in something still and solid. When my mind reaches far down into the earth for nourishment it can also stretch up into the light with flowers and fruit.

And that stillness is also where I find my source, that link to a deeper and broader wisdom than my own small perspective. In order to address the kinds of issues that face myself and the world, I need this kind of spaciousness inside me, or even my best intentions will likely mirror and perpetuate the difficulties around me. If I want harmony outside, I need to start with harmony within.

It would seem that resting would be simple. But when I see the barriers between me and real relaxation of mind, I can understand how it can be a lifelong goal. I feel grateful for my friend who understood that I needed this book, for Tom’s ability for silence and his willingness to share it with me, and for the time and space to just be alone and begin to listen past the everyday noise of my mind to the spaciousness we are all a part of.

          DESERT WALKING

     Blown clean by the wind

     of my future plans,

     I can feel the emptiness

     I was born to.

     Worry drained out.

     No where to go. The past

     just some grass 

     in a far field.

     That thought gone—

     just this hollow body

     making this music,

     this slow life-song.

--------------------

(After we left Lake Havasu, we spent three days at Mohave National Preserve, a couple days exploring Barstow and surrounding areas with Tom’s sister and family, then moved to Joshua Tree National Park and stayed eleven days exploring the rocks and hills and washes. We then moved down to a resort community in the Coachella Valley for showers, laundry, groceries, a haircut, and a place for Tom to get some work done. If I could only pick one place, Mohave National Preserve might be my favorite so far. It is more subtle than Zion, but I loved its wide open spaces and the varied terrain and plants. Oddly, I don't have any pictures from my time there that I like well enough to post, as I found it hard to capture its spacious, dry beauty. All the pictures in this post are from Joshua Tree National Park, except the fourth and sixth which are from the Coachella Valley Nature Preserve, and the fifth which is from Bill Williams NWR.)