Reclaiming Enchantment

This is inspired by Sean Donahue’s recent article in Gods and Radicals, “The Neurobiology of Re/enchantment”.

As far back as I can remember I’ve felt my world as enchanted. I think most of us do as children, but as we get older this sense of enchantment is left behind. What I mean when I say I felt the world as enchanted is a knowing not only of everything (besides humans) as alive, but also aware and connected to me in a way that allowed, even encouraged, communication and participation: trees, plants, the brook down back, even the smooth stones that provided a way of crossing the brook. Even now, more than fifty years later, I can close my eyes and bring the vision and the essence of that brook and those stones clearly into my being. It wasn’t something I thought about, at least not until I was much older, it just simply was.
    I was fortunate to grow up in what is generally known as the Mount Washington Valley of NH. The woods were my playground and my father taught me so much about them all the years of my life. We moved to this area when I was 3 from Norwalk, CT because my father had fallen in love with the mountains (God’s Country he called it) as a Boy Scout on a camping trip. Before moving, we’d vacation often in one of the National Forest campgrounds. Our tent was a large Army surplus version and I can still remember how it smelled - a bit musty, a a bit like turpentine, but also of the woods and bug dope, wood smoke and mystery.
    Spring! When the woods come out of their deep sleep! As soon as the snow melted I’d begin my daily visits to my special places looking for the beginning of new growth. I relished the musky, damp smell of earth as I gently moved dried leaves and pine needles to see if the May flowers were blooming yet. I’d visit the shady place under towering white pines where the Lady Slippers grew. Mostly pink, but some white, and occasionally a very rare yellow one. Then there was the bog closer to the brook where violets bloomed and Jack-in-the-Pulpits. And everywhere red and painted trillium, and what I called “wild lily of the valley”, starflowers, partridge berry - I had so many plant friends! What a happy day it was when I’d spy the first, oh-so-fragrant May flower! That meant spring had really and truly arrived!
    I never tired of examining rocks for hidden crystals, large bits of mica, and garnets. My parents didn’t seem to worry about me spending so much time alone down back in the woods, or later as I’d take off on my bike to explore Diana’s Bath or the Saco River or to pick blueberries in one of the many places I knew. And it never occurred to me to be afraid.
    Yes, I admit I lost this sense of enchantment when I got older. Not my knowledge of it but the reality of it in my daily life. Instead of it just being the way it was, I had to consciously bring it back. Sometimes it seemed that a particular tree or place would tap me on the shoulder, saying, “Hey! Susan - remember me?” And the communication would be there. But mostly reconnecting was up to me and I admit there were times when weeks would go by as I lived my life on the surface of this deeper, more meaningful reality.
    But I always eventually found my way back. An life bereft of enchantment is dull, boring, tiring, so far removed from my personal sense of what life is all about. The culture we live in does everything to make enchantment disappear, to discredit our very real and life-affirming (indeed life-giving!) connection/participation with the more than human world that makes up most of life here.
    Enchantment informed and made possible the many years I spent as an activist, writer, advocate for an economy for the living earth. But over time what I learned, the horrors humans inflict on the earth, indigenous cultures, indeed all of life, for profit and meaningless crap, for wars and power, and in ignorance of what they are really doing not only to the planet, but to themselves as well - took its toll and I was no longer able to honestly share stories of hope and enchantment because I was burnt out, depressed, and angry.
    It felt like I literally ran away when I left Vermont for Maine. I had to move here because of a family situation, but the timing was perfect. The first thing I did after making the decision to move to the family home to live with my disabled sister - even before actually moving our stuff here, was to start a garden. And fall in love with all the beautiful, huge white pines and ancient maples that live here. And the views of the mountains I grew up with. Over time thanks to these magnificent trees and mountains, digging in the soil, planting perennial herbs and flowers, just being here, I started to come back to life and my heart opened and magic and enchantment became real again.

    Time passed. My two older boys were already on their own when I moved here, then my youngest also moved away. Grandchildren were born. The garden thrived and kept me sane in so many ways, and when I’d forget the magic because of the burdens of life, someone always pulled me up, shook me, and reminded me of what’s real. (When I say “someone” I mean a plant or insect or frog or tree or bird - someone who knew me and wouldn’t let me get away with forgetting who we are, what we are to each other).
    But despite my best efforts, and the best efforts of the more-than-human beings in my life, fear crept in. Fear and anxiety have always haunted me. Sometimes just lurking like shadows that disappear when you seek them, sometimes growing huge and dark lunging for me wherever I’d turn. Climate change, the destruction of so many beautiful places, the loss of bees and butterflies that became impossible to ignore as each spring and summer saw fewer and fewer of these magical beings visit my garden, increasing species extinction, all the horrors and pains of the times we live in became overwhelming. No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape my awareness of them and fear and anxiety became ever-present in my daily life.

    At the same time, Jason’s life (my oldest son and father of 2 boys) started unravelling. Drugs had held a lure for him off and on over the years, and as his life started falling apart he fell to drugs to deal with the pain. A part of me knew this, of course, but a larger part wanted to believe him when he’d tell me everything was okay. But addiction is a disease that won’t go away just because you want it to (whether you’re the addict or someone who loves the addict), and I eventually had to accept that Jason was seriously addicted to heroin (or any drug he could find if he couldn’t get that), and my love wasn’t enough, his love for his sons wasn’t enough. I write about this period of time in one short paragraph, but his descent into addiction so serious he lost everything until he was living on the streets of Barre, VT in the fall/winter of 2012/2013 took a couple of years of ups and downs, lies and truths, and so much hurt and pain and despair words don’t do it justice.
    Meanwhile I tried to live my life here as if everything was okay. I spoke with Jason frequently (we always were close that way), I saw him when I could but not as much as I now wish I had. But it was so hard and after every visit, whether he came here or I went there, I had a sick feeling inside like something was decaying. I knew my son was in trouble. But I felt helpless and wanted more than anything to stay in denial. I wanted/needed to believe his lies. And in fact, a part of him actually believed them when he was telling them to me.
    Enchantment? There was none. The garden was my salvation. When I was digging and planting and weeding I was present in the moment, and it was a relief. It was pretty much the only time that I was. If I wasn’t in the garden or making herbal stuff or cooking/cleaning, I’d be escaping reality completely in a book. I read like a crazy person to keep the fear and pain and despair at bay.
    There was a lot that happened in the final three months of Jason’s life. They were so painful and I was petrified and angry. Not at Jason but at the system itself that refused to help him when he literally begged for help. That’s it’s own story, but I will say here, as I’ve said often, that most people think the hardest part of recovery is getting an addict to admit they need help. That once they finally ask for help it will be there. That is so not true. Yes, it’s hard to get an addict to admit they are powerless and they hate what their life has become and they desperately want help. But the lie is that help will be there. Sure it will be if you have great insurance or plenty of money, but for people like my son who just had Medicaid and nothing else, not even a roof over his head, the help isn’t there.
    Jason died in May 2013. The medical report found fentanyl in his system, the amount consistent with a heroin dose. But that amount of fentanyl is fatal. So either the person who sold him the drugs that killed him that night, or the person who sold them to that person in effect committed murder. And this person has never been found or punished. This person is also probably responsible for more than Jason’s death because there were a string of overdoses, and at least one other death, within a few days of Jason’s death.
    If you have ever lost a child you know there is nothing as painful. I remember going out to the garden, leaning on the potting bench that Jason built me after I first moved here, looking out at the mountains and just keening. I had heard that word before and knew intellectually what it meant, but until I opened my mouth and that sound came out I had no idea of the pain behind it. I felt as though all my limbs were being torn off me, like my heart was being ripped from my chest. The pain was just as physical as if I was literally being torn apart alive. I keened and keened and keened, loud and harsh until I was hoarse and spent. Then I went back inside.

I found it hard to talk to people except my sons and very close friends. The first person I called after learning Jason was dead, was my long-time childhood friend who lost her younger daughter in a car accident years before. Melissa would have been the same age as Jason. She was killed when she was 16. Chris was the only person who would know exactly how I felt.
    Where is enchantment in the midst of such despair? In fact, it is everywhere. It is probably why I am still here now. My knowing that there is more to life than meets the eye allowed me to be open to signs, to dreams and even visitations from my son. Here is just one example:
    My mother died when Jason was 4, and she loved him so much. After he died, I asked her to send me a sign, and I trusted that she would. The sign came in mid June, about 3 weeks after Jason died, and a week before the Celebration of his life would take place in Vermont, when the oriental poppies started blooming. These poppies are fragile, their blooms don’t last long, and rain or wind will speed their demise. (Ha! and as I started typing this, my pictures of oriental poppies started displaying in the background of my computer screen!) A couple of the poppies had bloomed, the first two of the season, and since rain was predicted, I went out and took pictures. It did rain, and it rained hard. The next day I went out and more poppies had opened - but the first two were just as fresh and beautiful despite the rain. Each day more poppies opened, there were a couple of rainstorms, but none of those poppies lost any petals! Not even the first two.

    Finally, one evening I was standing just outside the garden fence closest to the poppies, that were still gorgeous. It was that time of day when the sun was just setting and the air was glowing golden - and I realized that the poppies were my mother’s sign! She loved to garden too, and especially loved flowers. She didn’t have poppies, but sh

e knew how I loved them. When the realization finally came to me, I heard her voice saying, “It took you long enough!” which is exactly what she would have said when she was alive. The next day all the poppies were losing their petals. This is enchantment. It speaks to communication and participation and how truly connected our hearts and spirits are not only to each other even after death, but to the natural world - the spirits of the plants and the woods - there is so much more to who and what we are to each other than our physical bodies bouncing around here on this bountiful, endangered earth.
    There were other signs too, and I wasn’t the only person who loved Jason who felt/saw/experienced his spirit manifesting through nature. Someday I will write those stories too.
    After the Celebration, in which time was literally suspended - a reality that everyone who was there marveled at over and over, I returned home and quickly sank into despair. I had no energy. Even the garden was a chore though I kept it up because it’s what I do. The house was never cleaner. Shelves, drawers, closets that had been ignored for years were scoured, things sorted, tossed or donated. I had to stay busy but I couldn’t do anything that required me to think or feel. Cleaning fit the bill perfectly. But then what?
    I had trouble breathing through my nose, couldn’t take a deep breath, nasal congestion became the norm. I had never suffered from allergies but now it seemed I was allergic to everything, in every season. I had no health insurance and didn’t have the option of expensive allergy testing so I basically had to live with it and deal as best I could. I had recently started making botanical perfume, took a great course, and was starting to make my first blends - then Jason died. And now I could hardly breathe. My creativity was gone. It was all I could do to keep up with orders for my existing herbal products. There would be nothing new created for quite some time.
    Fear and anxiety overtook my life. Every storm was a disaster waiting to happen. Every gusty wind, every lightening strike, every inch of snow. The huge trees that I fell in love with became potential destroyers of my home. And indeed there were homes nearby that had trees blown onto them - we have had, and continue to have, numerous heavy storms that cause severe damage due to downed trees. So it’s not like I was being silly. It could happen. But I lived with the anxiety that it would, and then all the work and stress of dealing with the aftermath would fall on me. My blood pressure sky-rocketed, and it got to the point that I could never breathe fully through both of my nostrils at the same time. I felt that life was a burden and I just wished I could breathe or die. One or the other. The limbo I was in was stifling. In short, there was no enchantment, no magic in my life.
    The first year anniversary of Jason’s death was more painful than I could have believed possible. I wasn’t prepared for it - but I now know this is normal. I wish someone had told me what to expect. I relived the whole thing: a year ago today I spoke with Jason for the last time - thank god I told him I loved him - it’s the last thing I said to him. And the last thing he said to me was, “I love you Mom.” A year ago today Jason was still alive. A year ago today my boys were here and we cried together. And so on and on through the days. I lived the whole thing all over again, day by day until the Celebration. Then the despair set in just like the previous year.
    Another year went by. There was no improvement in my breathing and I had not recovered my desire to create new things or make any new fragrances. Though I did make a perfume in memory of Jason - full of hay and cow barn and cognac and tobacco - the things he loved best.

This perfume has aged into something quite special. I still feared storms, the trees, damaging winds, and fear and anxiety still pretty much ruled and controlled my life, though I would never have admitted it. I felt ashamed that I, lover of trees, lover of Gaia, lover of everything wild was now afraid of it. I just wanted to stay safe, to feel in control of my life. And as we all know, we have no control of nature, and really no control over what happens to us though we like to believe otherwise. What happened to that little girl who wasn’t afraid of being alone in the woods, who reveled in the wind whipping tree branches around in a wild dance? Who wanted nothing more than to dance with them, safety be damned? Who had I become?

    By the second spring after Jason’s death, I had come to accept that I would never be the same again. My “allergies” had worsened and there was no relief, day or night. In late March 2015 I got a cold, but didn’t realize that’s what it was at first. It was like I had no nose at all. What was worse is that even if I could take a breathe my sense of smell was gone. I felt that my life was over. How could I make perfume? How could I make my creams? What would be the point of gardening if I couldn’t smell the bee balm, sweet Annie, spring moss? I panicked and went to the emergency room. Of course they did nothing. The next day I went to the clinic where I was reassured that I had a cold. I didn’t believe it, but sure enough that day I started in with a cough and soon it was a full-blown cold like nothing I had ever had before. People assured me that my sense of smell would return when the cold left but I had difficulty believing it.
    My perfume teacher, who also happens to be a TCM practitioner, offered to help and I took him up on it. He checked out my tongue and made some recommendations for Chinese herbal formulas. We talked about his diagnosis - congestion in the intestines, lungs, weak wei qi . . .  Afterwards, I got out the book I helped edit on TMC (The Body Owner’s Manual by Deb Degraff) years earlier. I opened the book to the section on the lung meridian, and remembered Deb saying (and so it was also written in the book), “grief resides in the lungs”. It was an ah-ha moment! I remembered that my “allergies” had first appeared in the fall of 2012, when Jason’s addiction became so very serious I had no choice but to acknowledge it. I know it seems unbelievable, but at that moment I felt some of the congestion lessen.
    I religiously took all the herbal formulas I’d been prescribed, and within days I could breathe and then my sense of smell returned. I still had the remnants of the cold but I knew that’s exactly what it was - a cold. That was the beginning of the end of my “allergies”.

     I have meditated on “grief resides in the lungs” quite frequently since. I never take being able to breathe in and out deeply through my nose for granted. Never. Often during the spring/summer/fall I sit on the cedar swing outside, with the view of the mountains, and I feel . . . love, pain, grief, despair, and back to love. I love my boys, I’m grateful that even after death Jason’s spirit is still with me. I love this place and the earth. And I grieve what we’re doing in the name of greed and ignorance and fear. I breathe in and out over and over. In grief, out love, in fear, out anxiety. Whatever comes, I breathe it in and out. Deeply. Over and over. And am so very grateful that I can!

 Slowly I sense my fear and anxiety lessening. I am more aware of it when it comes so I can breathe it out. Just a few days ago I was standing out in the yard surrounded by the huge white pine out front, the ancient and even bigger maples on the side yard, and the other huge trees (maples and white pines) all around, forming what felt like a protective circle of guardians around me, the house, my garden, my world. I felt the trees saying to me, “You have no reason to fear us. We are your guardians.” I raised my arms and slowly circled around to greet them all in turn, and thanked them. And vowed that when my fear and anxiety return (as I know they will), I will remember that moment and their message to me and know it for truth.
    Enchantment is coming back into my life now. I can feel it return a bit more each day. And I am grateful!      
    

Sense of Smell

Apple Blossoms

I’m a pretty healthy person and usually manage to avoid catching the latest virus going around. But this spring I wasn’t so lucky. The virus that hit me was unlike anything I’ve experienced in a long, long time! At first I thought it was a new, horrible allergy because the only symptom was a complete inability to breathe through my nose. It was like I had no nostrils at all. I felt like I was suffocating, my ears filled up, and panic ensued. A couple of days later, the cough started and that’s when I realized I had a cold! But the worst part for me was that even when I could take a breath through my nose, I couldn’t smell anything. And this lasted for a week. Long after the congestion subsided enough to be tolerable. And I am not ashamed to say I freaked. I felt that my life was over. Yes, that sounds dramatic. I can, in fact, be quite dramatic when the occasion merits it (in my opinion anyway - and I can hear my son saying, "Mom, you're being so dramatic!").

I spoke with many people about this over the course of the week of no sense of smell. I was assured that it would come back when the congestion cleared (but I even when I could breathe, I couldn’t smell). My pharmacist daughter-in-law explained to me how inflammation influences how our smell receptors respond to aroma chemicals, and my other daughter-in-law shared that she recently had the same thing happen to her. Several people in town said that either they or someone they knew experienced the same thing with this particular virus - and their sense of smell came back. But I had read online (a terrible thing to do!) of many cases where people permanently lost their sense of smell after a cold. What if this happened to me??? It won’t, I was told. Over and over and over. And I knew they were right, but that little niggling of doubt would creep in.

Mint

I need my ability to smell because I make perfume! I make herbal skin care and need to smell the essential oils I add. I garden and the fragrance of the soil and herbs nourish my soul. We need to smell in order to taste the nuances of flavors in food. I have a huge collection of amazing flavored olive oils and balsamic vinegars - what’s the point if I can’t taste them? Or being able to smell what I’m cooking as I add herbs and spices - or even to know when something I’m baking is close to being done? Or, what if there’s a gas leak or a fire or something is wrong with my car? We depend on being able to smell to warn us of danger. These are the “practical” things that we depend on our nose for. Things you might not even think about during the course of the day, but that are very important indeed!

But for me it became more than that. Each breath I took felt like dead air. There was nothing alive about it. I breathed and I lived but that was it. It’s hard to explain. The air was nothing - just a gas that I took into my body and breathed out again. There was no pleasantness about it, or unpleasantness. I couldn’t smell when the kitty litter needed to be scooped. I couldn’t even smell the gas when I filled my car one day! And I began to feel isolated, like I was in a bubble and was completely separated from everything. Not so much people, but everything else.

I knew, of course, how important my sense of smell is to making perfume and my herbal products and the fragrances bring me such pleasure! But it was more than that. Smell, I realized, is one of the major ways I feel connected to life itself. It was spring and one of the absolute best smells is of snow melting. Have you ever smelled snow melt? What about the way the earth smells in spring after a rain? Or the salt tang of being near the ocean? Or the fragrance of walking in a forest of fir and pine trees? Or fresh cut wood? An antique shop or your grandmother’s attic? Have you ever smelled a slug? (If not, pick one up this year and give it a whiff or give your skin a whiff where it was. They do indeed have a very definite smell!). If I was a chemist I might be able to tell you which chemicals make that slug smell or cause roses to smell like roses and not lilacs.

White Peony

What I can say is that smell connects me to everything alive in the world. It’s how I get important information, yes, and it also feeds my soul and makes me who I am. This was a revelation. I’ve imagined what it might be like if I were to suddenly go blind. And I know someone who is living that reality right now. (Though hopefully things will improve for her.) I admire her courage and that she has a sense of humor about it. For that week of not being able to smell I thought of her often and what she was going through. It really opened my awareness to how her world is changing and the task she has before her recreating so much of her life.

The morning my sense of smell came back, I was eating my breakfast of yogurt and granola with maple syrup on it. And I realized I could taste the maple, as opposed to just the sweet of the syrup. I leaped out of the chair and began smelling everything! Various jars of herbs, perfumes, the cats, coffee! What a miracle smell is! I felt reborn, alive and so very, very grateful to have this most important sense returned. For a few days after, I kept on checking to make sure I could still smell - I did still have the cold. Now I’m not as obsessive about it, but I do not take it for granted, and I know I never will. A few days of breathing a lifeless, inert gas was enough to remind me not only the practical things I rely on my sense of smell for, but how important it is in my perception of and connection to the living and miraculous world around me.

Lemon Verbena

Pictures of fragrant flowers and herbs taken by me.

Broken - Five Years Later

It has been five years since the BP oil disaster. Not much has changed since then. We know the Gulf has not recovered. Will likely never recover. Not only from the BP oil, but from all the other insults, large and small, to that ecosystem that happened before BP and since BP. And oil continues to spill - into the Gulf, into our rivers and streams, into wetlands and back yards. It explodes on trains, and obtaining more of it regardless of the cost to Earth and the future is a never-ending quest. What have humans learned?

All my life, looking back as far as I can remember, the woods, fields, rivers, and streams of my home place have been my playground, my solace, and my teacher. Among my fondest memories are my father showing me animal signs (scat, markings on trees, etc.) as we’d walk in the woods, camping with my family in a big old army tent in totally “unimproved” camping areas. I became an avid skier (though my father compared the slopes to clear cuts - and he was right of course), and enjoyed snow shoeing and cross country skiing too. The latter with a wineskin of rich red wine, a hunk of crusty bread, and sharp cheese for a winter picnic. For the past 25 years, my love has been gardening, and my teachers the trees, herbs, and other rooted beings who live and thrive in and around my garden and nearby fields and woods.

In my “past life” as an activist (before I moved to Maine), my aim was to share my personal stories about my relationship with the Earth, and how they informed who I was and what I did in the world. I wanted more than anything to awaken in people a love of the Earth that was real and tangible and strong enough to impact how they lived on a day to day basis. I wanted people to feel, deep in their bones and soul, that we are part of not separate from this living Earth without which we would cease to exist. That the beauty we see each day makes us who we are. That the colors and fragrances and tastes of our home places literally create us. And that when we harm these places, we harm ourselves and become less than - and thus condemn our children and grandchildren to being less than as well. Through no fault of their own.
    

All those years I managed to keep my heart and spirit strong in the love and spirit of the Earth, of Gaia. Yes, there were some very painful experiences of feeling the horror of degradation and permanent loss. Such as my seeing my first huge clear cut in the Pacific Northwest. I had heard of them but nothing compares to actually being there. I could not believe my eyes, but my body immediately reacted as if I’d been kicked, hard, in the stomach. Seeing huge mountains literally shaved of every single tree up one side and down the other was surreal. How could human beings do such a thing??? I remember on another trip out west, I was driving in a rental car on my way to a camping area in the Olympic National Park. It was just before a moratorium on clear cutting Old Growth was to take effect so paper companies were rushing to get as much out as possible. Log truck after log truck came out of the National Forest loaded with HUGE trunks. Several carrying just a couple, they were so big. And then a truck drove by with just one. It was like these loggers were killing our ancestors, and this one tree, this one Being, broke my heart. I had to pull over because I couldn’t see for the tears streaming down my cheeks. How could they DO THIS?? I still do not know the answer to that question.

But . . . the pain I felt fueled my love and my commitment to do what I could to stop the destruction of the Ancient Forests, and my organization joined with others to form a national coalition to save what little was left of the Ancient Forests, both temperate and tropical.

Another seminal moment was interviewing Julia Hill Butterfly when she was doing her treesit in the ancient redwood she named Luna, to prevent it from being cut. Even though I was in Maine talking to Julia on the phone, I could feel Luna’s strong presence come through as clearly as Julia’s voice. It was like she and Luna were one, and I was getting to interview both of them. 

 The reality, for me, is that these Ancient Beings are wise and essential. Not only for the well-being of the planet but for our well-being, and even survival, as a species. When the Old Growth is gone, and there is very little left now, we will have lost the oldest living beings on this planet. And with them their wisdom, their strength, their spiritual essence that is part of the planet as a whole. Indeed every time a species becomes extinct, we lose a little more of what it is to be human. Think about that. Every day we become less and less human, and more and more . . . what? What are we becoming?

Which brings me to the BP oil disaster and the reason for this piece. What have we become? That disaster broke something in me. I felt it break and it has not healed. In an article in my journal (now defunct) Gaian Voices (Vol. 8, No. 3 & 4) I wrote, “Every day after April 20th I woke up with a feeling of dread, wondered why, then remembered. The oil. I cried and railed and commiserated with anyone who’d tolerate it. Driving to work or the store reminded me of my complicity. And it also gave me time to think, so I’d often be driving while tears ran down my cheeks. I live in such a beautiful place! The beauty was a reminder of the devastation. The birds I so love who frequent my yard and garden reminded me of the birds dead and dying, coated with oil, unable to fly. Everything is connected, the pain, the beauty, the love, the fear, the anger.”

Five years have passed and we have not learned. We have “moved on”. We have come to accept that these kinds of disasters are the cost of doing business, a cost the oil companies, the chemical companies, politicians, even “ordinary” people, have decided they are willing to pay. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. Perhaps we’ve become hardened to the daily barrage of bad news. Perhaps we’ve been brainwashed by media to believe that our real problems are political terrorists bent on blowing us up (rather than political/corporate terrorists bent on destroying every living thing for profit). Perhaps we’ve decided it just isn’t true. None of it. Climate change isn’t real. Radiation isn’t killing and maiming in the Pacific. There are no islands of plastic in the ocean. Fracking is clean and safe. Maybe denial is the only way the majority of us can wake up and go about our day. 

I believed, I still believe, that Love (with a capital L) is the most powerful force in the universe. That Love can heal, can work miracles. That miracles are real (though born of hard work). I believe that working with the Earth we can transform our current dire reality into a life-affirming, sustaining, reality. There IS more to life than meets the eye (and all of our other senses). We (humans and nonhumans) are more than the sum of our parts. It is possible. But since the BP disaster, and how things have NOT changed since then, I am not holding my breath.

For me as a gardener, every spring is a new beginning. After plants have started to grow, and the new seedlings have taken on some heft but before anything has been eaten by some critter or insect, or smashed by heavy rain, or blighted by some disease, everything is beautiful and anything is possible. I know, logically, that chances are something won’t do well, maybe lots of somethings. I also know that somethings will do extremely well despite conditions. There will be losses and there will be harvests. And next year I will try again taking what I’ve learned and moving on. But it’s just my tiny garden. What if we were to consider the whole Earth our garden? Remember the Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young lyrics: “We are stardust, we are golden, and we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden”? Can we do that? Can enough of us make a choice to “get back to the garden”? Maybe I’m just an aging hippie, an anachronism, on her way out. Maybe. But I want my grand children to look back on their childhoods and have memories of the woods and playing in streams, and camping in unimproved camping areas. I want them to know and love trees, maybe even have a unique tree friend (as I did) that they take their sadness and fears to, that they climb and swing from without fear. We do not need more oil or dollar stores or malls full of cheap crap that only ends up in landfills. We need the garden! We need clean air, blue skies, green fields, healthy food grown without chemicals or tampered DNA. 

Terry Tempest Williams visited the Gulf during the disaster and wrote about it for Orion. She wrote: “The blowout from the Macondo well has created a terminal condition: denial. We don’t want to own, much less accept, the cost of our actions. We don’t want to see, much less feel, the results of our inactions. And so, as Americans, we continue to live as though these 5 million barrels of oil spilled in the Gulf have nothing to do with us. The only skill I know how to employ in the magnitude of this political, ecological, and spiritual crisis is to share the stories that were shared with me by the people who live here. I simply wish to bear witness to the places we traveled and the people we met, and give voice to the beauty and devastation of both. To bear witness is not a passive act.”

To bear witness is not a passive act! Remember that! And when you bear witness, do not keep it to yourself. Speak out! Share it. And share your pain, tell us how it hurts and why. Do not be silent. It’s the least we can do. Even those of us who are broken.

All photos are mine except for the last one, which was taken by Lynn Slocum.
   

Dropping Out

Flowering Almond buds

An article in the Jan/Feb issue of Orion ("Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist") by English environmental writer Paul Kingsnorth caused quite a stir. Mainly because he basically said he's had it. No more words, no more trying to convince others to do anything to save the environment. He's leaving it behind to walk and breathe, and "listen to the wind and see what it tells me". For me, it was confirmation that I'm not alone. One of the reasons I stopped publishing Gaian Voices last fall was because it had simply become too painful to keep abreast of the devastation our so-called civilization wrecks upon the Earth. And I could see nothing changing for the better. Not in the larger picture anyway. It seems that no matter how many battles are fought and won, the war is being lost. We are being ruled and controlled by corporations that have been given more power than I can imagine possible over every aspect of our lives. Nothing I can do will change it.

Loving and caring for nature, writing the kinds of articles I have over the years, going on about the necessity to engage with Earth, to develop a participatory, reciprocal relationship with nature, with the more-than-human species here with us, is perceived as impractical, romantic (and that's never a good thing, right?), and worthy of eye-rolls rather than serious consideration. To a certain extent it always was this way but there were a few years that I felt headway was being made, where it was  okay to bring an earthy spirituality into the discussion. Today? Not so much.

Kingsnorth notes, "Today's environmentalism is about people. It is a consolation prize for a gaggle of washed-up Trots and, at the same time, with an amusing irony, it is an adjunct to hypercapitalism: the catalytic converter on the silver SUV of the global economy. It is an engineering challenge: a problem-solving device for people to whom the sight of a wild Pennine hilltop on a clear winter day brings not feelings of transcendence but thoughts about the wasted potential for renewable energy. It is about saving civilization from the results of its own actions: a desperate attempt to prevent Gaia from hiccupping and wiping out our coffee shops and broadband connections. It is our last hope. . . . I generalize of course. . . . Many who call themselves green have little time for the mainstream line I am attacking here. But it is the mainstream line. It is how most people see environmenalism today, even if it is not how all environmentalists intend it to seem. These are the arguments and the positions that popular environmentalism–now a global force–offers up in its quest for redemption."

We've all seen it. Mountaintop removal mining for coal is bad. But destroying mountain ridges for industrial windpower is good. And if you don't see it that way (and I don't - they are both bad), then, well, you're just a NIMBY or you're not willing to make the necessary compromises. To suggest that we must instead change our way of living and our expectations of what living in the 21st century and beyond (should humans survive that long) is to open ourselves to outright ridicule. Because very few people, and virtually no one in the mainstream, believes that it is possible to change how we live. It is generally accepted that if we are to curtail our use of fossil fuels then we must replace them BTU for BTU with something else. And this means we must be willing to destroy the environment, but in a clean, green way. To some this even includes fracking for natural gas, despite massive evidence to the contrary. But as I see it, destruction is destruction. It's all the same to the bear, deer, trees, fish, fungi, birds, salamanders, frogs, spiders, voles, and so on. I suppose to some it's a matter of degree. But as my father said every time a developer clearcut, paved, dug, built–in other words–destroyed, yet another piece of the woods or fields, "When it's gone it's gone. You can never get it back."

Certainly I too have fears of what life would be like without abundant electricity, without instant communication and information at my fingertips. But what I fear most is having these things disrupted more-or-less permanently suddenly, as a result of some form of violence (human or natural). And I know that this is quite likely given our head-in-the-sand mentality, and the reality of unpredictable weather "events" as they are now being called. But if we were to accept a less technological, less "convenient" lifestyle as a given and begin today to create systems that function well without electricity, without the need for instant communication, even without the need for gas or oil, we will be planning for real security, real sustainability. And not surprisingly, creating real community and relationships, human and otherwise, in the process.

But again, back to the main premise: It can't all be just about human beings. Any more than it can all be about me or you. The Earth is an organism and we live within it. Like worms live within the soil, like bacteria live within our gut, like birds live in the air. Ultimately, completely connected, part-of, inseparable from, one with.

When I moved to Maine and left my life as an activist behind (sort of), I did so because I was burned out. Not just by the activism itself, but by the way activists as people treat each other, expecting so much yet all-too-often giving too little. I was tired of the politics of projects and of fundraising. Most of all I was tired of fighting, tired of having to couch my beliefs in the language of the destroyers in order to be taken seriously. When we begin talking their language, we become them. Subtly over time. And so it has continued to happen. While more people than ever consider themselves "green" or "eco-conscious" the Earth is more assaulted, more degraded, more endangered than ever. How can that be?

We can rail about capitalism and we'd be right. But what good does that do? Things will change when people finally wake up. And right now the powers that be are trying (and succeeding) to keep people blissfully in dreamland. Just buy a Prius, hang your clothes outside, cut down on meat, recycle, buy natural, buy organic, buy, buy, buy. Keep the machine chugging alone and we'll still green ourselves and the Earth to death.

So what if I simply garden? What if I take pictures of beautiful flowers and share them? What if I make wonderful creams and salves that work, that are absorbed into people's bodies - a bit of Gaia under their skin? What if I go outside and breathe the clean spring air, with awareness in every breath that I am blessed to live in a place where the air is still sweet and clean (most of the time). What if I feel gratitude each day for the little things? What if I share the stories of the worms and the bees and the spirits of the herbs I lovingly harvest? Will these things matter? I believe they do. I believe they matter a whole lot.

A Walk Down Back

Last week, before the 80 degree days completely melted the snow, I took my camera out back into the small stand of mostly white pine trees to see what I could see. I also wanted to look for chaga growing on the birches and perhaps more pine resin as it makes a wonderful healing salve (and sometimes I open the jar simply to enjoy its clean, piney fragrance). The snow was gone where the sun had reached the leaf covered ground and as I crunched along, amazed at how perfectly beautiful even the dead leaves were, seemingly positioned by an artist’s hand just-so. I found a beautiful quartz and granite boulder covered with various mosses, some deer prints spreading in the melting snow, skunk and bear scat (yup, time to bring in the bird feeders, at night at least), a red corn cob minus its kernels, the remnants of someone’s feast, green ferns, wintergreen and partridge berry, and an old rusted tractor along with wagon wheels, left decades ago on the property line to rot.
 

I found “Daddy sign” too, reminders that my father had walked these same woods many times before I moved here. There on the ground at the foot of an exceptionally large white pine sat our old mailbox with MEEKER painted on the side. I remember when I first moved here, and Daddy was still alive, that mailbox had been positioned in the tree, its door open and welcoming, offering shelter to various forest critters. Elsewhere, there were bird houses he had placed in various trees, probably in remembrance of my mother who loved birds.
    

There were lots of dead and dying birches (and yes, I did find chaga but it was too high up for me to reach), many more than I remember. Birches aren’t an especially long-lived tree and they can’t compete with the white pines for sun since they don’t grow as tall. But I hadn’t expected to find so many broken trunks, snapped several feet above ground, or even unbroken but obviously dead. Victims of too much rain and many high winds, perhaps tropical storm Irene last fall? Unfortunately, a few years ago the land next door was completely clearcut right up to our property line leaving our stand of trees to fend for themselves, no longer part of a larger forest community. But there is beauty even in a dead tree, especially the birches with their beautiful white bark and shelf fungi. All the fallen limbs did make for difficult walking however.

Making my way back, I found some pine resin and gratefully gathered a bit of it, relishing its scent and stickiness on my fingers. I never cease to be amazed at the girth of many of the trees on my land. Huge ancient gnarly maples on the property line and numerous mammoth white pines, not as old as the maples because they grow faster, but very old still. I loved them from the beginning, as did my father, who chose this house mainly for the numerous old trees and the beautiful views of his favorite mountains.

Snow still covered the beds of my garden and the gate couldn’t be opened yet because of it, so I walked around the perimeter sending good vibes to the still slumbering plants. Greeting the ancient crab apple tree, I noted that the trunk cavity has gotten much larger since last summer and I wonder how the tree manages to survive despite it. How many more years will we be graced with this tree’s fragrant blossoms and sweet/tart crab apples? When I first moved here it had many more branches than it does now. Each year it loses a branch or more to winds or snow or heavy rain storms. I see a baby crab apple growing from the ground seemingly coming out of the old trunk, the next generation taking root in nature’s cycle of life, death, and rebirth. I am here, now, in this beautiful place. Safe in this moment. I can ask for nothing more.

Conversations With Trees

Maple tree in my yard.

I’ve often pondered how our relationship with the Earth has changed since ancient times, when nature was considered a participant in daily life not just in utilitarian ways, but in ways of friendship and spirit. The wind moving through the leaves of trees carried messages. The trees themselves were considered wise and  plants were regarded as teachers as well as healers.
    Today the term “ecological self” is used by those seeking to understand and communicate the reality that humans are part of the intricate web of life and that every action we make reverberates throughout this web of relationships. Talking about this is easy. But feeling is where it’s at. Feeling the relationship and communicating with trees, rocks, animals, whatever you feel drawn to, awakens the ecological self which, once awakened, never truly goes back to sleep.
    For me, trees are a natural connection and over the years I’ve had many conversations with them. I’ve brought them my troubles and my joys knowing that whatever I bring will be accepted with no judgments. There’s no need for pretenses with trees. You are who you are. It’s a simple as that.
    Trees speak in different ways to different people -- and each tree is unique. Older trees are easier to “talk” with, at least for me, although sometimes a grove of trees, birch for example, will take on its own personality and communicate as if it was one tree. If you’re intrigued and want to open yourself to a unique and totally human experience, here are some suggestions:
    Believe it is possible - Without belief your heart and your inner ear will be blocked.
    Desire that it happen - The place in your body this is felt is your heart. Don’t put “stuff” on this feeling. Just let it be. Relax. What comes, comes.
    Let the love flow - Love is what connects us to each other and to the Earth. It’s the most powerful force in the Universe.
    Drop preconceived ideas - Don’t get it into your head that you will hear a voice with a deep message. You might. But it is more likely you will get a sense of something. You might feel peaceful or experience a sense of everything being in its place, a message of constancy over time, or of resilience. You might come away with a “knowing” you can’t explain -- it just is. Whatever your experience, accept it.
    Give thanks and honor your experience - Saying “thank you” gives back energy and completes the circle. Honor your experience by giving it a place in your life.
    Act - Find a way to integrate your experiences with your everyday living.
    Share your experience - Many people have had amazing experiences with nature (especially as children) that they don’t talk about because they don’t want others to think they’re weird or because they don’t have a language for their experience. Sharing our stories helps others remember theirs.
    Once you’ve had an experience that confirms for you that it is possible to participate in this way with nature, everything changes. Your perspective shifts and magic enters your life -- a strong, powerful healing magic we all very much need in these times.

Living With All Species

Trees in my backyard.

If we listen to the land we will know what to do. The metaphors are there. The actual facts are there.
    - Terry Tempest Williams

I often wonder what our world would look like if humans weren’t the only ones making decisions. What if bear, trees, mountains, lakes, insects also had a voice? They live in our communities. They share the air, water, and land, and they are impacted by every decision we make, most often negatively. You’re probably rolling  your eyes thinking that I’ve finally gone off the deep end. But think about it. Development is everywhere, both business and residential, often moving into former fields and forests. We’re building on virtually every available lake shore and condominiums are sprouting up the sides of mountains to provide ski-from-your-front-door access (assuming there’s any snow). Existing regulations don’t seem to be doing much to stem the overall loss of habitat for the nonhuman creatures sharing the Earth with us.
    Too many of us have become so oblivious to the needs of wildlife that its presence is often seen as a nuisance or danger rather than a treasured encounter. And to me there’s nothing quite as sad as seeing a wild animal obviously confused because what was woods a few weeks ago is now a barren, sandy waste intended for development. It seems we have forgotten that the Earth is finite – it isn’t going to get any bigger because we want more of something. As I see it, the undeveloped forests and fields we have left here in Maine and northern New England are as endangered as polar bears, and if we aren’t careful they will become extinct just like that precious icon of the Arctic.
    Many years ago, when I was writing my first book, Economics as if the Earth Really Mattered, I took my yellow-lined pad down into the woods to a human-made pond fed by a brook that ran behind the property of the Institute for Gaian Economics in Worthington, MA, which I directed. My task was to articulate the principles of a Gaian, or Earth-centered, economy. My publisher was waiting and so the pressure was on. I knew that if I sat quietly, the land would speak to me and I would have the “information” I needed to complete my book. I was not disappointed. Of course the land didn’t dictate to me. It was up to me to observe and intuit the deeper meaning of what I saw. And what I saw was the importance of scale -- a bigger disturbance would have been more difficult or perhaps impossible for the brook and surrounding woods to incorporate without damage to the system as a whole. I observed cooperation among species although I doubt they thought of it that way. I lost myself in the beauty and harmony of the place and the atmosphere of peace and well-being that pervaded the land there. Appropriate scale, cooperation, harmony, balance – these were the qualities I observed that could form the foundation of a Gaian Economy. So I did my best to put words around this framework, one of the first to do so although many, most with degrees, have moved the concept of ecological economics far beyond my 1985 book.
    So now I ask, how can we give nonhuman species a voice in our deliberations? Not literally obviously, but can we go above and beyond what regulations require of us? Can we bring our caring about the world our grand children will inherit into the discussion? Can we remember how it feels to be in the wild far from human influence, and value this enough to ensure that the wild always remains? Currently it seems we do the bare minimum necessary. Additional considerations given to the Earth or the creatures who share it with us are often seen as too costly. This is especially true of larger corporations who will make communities pay dearly using the legal system to push projects through even against the wishes of local residents.
    This area is growing by leaps and bounds. “Land for sale” and “building lot” signs are sprouting everywhere. Long time residents are often hard pressed to pay increasingly exorbitant property taxes, forcing some to sell to developers. It’s sad and it is forever changing the landscape we have come to love. We are fast losing a way of life, and a human culture, that served many generations well. In return we receive money and a depleted ecosystem. Is it worth it?