Healing. Peacemaking. Sustainability. Regenerative Culture.
Listening to the Land
“To be native to a place we must learn to speak its language.”
“We Americans are reluctant to learn a foreign language of our own species, let alone another species. But imagine the possibilities. Imagine the access we would have to different perspectives, the things we might see through other eyes, the wisdom that surrounds us. We don’t have to figure out everything by ourselves: there are intelligences other than our own, teachers all around us. Imagine how much less lonely the world would be.”
(Adapted from a journal entry)
There is so much information and misinformation out there. So many opinions and words. New words, and the erasure of old words. So many devices, memes, and voices making themselves heard, while others remain unheard. We are bombarded with noise.
I am reticent and reluctant to utter anything so as not to disturb the impeccable beauty of this perfect silence – breeze in cottonwoods in yellow becoming, lazy hum of insects in the afternoon sun, distant gurgle of stream, intermittent call of flicker, whose orange under cloak I receive as blessing and welcome, the rhythm of my easy breath. And yet, the old ones might say that human beings have been exclusively gifted by creation both the capacity to recognize the exquisiteness of this life - experience enchantment, wonder and awe - and the corresponding ability, ingenuity and inclination to praise and make beauty to give back in return in 10,000 forms of creative celebration. Language and expression is one such form.
A warm afternoon in a shady gulch, I lay my naked body in the cool soft sand, delighted that the tones of the arroyo match my skin to perfection. I marvel that every body must have a corresponding soil place, an earth color to match skin color. How strange that I am only just now aware of this reflection of skin, sand and soil. But of course, we are made from and of the earth. Our bodies, earth body. It is how we humans got our name, Human, from Humus: meaning earth or ground in Latin; dark, organic material that forms in soil when plant and animal matter decays. It is also the root of the word humble and humility. This strikes me as significant in the midst of our country’s reckoning with racism and oppression, the othering and annihilation of dark skin bodies, earth tone bodies, in the name of the white self interest rampant in these times. The joy of my body immersed in itself, steeping in its own essence, is both a prayer and an expression of the “soft animal of my body loving what it loves”.
This is the second time I have been away from home since the global pandemic lockdown began in March at the Spring Equinox. The first was in early August when I spent a few days in Washoe Territory around Lake Tahoe, California. There, as I slept outside on the bare ground in the silence under the tall trees, I am awakened by a plaintive howl in the not so far distance. (Wolf calls are often referred to as plaintive, a sorrowful lament, and although I like the sound of it, I am not sure it is that true or that simple —- I am wary of assuming I understand. Furthermore, true lament carries our love and gratitude, as a song of praise contains the inevitable sorrow of loss). I am immediately alert. Again, the howl. This is not a coyote. I recognize the sound from my time in Montana at a gathering of the Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. I am awe struck, and shocked. How is it possible that there is a wolf in California? They have not been here for years. In the morning, I search the web and discover that in fact, grey wolves returned to California in 2011 after being locally extinct for over ninety years. A healthy pack now resides near Lassen National Forest, and had eight pups this summer bringing their numbers to fourteen individuals. There are also wolves that roam in the area without a pack; these animals are referred to as dispersing wolves, and are known to come down near the lake. Several have been shot in the last ten years, some by ranchers mistaking them for coyotes, others by ranchers knowing they are wolves, and still others have died unknown deaths. I am filled with a sense of wild wonder and possibility as something stirs deep within.
Weeks later, I am called to the land of Southern Utah, Ute land, Paiute and others, land of the ancient ancestors, whom the Hopis call the Old Ones Who Came Before. I stop in the very small town of Canyonville – one market with empty shelves and a visitor center on a rural road. As I enter the visitor center, the Park Ranger behind the desk looks at me curiously and pronounces, “…Slutzky,” which stuns me. He then mentions the name of a farm in California (Quail Springs) where years before we had taken a Permaculture Design Course together. He is the gatekeeper of my time here on this solo journey and I am grateful for the connection as well as the story he shares about the first peoples of this place. A warm welcome in unfamiliar territory makes all the difference. I offer him roasted bay nuts that I had harvested and prepared before leaving home, a traditional food of the Chumash people where I live in Santa Barbara, California.
Surrounded by canyon and cliff, I find a place along a small creek bed and meander downstream over sandstone rock, past ancient flint knapping sites with beautiful yellow, red, white stone flakes, worked by hands of the ancestors, round juniper trees laden with fruit. Yellow cottonwood leaves fall against my dry skin, carried through the smoke filled sky, by wind from California. The fires still blazing, feeding off the dry drought burdened trees of the West Coast. Four million acres. Countless ancient trees. Countless animals. Human lives and dwellings as well. Casualties of our way of life. Grief and love. Heartbreak and steadfastness. Although my lungs protest, I find it oddly heartening that blue skies will not lull me into a trance of forgetting. There is no where to go, no where to escape what we are doing to each other and the earth. As much as I don’t want to stay, I also do not want to flee. Fleeing, an essential root of the great catastrophe. Fleeing from drought, plague, war, famine, family, discomfort, in search of something better - opportunity, greener pastures, a new beginning. To settle in someone else’s homeland and bring the disease of unmetabolized fear, pain, disconnection and trauma only to inflict it upon others. European colonial settlers suffered the great forgetting - of tradition, song, place, culture in order to assimilate into the pall of whiteness and live the American dream, a story of separation and domination. In California, on the edge of western expansion and manifest destiny, there is no more ground in the push for freedom. There is no where to go. Civilization as we know it is in the midst of collapse. Other planets are not an option. Human existence not a given. The power we have sought through progress and infinite, incessant growth, is our downfall. And may we fall down, down into the hummus of the earth, face to the dirt (stripped of all nutrients) into humility. And learn to listen there, and breathe, and tend the ground so that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is sequestered there too and life returns. I pray some sort of redemption will come from finally confronting our limits, the finiteness of this planet, our own lives. That a transformation will arise from facing and finding our way with endings, extinctions, mortality. Of course, this is nothing short of a cultural overhaul, or underhaul rather- to reimagine, revision and recreate our world out of the ashes. Either way, we are held and embedded in the cycles of nature. Death, decay, new growth. Earth, resilient. Creativity, limitless. Humans, nature. Everything is possible when we align with the wisdom of nature, of who we are. Revolution is not out of the question. Beauty and becoming. When the smoke clears, I am grateful for blue skies and the blessing of clean air.
Last night I camped on a mesa off a dirt road, far from any signs of civilization. In a clear night full of billions of stars and the river of the Milky Way overhead, I was enveloped by the most profound silence I have ever not heard. This is what is possible with what is referred to locally as dispersed camping, whereby you set up camp where ever you want. Disperse: to distribute or spread over a wide area; disseminate, dismantle, disrupt. Wolves, campers, seeds, trees.
Our words create worlds, caste spells, illuminate, fool, entrance, inspire, inform, awaken, dismantle and disrupt, and most anything else as a reflection and creation of our consciousness. The names for trees in many indigenous languages are onomonopoetic, meaning each species of tree is named for the sound they make as the wind moves through their leaves. Their sound is their song, and their song is their name. They sing and sound who they are. Compare this to the names of the places I have seen along my travels this week - Devils Canyon, Hells Backbone, Goblin Valley. I recently watched a documentary of the work of intuitive Anna Brachenbach, an animal communicator from South Africa. In one particular scene she learns from a black jaguar that he does not like the name he has been given, Diablo. This is not a new conversation. It is as old as the fleeing, as old as the colonization. We in modern society, are quick to name things in an attempt to define, make order, know and control, often without realizing that in doing so we stifle and confine, and destroy the possibility of true intimacy. And sometimes that has been the intent, destruction and annihilation. Intimacy and understanding require presence, attention and not knowing, and reverence. Listening to what is revealed, to what emerges from the entanglement of connection.
Our words matter. Matter, material substance that constitutes the observable universe and, together with energy, forms the basis of all objective phenomena. Matter is place and we are all of a place. Our bones know the true names of things, of beings, from a time beyond our own, in a language older than words. We are all in a place. Wherever we are, we are in a place where the original peoples likely still live, where the original names are still uttered, if only in dreams and on the wind.
What if we stopped talking and naming and listened? What if we listened to the people, beings, elements, animals, that modern civilization has drown out and shunned? The drone of white supremacy, patriarchy and capitalism needs us not to listen, as our civilization feeds on inequity, extraction and othering. What if we listened and only said what needed to be said? Like elders around the world. A friend, Unangan elder and teacher Ilarion Merculieff, shared that when he grew up in his village on the Pribilof Islands off the coast of what is known as Alaska, there were more animals than people, and when out hunting sea life with his relatives, they would often go days without speaking. In the stillness and silence, listening to the water, suddenly, the heads of his uncles would all turn in the same direction, and moments later, a sea lion would emerge from the sea. How can we train ourselves, and allow ourselves to be trained, to be elders? Elders in training? And good ancestors for that matter? I certainly do not always know what needs to be said, to differentiate my wants from the essential, but I do practice listening wherever I am, and whomever I am with, including myself. When Vietnamese activist and Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, was asked what we most need to do to save our world, he responded, “What we most need to do is to hear within us the sound of the earth crying.”
On my way home, during this time when so many trees are dying, I make a pilgrimage to one of the oldest living beings in the world, an Aspen grove, named by scientists, Pando, Latin for “I spread”. This grove of more than forty thousand trees is considered one organism, one being, as all the trees in the grove share the same root system. What affects one affects all. This grove of Aspen trees is dying too. Disease, climate change and wildfire suppression all contribute, but a significant cause of the decline seems to be too many mule deer, nibbling at the young shoots. Wolves, their natural predators, were killed off in Utah due to powerful ranching interests more than a century ago. We all share the same root system. What affects one affects all. “A species can only thrive, when everything else around it thrives too,” says David Attenborough.
Some days unfold with grace, the way opens. Other days are more of a wrestle and I do not know where or when to go, stumped momentarily by instinct and intuition, uncomfortable in the uncertainty. Then I am reminded, I will know when I need to know, it is always so. Just be patient and present for the next thing, slow down and the path will unfold. A dispersing female traveling alone, I apprentice to relatedness and emergence, and the listening that hones the voice.
Of course, yes, there is a time to speak, for each of us, in our unique voice. Especially those who have been silenced. Shame silences. Oppression silences. Our authentic, particular voice is needed, to utter, shout, chant what is true from our heart of hearts. Speak out we must, on behalf of beauty and justice and love, as if our lives depend on it. A chorus of kin. What song might we sing together then?
The last time I was on this land was almost twenty five years ago, when I fasted alone for three days and nights amongst the sandstone rocks. In the silence of the place, I heard an unfamiliar voice say to me: Speak out against injustice, everywhere. Don’t be complacent. Be in love.
…
Oh divine holy powers of creation, please make my song full of compassion, truth and beauty. Enchant myself to you and you to others. Surrender me to the desire at the center. Call forth my harmony. Awaken my 13.8 billion year old wisdom and the creativity of the cosmos in my form and expression. The energy and power that emanates from the stars, guides the wolves, turns the leaves golden, rotates the earth, also courses through me. Speak through me with the tongues of the old ones and the ones yet to come. May I be humble in my listening and courageous in my voice. May I use the power of my privilege and embody the privilege of my power to allow my naturalness in service to all life.
Utah 2020
Unbearable Moments
Crisis as Initiation
Crisis as initiation
February 2018
"It’s possible I am pushing through solid rock
in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;
I am such a long way in I see no way through,
and no space: everything is close to my face,
and everything close to my face is stone.
I don’t have much knowledge yet in grief
so this massive darkness makes me small.
You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:
then your great transforming will happen to me,
and my great grief cry will happen to you."
~Ranier Maria Rilke
Dear Santa Barbara and Montecito community~
A native elder I know from the Aleutian islands, translates the traditional greeting of his people as, 'the morning tastes good!' It is good to be alive on this cool, bright morning. We have come through a most devastating time in our town and local area, first the fires and then the heartbreaking tragedies surrounding the mudslides. We have found ourselves at the mercy and power of the elements and forces of nature - fire and air, water and earth. Some people in our community have been brought to their knees with the magnitude of loss - the death of loved ones and children, physical injuries, home and belongings, jobs. Some are still living with uncertain and heartbreaking consequences every day. Most of us, even those not directly impacted, have experienced the loss of safety, predictability and certainty. It is not uncommon, in times of such pain, for other unrelated and untended griefs to come to the surface, from our personal and ancestral history as well as the sorrows of the world and our shared context for this tragedy - our relationship to the natural world. The last weeks have required many of us to stretch beyond our imagination and certainly beyond our capacity.
Amidst the grief and tragedy, and perhaps as a direct result, it has also been a time of community cohesion and kinship. There has been an incredible outpouring of communal response and support, services, funds, goods and opportunities to gather. Literally, folks coming together, rolling up our sleeves and digging each other out of the mud. We are witnessing great acts of courage, redemption, beauty and communion.
This strengthening of relationships with one another is a common outcome of disaster and one of the reasons traditional cultures have rituals - or choreographed disasters. They know the importance of coming together to remake the world; a world made so inherently fragile, that it eventually falls apart, and requires our participation in order to maintain it, in the deep recognition that we need each other and are indebted to all our relations for the gift of life. One of the most defining and debilitating features of contemporary society is the rampant loneliness, isolation, and disconnection - from ourselves and our bodies, each other, meaningful work, nature. We suffer from disconnection on every level. Although we would never wish it upon ourselves or each other, often crises are profound opportunities for connection, transformation and change.
Perhaps it can be useful to look at our recent experiences through the lens of Initiation. It is understood that there are three phases to an initiation. First, the call or severance, in which we leave behind the familiar life we have known and enter a period of unknown and exile; then, the ordeal or threshold, where we face great challenges and many obstacles, often with the uncertainty of making it through; finally, the return or incorporation, where we come home to our people and community, and integrate our experiences by living out in our daily lives what we have learned. Initiations call us into new ways of being and are the seeds of a new beginning. We can either enter into initiation willingly with intention, or we are taken there by life's circumstances. Most traditional cultures have means of honoring and marking the transition from one phase of life to another - birth, adulthood, marriage, death – through community rites and rituals. These practices have been mostly forgotten in modern culture, and thus many of our initiations happen against our will or outside of our consciousness.
Modern culture is in a state of upheaval, signs and symptoms of dis-ease and trouble are everywhere, the old systems are no longer working. Our culture itself may be considered to be in a time of initiation. Many of us know another way is possible and are a part of the emerging new culture, and yet we are still faced daily with the reality of the ordeal if we are paying attention.
In our local community the acuteness of the crisis and ordeal has subsided, and as our collective field stabilizes, our attention and energy are needed in different arenas. We are entering a time of incorporation - the slow and steady repair of infrastructure, homes, connections, and the soul - reweaving the fabric of community, knowing how deeply we belong to each other and this place.
At a gathering to honor our grief after the fire, a man spoke bravely about his fear that after all we had been through together, with the consequent shifting of priorities, we would simply return to ‘normal’, and forget what is truly important and the deep sense of communion that had been established in our community. Then came the floods, lest we forget. Not that it is the intention of these natural disasters to bring us together in shared purpose and mutuality of support, but it is often the result. If you have come through something so direct as losing loved ones and home, and feel the necessity of neighbors and friends to help dig you out of the mud, literally and figuratively, you know in your bones, what is truly of value. The needs of our communities and the times we are in call forth our purpose as well as our creativity and courage.
Montecito is one of the most expensive real estate areas in the world, a beautiful and much sought after place to live, drawing people with great means and resources. Although we know that everyone suffers and no one is exempt from loss and sorrow, and also that folks on the full spectrum of the socio-economic scale call Montecito home, most often tragedies connected to the global climate crisis have visited people in poor and marginalized communities. Knowing that even those of us who seem to have the privilege of wealth, which may afford the possibility of shielding and insulating against some of the rougher edges of the world, are not protected from the troubles of these times offers a poignant awakening. Grief and loss are great equalizers; no one is exempt.
Incorporation is not the same as recovery. Recovery carries a sense of returning to a previous state of being, which in any transformation, is not possible. If we have truly allowed ourselves to be undone by what has occurred, we cannot return to life as we have known it. What has come before is gone, who we were before the ordeal, is no more. This is the way of initiation. When we pass through the threshold to return, we have the opportunity to live into our new incarnation, moment by moment. We do not recover, so much as we are forever changed, and by the grace of god, and with help from each other and practices of remembering, find a way to bear the unbearable and live with things as they are as open – heartedly as possible. We open and uncover our hearts, and god-willing, cover them less each day, to live with grief, not as an emotional state to get over or through, but as a natural and essential part of this human experience. In the Tzutzil Mayan language, the same word is used for grief and gratitude, because we grieve what we love so much, and our love for everything in this world contains our inevitable loss.
I have heard people speak of finding the new normal now. On the surface, this implies an understanding that nothing will be as it was. However, the word normal, even though describing a norm or tendency, also confines us to a narrow range of acceptability, which might be part of our trouble. There are many who are holding the prayer, 'please do not let me/us return to normal and business as usual'. With the deep knowing in our bones, 'it is not working'. In the old ways, community members understand that an initiate has come through a great feat wrought with suffering. The initiate is thus seen respectfully, in a new light, having shed an old skin. Although we would never wish suffering on anyone, it is a fact of life, and often serves as a gateway to our growth and evolution, personally and collectively. And though this is for each person to understand for themselves as they wrestle with the the journey of coming home, crises are poignant opportunities for awakening and change, if we allow ourselves to be transformed, in all our vulnerability and resiliency, and allow ourselves to see each other with fresh eyes. Let us honor diversity in all of its forms, including those on the margins and edges, outliers on the bell curve of normalcy. Healers, dreamworkers, cultural change agents, misfits and mystics, poets and artists, all - come with your gifts of sensitivity and vision as we remember ourselves back into a holy belonging with all life.
Practices of Remembering
These practices are particularly helpful in times of chaos, though also as daily practices. Of course there are the basics of getting plenty of rest, eating good food, staying hydrated, sharing loving company, being of service to others and exercising the body. Here are additional reminders:
Honor yourself - There is no prescription or right way to grieve or heal, or live for that matter. It is different for each person. Honor yourself and your way, as well as honoring others. Allow yourself to feel what you feel and how you feel it. It is natural to experience a mix of emotions: grief, shock, anger, gratitude, hopelessness, fear, despair, rage. As long as you do not cause harm to yourself or another by acting on your feelings, let yourself feel what you feel. In this culture of heroism, we are conditioned to stay strong and carry on, pushing down feelings associated with weakness, vulnerability or being too much. There is also a tendency to focus exclusively on the light, without acknowledging what might live in the dark. Welcome all the feelings.
Compassion – We are all doing our best. Have mercy on yourselves and each other. Know that during times of stress often our less than positive coping strategies emerge. Give yourself a break. Give the same break to others.
Connect with others – We are social animals. Do not try to do this alone. Grief is communal. Most of us are conditioned to isolate under times of stress and may even pride ourselves on not needing anyone. We need each other. Grief requires containment and release, and by ourselves we cannot simultaneously do both sufficiently. Reach out. Sharing about a traumatic experience with someone who is present and loving, helps reduce the amount of trauma that remains in our systems. There are many opportunities to come together. Be brave.
Be in nature – Spend time outside in the company of non-human beings. I know it is more difficult right now as many trails are closed, yet it is always possible to find a tree, a rock, park, or place near your home. Focus your attention outward. Allow yourself to feel held by the larger web of the universe; take in the natural rhythms of the day, the wind, sky, sun, plants, critters. Acknowledge the elements. Thank the water before a drink, fire when lighting a candle, wind when breathing, the earth before a meal.
Gratitude – Grief and gratitude are two sides of the same coin, two wings of a bird. They are related and one does not exist without the other. Both are practices and skills we can cultivate over time. There is always something for which to be grateful. Give thanks for your blessings and what you have. If this feels like too much of a stretch right now, return to self-compassion and honoring where you are.
Kindness – Extend it everywhere. People are suffering. We don’t know the extent of it. Some have loss upon loss, trauma upon trauma. Kindness is medicine for the giver and receiver. This is our natural state as humans. We are wired for empathy. Be kind to yourself and each other, as a practice, always. This does not mean condoning or sitting back while unjust things are being done, but leading with kindness and the benefit of the doubt with everyone we meet.
Mutuality/Service - Do something for others, for someone who needs it, for anyone. Provide nurture and care. There will continue to be much to do on the road of healing and repair, find ways that work for you. Service is about being connected in our humanity. We all rotate between being the givers and the receivers. Remember to receive. It makes the giving possible.
Art/Creativity – Make art. Write. Find creative ways to give expression to what is inside you. Anything counts. We are born from creativity, into creativity. Share it.
Beauty – The soul loves beauty. Find it, celebrate it, create it, honor it. The world is made of beauty. Beauty making is the medicine the world needs, from your unique perspective. It does not have to be pretty, but real.
Music - What a blessing that we humans have the capacity to create music. Make music. Listen to music that feeds your soul.
Slow down/take a pause – Even if you are busy tending the tasks at hand, remember to slow down and pause. Take a breath, feel your feet on the earth. We are a culture of action, and that is necessary, however, a sense of urgency is part of our disease and both a cause and a symptom of our troubles. It is a radical act to slow down; even for just a moment, register present moment awareness.
Remember the mundane – Tend to those tasks. Feels good to get stuff done. Be careful not to over do it.
Contact with mystery – Whatever you call it – god, spirit, love, force, energy, consciousness - it doesn't matter, but call it.
Check out – Give yourself permission to check out in a way that is not self-destructive - watch a movie, play a game, read a book. It can feel good to get your mind off reality for a moment. It is our cultural inheritance to numb ourselves against uncomfortable feelings; we do this with any number of things - drugs, sex, shopping, eating, etc. In this time, I am sure many of us have found ourselves tempted by, if not at the mercy of, our numbing strategies of choice. If this is so for you, forgive yourself and have compassion.
Professional support – There are many healing practitioners in our community as well as resources for working with trauma and loss. Seek them out.
My heart goes out to those still in the midst of unbearable suffering. May we find the courage to bear the unbearable, together. It is heartening to experience the many ways people have come together thus far to serve a common purpose and take care of each other. Let us continue to create opportunities to be with each other and not skip over the necessary bearing witness, listening, sharing stories, grieving, gratitude.
In love,
Alexis
Cultivating Connection, Compassion & Communion
December, 2017
“Mayans don’t wait for a crisis to occur; they make a crisis. Their spirituality is based on choreographed disasters — otherwise known as rituals — in which everyone has to work together to remake their clothing, or each other’s houses, or the community, or the world. Everything has to be maintained because it was originally made so delicately that it eventually falls apart. It is the putting back together again, the renewing, that ultimately makes something strong. That is true of our houses, our language, our relationships.”
-Martin Prechtel
Greetings dear people~
These are troubling times for many around the world, and recently for Southern California folks affected by the fires. Although many communities have been facing challenges for some time now - floods, drought, racism, violence, injustices, you name it - this fire is particularly close to home. It is at this time of crisis, and the darkest time of the year in this hemisphere - winter solstice - that I write this newsletter. As we know, times of crisis are also often times of opportunity, and we are certainly being called to wake up to the effects of a world view and way of life which is out of balance with our original instructions and the natural living world.
Fire is an element of purification and transformation, a being of warm heartedness and light. At a gathering I hosted recently to honor grief, many people spoke not only about the fear, loss and instability the fire has ignited, but also the exquisite beauty and the many unexpected gifts - most significantly, people coming together in care and kindness, in our raw humanity, none of us spared the vulnerability, uncertainty and fragility of this precious human life, our need for each other absolutely clear.
We have been living in a time of fear and separation - the delusion that we are separate from each other, the earth, ourselves and the mystery, and we are in trouble. Disconnection is rampant and the symptoms are pervasive. Most of us have been made to feel inadequate and unworthy somewhere along the way, and modern culture thrives on this sense of lack and scarcity and perpetuates the delusion of never being or having enough, which keeps many people from living their purpose. These times call us to remember our divine perfection, our blessings and gratitude, as well as reflect on the ramifications of our individual and collective history and our part in shifting our dominant personal and cultural story from one of fear to a love story - of peace, justice, compassion and communion.
Moving from the old story to the new story entails moving from denial, numbness, and forgetting to feeling, remembering and connection - a process which calls us to be present with grief and pain, to feel and bear witness to the most frightening and challenging aspects of our personal and collective human experience, take responsibility, make amends, offer forgiveness, and join hands with each other in our shared humanity in the spirit of reconciliation. This world is beautiful and holy, and there is much suffering and pain. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt. It is a humbling practice to keep our hearts open to all of what is, with a willingness and commitment to live in right relationship with all beings, and to mend and maintain what has been broken and in need of renewal.
When I saw the words Wild Belonging together, I recognized a practice and way of life I have been devoted to for a long time as well as a prayer for myself and humanity to experience the truth of our existence.
Wild, in the English language, as in untamed, not subject to restraint or regulation, living in a natural state; often referring to natural places with very little human activity. The word, however, is limited, and some indigenous peoples, from my understanding, grounded in an understanding that humans are a part of nature, and we are all related and interconnected, do not have a word for wild. It may be that the word wild co-arose with the concept of domestication.
"....Wherever forests have not been mowed down, wherever the animal is recessed in their quiet protection, wherever the earth is not bereft of four-footed life - that to the white man is an 'unbroken wilderness.' But for us there is no wilderness, nature is not dangerous but hospitable, not forbidding but friendly.... For us, the world is full of beauty; for the other, it is a place to be endured until he went to another world. But we are wise. We know that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard.”
―Chief Luther Standing Bear
Belonging as we generally understand it, refers to a sense of inherently being a part of something, with a feeling of connectedness and intimate communion.
"True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging does not require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are."
-Brene Brown
However, longing is the root of the word belonging, and belonging therefore also alludes to an intensified version of our inherent longing; to be set upon by longing. Understood in this way, it is not that we aim to get rid of our longing, but rather acknowledge, honor and welcome longing as natural and a possible gateway to the kindness and humility of a tender heart. Perhaps we may find our way stumbling into wholeness and kinship when we make space for our longing.
My Eyes So Soft
Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more deep.
Let it ferment and season you
As few human or even divine ingredients can.
Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.
-Hafiz, trans. Daniel Ladinsky
Many of us have been wounded by shame, abandonment and betrayal. As we practice compassionate listening to ourselves and each other and the sharing of our authentic truths, our hearts soften and we learn not to orient around our wounds in strategic protection, rather with compassion and wisdom begin to embody the knowing that we are much more than our thoughts and feelings might have us believe. This requires trust, vulnerability, courage, awareness and a kind hearted presence to welcome home parts of ourselves and members of our communities that may have been exiled from the embrace of the heart. In this way we participate in creating a culture of communion one relationship at a time.
In permaculture, the places where two ecosystems meet, edges, are the areas of most diversity and abundance. This is true in human and non-human communities alike. Many who feel alienated from mainstream culture, and those who are marginalized due to race, gender, class, or generally not fitting into the narrow and suffocating range of normal, are often creative and sensitive change agents who know there is another way, another story, another world where every living being matters and is needed as an essential part of the whole, and all life is greeted with reverence and respect. Indigenous cultures around the world have known this and carry this deep wisdom and understanding.
We each have a specific purpose related to our unique gifts and the circumstances of the times in which we live - you are alive because you have something the world needs. We were never meant to do this alone. You are needed and we need each other. Together, let us remember our wild belonging and contribute toward a life of beauty and relatedness for all.
Blessings and gratitude,
Alexis Slutzky
NOTE: A dear friend recently completed an album by the name Wild Belonging. She knew I shared her connection to the name and when I recently checked in with her about the possibility of using it, three geese flew over her head as we were discussing on the phone. She shared that three geese are on the cover of the Wild Belonging CD, and the last line of the last song reminds, "...When all is said and done, in love I do believe, 'cause I know we are right where we are meant to be." With that, she said she was not attached to the name, and gave me a generous and enthusiastic blessing to use the name in relation to this work. Check out her CD here. Thank you Sarah Nutting.
Lake Casitas, Ventura County, March 2013
Lake Casitas, Ventura County, December 2017