CURRENTS THROUGH USELESS BAY

Today in the rain I raked gravel from deep gouges in the newly graded driveway, trying to fill in ruts already beginning to form from our car.  The excavator said we should try to pack it down by driving on it.  Bad idea.  Water mixed with gravel dust and clay ran light brown in rivulets down the grade, puddles filling, and I couldn’t help but think about future potholes.  A white substance rose in the area where the bulldozer broke down and spilled hydraulic fluid.  I wanted to scoop the oil away with the new piles of sawdust, but no one else was supportive of this idea.  Now I worry about it going into future plants, or worse, the water supply–what is the toxicity of hydraulic fluid?  When I pointed it out, I was simply told, “well, that’s where it came from.”  Did the excavator mean to say it came from the earth?  My confusion silenced me.

Between the shallow canyons of earth we’ve carved  are islands of moss and fern.  Everywhere new spring nettles are already springing up, firm, green and robust.  Trampled earth and alder dust surrounds the portable mill, and I wonder how the plants along the trail will make their way up again through this constant barrage. I want it to be over with.  I want to start the work of growing and planting and building.  We’ve cleared our swath, we’ve made our impact, now it’s time to get on with it.

Seeing a home being built from the ground up is something I want to experience.  I want to know this impact we have on the earth.  What does it take for me to be here and live here?  What impact has every house I’ve ever lived in had on the earth?  I remember in Kansas as a child my family moved into a new house and my father planted plugs of Bermuda grass.  My brother ran his matchbox cars through pathways in between the green plugs, and soon, the plugs grew together to form a solid lawn that my father fussed over for years.  It was a singular and substantive thing.  I forgot all about the dirt underneath.

The hole where the house will be is muddy clay.  Even along the edges, few roots poke through the sides.  I’m surprised how thin the layer of green is.  I thought the forest would be this thick, grasping skin, non-yielding, hardly willing to give in to our shovels and machines.  But it’s not like grass roots I’ve had to dig out, or other invasive weeds I’ve worked to eradicate.  This earth is fragile, tenuous, almost uncertain of itself.  So lacking in aggression I wonder how it has survived at all.

The Bible says the meek shall inherit the earth.  I wonder everyday about whether that’s really true…

Many hear the term “nature therapy” or “ecotherapy” and think, isn’t that just about spending time outside enjoying nature?  How is nature therapy different from how most of us spend our time outside of buildings and cars? Isn’t this just a walk in the woods? Why do I need a facilitator for that?

A couple of weeks ago after telling a community gathering about the work I do, a woman grabbed me firmly by the elbow and said, “Please keep doing what you are doing–it is such important work.”  She related a poignant tale about a difficult divorce she had undergone, and how much an ongoing walk in the woods near her home saved her life.  Almost apologizing for how short the walk was, she was nevertheless clear and passionate about how much it helped her survive something that otherwise would have been unendurable.  She managed, on her own, to pull from the woods a sense of healing that is readily available to anyone at any time.

How did she do this? I believe it is because of the state of mind she was in.  But how can we replicate what happened to her without having to undergo extreme difficulty or grief to get there?  First, we must understand how her grief facilitated this opening within her.

When undergoing extreme difficulty, we are more impacted by what happens to us.  Areas of our brains are highly activated, and some researchers believe, are more responsive to undergoing physical changes.  We are raw and open to both the insults and the beauty that cross our paths.  We all know how much more sensitive we are in the negative sense when distressed or grieving.  But there’s a less spoken of opening that many are aware of when undergoing grief–we hear about this in sessions–how the beauty of life strangely stands out, or hits us in a new or meaningful way.  Once when I was in despair about something, I suddenly noticed how beautiful a particular sunset was, so striking that  I can still visualize it many years later.  I’ve seen many beautiful skies and sunsets since, but for some reason that one stays with me, although I’ve since forgotten what the despair was about.

Researchers working in the area of neuroscience have recorded through magnetic resonance imaging scans how our neurons are more likely to restructure themselves when moving through deep emotions.  Diana Fosha comments on this in her work with clients, bringing them into these emotional states regularly to impact and change how their limbic brains regulate emotions (Fosha, 2000).  Siegel and others have discovered that trauma is often an opportunity to create an emotional shift in a client, if it can be revisited and reconstructed consciously in the therapeutic setting (Siegel, 2007; Solomon & Siegel, 2003; Wilkinson, 2006).

It doesn’t surprise me that the woman at the community meeting mentioned earlier, and others like her, have approached me with their stories, or how often I hear about epiphanies people experience in nature. Our connection to the earth is essential, and one’s mental and physical regulation depend on harmonizing with the powers of the earth.  This makes intuitive sense, and in the future, I believe neurobiologists will be writing in the same way about how not only intimate relationships create healing limbic regulation, but also our ability to create this same kind of intimacy with nature.

There are many ways to create limbic resonance with the natural world.  Approaches vary. From hands on wilderness therapy to Jungian Dream work applications, I’ve notice that the strongest current of similarity running through most is an emphasis on slowing down.  Watching videos of Diana Fosha and her cohort at work, I’ve seen how radically slowed down the sessions are, giving clients the space and time they need to feel great emotion within a safe connection.  Just as a baby and a healthy parent interact, this is not a rushed process.  Since the pathways of the brain need time to “wear in,” this can be a slow process.  A baby learns to smile by being smiled at many times and hearing the caregiver’s tone of voice.  She is exposed to many hours of face to face contact through the actions of caregiving, and this actually builds structures and patterns in her brain (Lewis & Lannon, 2000).  Although our capacity to build neural pathways when we are older slows down, our brains maintain the ability to change throughout life.

In the same way, nature therapy seeks to establish limbic connection by ongoing contact with the natural world. One ecopsychologist I know has his clients gaze for a long time at a single leaf, just experiencing the leaf and spending time with it.  Another walks slowly with her clients in places where large trees are present, providing opportunities for stopping and sharing the experience of connection with the trees.  Still other therapists delve into dreams about the natural world, and build connection that way.  I often use writing exercises after time spent outdoors to help clients reflect on their experiences–this also helps them rekindle those experiences when they are unable to access nature.  The one thing all these practices do is SLOW the client down, to look and feel.  By slowing down nature has the opportunity to enter us and speak to us, so that we can hear what is being communicated to us, and this is the vehicle whereby we can experience healing.

So, a walk in the woods is a wonderful thing, but it’s not the whole story.   The woman soaked in grief and loss in the above story was slowed down by her grief and loss.  In my moment of despair, I was brought to halt in my life, which enabled me to open, and allowed nature to touch me.  But we needn’t always be in a tragic situation for this poignancy to occur.  Grief is just one vehicle that interrupts our flow long enough for us to see, sometimes for the first time, the life that surrounds us.  Intimacy with anyone or anything requires a slower pace, and speed is often a means used to create distance, perpetuate aggression, or just to avoid intimacy.  This is the primary reason that I combine contemplative practice with nature therapy.  Meditation on the natural world, walking very slowly, breathing, seeing our surroundings, is elemental in creating the conditions to receive what nature has to offer us.  We can speed-walk in the woods a thousand times, go on athletic hikes, bicycle rides, etc., and still miss out on the mental healing nature has to offer.

A yoga teacher once said during a class I was in: “Slow down so you can feel.”  She was speaking about our muscles and tendons, but I never forgot the phrase.  Allowing ourselves to slow down in nature and open up not only allows us to feel, but also allows an empathic capacity to emerge within us.  We begin to feel with nature, feel for nature, and I believe, feel what nature is feeling.  I have seen in my own life how reassuring the green world is.  My dreams and those of others have shown me how much we are wanted by the green world–and how much this world wants to give to us.  I have also felt the pain of how we as a species have taken too much, and how our insensitivity impacts the environment.  We are the vehicles through which nature speaks, and many of us who listen have taken up the pen to voice the concerns of earth.  This is some of the most deeply satisfying work we can do.  We can only get to this receptive place by slowing down, listening, allowing into ourselves the healing that the earth offers, and then giving that healing back, in whatever form we can access.

Fosha, D. (2000).  The Transforming Power of Affect:  A model for accelerated change. Perseus Books, (No location)

Lewis, T., Amini, F., & Lannon, R.  (2000).  A General Theory of Love. New York:  Vintage.

Siegel, D. J.  (2007).  The Mindful Brain:  Reflection and attunement in the cultivation of well-being.  Norton:  New York.

Solomon, M. F. &  D. J. Siegel (2003).  Healing Trauma:  Attachment, mind, body, and brain.  Norton:  New York.

Wilkinson, M.  (2006).  Coming into Mind:  The mind-brain relationship:  A Jungian clinical perspective.  Routledge, New York.

We consulted recently with Eric, who is a local  expert in forest gardening.  Our site is shady, and although we’ll have some sun in the summer, we are focusing on fairly shade tolerant plants.  Eric gave us some good ideas about plants to use for borders that are also edible.  He told us about the local conservation district plant sale where we can buy natives.  He looked at the roots of an alder that had to come out for the drain field, and commented on how healthy the nitrogen fixing nodules looked.  It looks like we have very good conditions for growing .

An edible forest garden, from what I am reading, makes use of permaculture principles to create a sustainable and self-sowing garden that is in harmony with the local ecology.  It is the least destructive sort of gardening or farming we can do.  While providing nutritious food that one “forages,” the self-sowing plants work in harmony with how a natural ecosystem develops, and is actually restorative to the soil, building rather than breaking it down.  The plants used in forest gardens are perennial, and as such, no tilling or disturbing of the soil is required, once the garden is planted.  The amount of work to create the garden is initially more, but the maintenance in future years is minimal.  This is a garden that will go on for many years, even after we are gone, even if no one comes to tend it.  Some believe that forest gardens are really the only sustainable gardens of the future.

Forest gardens not only provide food, but can also grow plants that one can use for building materials, baskets, and other projects.  One source I read spoke of the practice of using coppice, (my spell checker doesn’t even know the word!).  When a tree is cut down, it is done in such a way that it sprouts.  After a few years these many sprouting branches can be cut off and used for furniture or other small items.  This can be done over and over on the same tree.  Other forest gardeners use bamboo (carefully, because of spreading rhizomes).  With some imagination, one might imagine all sorts of ways to grow and forage both food and supplies necessary for our lives.  And it sounds like fun.  Additionally, forest gardeners are sustaining wildlife habitat, feeding birds, and enhancing the beauty of their local areas.  In addition, the activity required to create and forage this kind of garden is health giving.  Being careful to use plants that are in harmony with local environs, I see few if any drawbacks.  If one is thinking in terms of mass production–then no, this isn’t a great method.  There will be ample food to share, but this is not a high yield system of mono-cropping.  Thinking in terms of sustainability and long term environmental and human health, these will be better yield for a much longer period of time, and will provide many additional benefits in addition to those that are nutritional.

I think of all of the land I see around me that is sitting idly in vacant lots, or lying fallow in fields that are not much more than mowed, and especially of the millions of acres of lawns in this country onto which are poured toxic fertilizers and chemicals–and I might add, require a lot of fossil fuels to keep mowed.  What if we converted these spaces to forest gardens?  Let them self sow, and take back some control of our food supply?  Even a tiny yard could grow a small nut tree, a few berry bushes and some edible ground cover.  We could talk to our apartment managers, get our co-renters involved, and start pulling up some lawn, (and perhaps some cement) and planting some food.  In areas where people have done this, neighbors have felt less isolated, kids have been more integrated into the community. and a lot of loneliness has been eased.

As you can see, the notion of edible forest gardening extends far beyond planting a few trees in a particular way.  It’s a larger ethic.  It’s owning our food supply again.  It’s about owning our own health, and land, and neighborhoods and communities.  It is also a vision for how we might survive the coming crises we will experience with regard to food and seed supplies.  The more of us who begin this type of practice, the better situated we will be when the overly large systems of food production begin to break down.  We are already witnessing this.  Not only are these practices laced with cruelty, they are contributing to our mental distress, deteriorating our health, and degrading the environment.  Edible Forest Gardening solves many of these problems.

Be sure to check with your county, however, before starting your own project.

The year closes down, a new year sputters to a start.  The new engine of the century feels worn already.  I’ve had a lot of difficult situations in my life this year, as many readers have, and it seems like the time to reflect on these difficulties comes fortuitously during this season of pause, between the old and new year, after the manic period before Christmas.  Exhaustion sets in, and if we’re lucky we get some time to rest and reflect.

This was a year of difficult relationships in particular.  Although very skilled now in working through troubles with people, there were a couple of situations where no resolution could be found because of silence from the other party–silence interrupted by blasts of blame–and then a return to silence.  In one instance, I found myself being seen by members of my family of origin as someone who I was in the past.  Although this someone that they thought they were speaking to no longer exists, she was still being taken to task for a past mistake.  The really painful part for me was that I was not, and am not, seen for who I am now. To not be known or seen or heard has always been difficult for me.  And my father’s line of the family has a particularly difficult time with reactivity and blame–something I’ve worked extremely hard on this past year in every relationship–it’s strong in our family brain structures.  But, my family has been a bootcamp where I’ve gained the skills to meet new challenges and new difficult situations.

This is the gift of the new year, and the new day.  We get to start over.  The gift of my Buddhist practice is that it lets me renew myself and find absolution in the moment.  I am no longer bound by past mistakes.  I do not have to be who my family thinks I am.  I am not required to respond to them from that place. And I can let them be who they are as well, and not react as if they are the person from the past.

Sure, I want to react.  The shell of my past body wants to lash back, and point out in detailed description how absurd and stupid what they say is.  I know just how to make a point by point case, justify my position, and then launch an incisive blow about what they’ve done that they would be unable to dispute.  I know I can win an argument! I think about the long letters I found among my father’s things–disputes with neighbors, ex-wives and other family members, that he had actually saved!  We are good at making points about how precisely in error the other guy is.

Increasingly over the past 5 years, because of my meditation practice and zen community, I’ve had more space around how I respond to people.  I sputtered in the first years; tried to yank psychology skills out, and save myself that way.  But zen practice really helped me learn the value of waiting, not responding right away if I’m angry, and, less fortunately, of blocking emails when I need to.  When I am triggered, increasingly I can see the painful place the blamer is coming from–how they have to live with themselves everyday, and how terrible that must be. I feel more compassion for the one blaming, and for myself, as the target of blame.  When I catch myself wanting to blame in defense of myself, I can have compassion for that too.  And I ask myself more often, how can I help them?  What can I do?  What responsibility can I take around this?  How can I meet them underneath the blame, in the place of their pain?

Most importantly, I’m learning how to value silence.  Not the dysfunctional silence of withdrawal, but the rich and thoughtful silence of conscious retreat.  When I know I’ve done my best to reach out and resolve a conflict, that my intention has not been to create harm, and when I’ve owned my responsibility or part in it, and the other party refuses to meet me in the same space of mutual reconciliation, then it is time to retreat.  This is self-care.  I do not have to look at disparaging emails, or listen to rumors or walk on the imaginary eggshells of perceived wrongs committed. I can wait in silence and give it space.  They may respond, they may come forward, and they may not.  Ever.  The important thing is, I’ve found peace with myself around it.

So, this year, amidst the noise and calamity of what my life will entail, risks taken, new ventures pursued, I am hoping to cultivate this silence–to not speak with words that further separation and silencing, but to foster a silence that speaks what is real, from the heart, and that furthers a communal and healing dialogue.

Christopher is working assiduously on the site plan and permit process. I’m upset today.  The way the trees are cut and piled makes the land look worse than it is.  We are not allowed to work until permits are straightened out, and now it’s the weekend, and the holidays are coming.  The plants beneath the trees are suffocating without light, and I want to at least uncover them.  Don’s machine can lift and pile them with minimal damage, but it needs to be done soon for the sake of the plants.  I don’t understand why this part is stopped.  I have to remember to stop, breathe, and appreciate the earth’s resilience–appreciate the vision of what we intend there.  Think of the forest garden, think of how we will save the soil, recover the plants, and clear out the invasive species.

When I first walked out onto the five acre parcel we are now involved with, we were experiencing a late fall, and everything was green, the nettles were high, and the earth was in full, albeit mature, bloom.  I worried excessively about breaking every little branch, or stepping on moss, or disturbing the wildlife. I was angry at the men with machete’s cutting through the brush so we could see the corners of the property. Later, once we’d acquired the land, I came back and was surprised to see so much just gone–winter had cleared the land and made trails and open areas, much to my relief.  We were able to then pick the smallest portion of the land for the house-site to clear of alders, in a narrow area between property lines and down the hill from some vigorous and happy looking firs I would not allow to be cut for any reason.

This is not the first time this land has been logged.  Probably third or fourth generation, evidence of old stumps are here and there, and the alders are mature, multiply branched, many of them dangerously rotting and already split.  Still, I understand how some of the neighbors could be upset.  Hearing and seeing any part of the forest coming down, especially in an age where forests are becoming scarce, is disturbing.  And the multiple forks of the alders lying on the ground look like more than one tree. We’ve cut no more than we said we would, and even we are shocked and disturbed by home much it seems to be.

And this is the problem with us.  My knee-jerk environmentalism, I realize, was never effective because of how removed I was from reality and the earth–from what actually occurs so that I can use toilet paper, live in a house framed with wood, and enjoy the level of comfort in my life that I enjoy.  By being outside these past few days, being part of the work that supplies me with some basic shelter needs, seeing and hearing the trees come down, I think I’m starting to get it.  It’s not that we use the earth for our needs–it is how we use the earth for our needs.  We’re more than willing to purchase the wood and bring it in, and it’s all very sanitary and we can’t see the damage done to the forest somewhere else.  We are all too willing to let someone else do the dirty work.  We are removed from the process involved to bring us our stuff, and then become angry when we have to witness it.  The pain of witnessing is great, and it should be great.  We should be suffering over the trees coming down.

But the fact is, we still need to use the trees.  We just have to use them with great respect, and then mitigate for what we’ve done.  Paying for the labor done somewhere else isn’t enough.  No one who lives in a house is excused from this–and what matters now is how we make up for the losses.  But, my fear is, most of us never see it, never witness it.  We’ve santized our world to such a degree, that we don’t feel in our bones what happens to the earth.  Feeling it now, every thud of every tree, I will never be the same.  And I can no longer be the smug person who believes I’ve not had the impact of someone who logs, or drills for oil, or otherwise does the work of getting resources from the earth.  Every one of is complicit in this, whether we admit it or not.

Today we learned, a bit too late, that we were supposed to have some sort of a permit to clear the site for the house.  Someone from the county stopped by and talked to a neighbor.  We had been told by what we thought was a reliable source that if we were using the trees and not selling them, we didn’t need to get a permit. But I guess that was not accurate information.  I am appreciating Christopher’s equanimity about this–he treats it as just another thing we have to do and isn’t at all upset by it.  For me it brings up an assorted set of feelings, some of them conflicted and angry.  And it’s another opportunity to look at how my mind goes toward making up stories to make sense out of what is happening.  And another opportunity to go meditate and let go of those stories, assumptions, and just relate to things as they are.

I noticed today after watching more of the trees drop, that I was becoming inured to their deaths.  Keeping my heart open to the pain was too difficult for such a prolonged period.  This is how we survive undesirable situations.  I wonder if it is possible to stay open and sensitive all of the time.  I know that it would take someone stronger than myself to sustain such openness.

Being constantly subjected to traumatic experience in our environment must be in part what blinds us to the deeper and more ongoing devastations occurring in our world.  Christopher and I both talked about our very first memory of witnessing clearcuts, and how effected we were.  The areas where loggers had come in and skidded trees down slope were utterly decimated.  I take comfort in how our little pile of trees looks nothing like this.  Still, as I helped load limbs into the chipper, I smelled fresh sap and wondered if the tree could sense our good intentions–if it could somehow know that we are behaving differently from the ones who come in and wipe out both the trees and land without seeing or feeling what they are doing.

That’s why it feels so important to me to see this, to feel it, and to document it honestly.  In some way we are lucky that we can’t just afford to have someone come in and do everything.  I want this to be real.  I don’t want to sit home, uninvolved, just hearing about the abstraction that will be our home.  I am glad I have dirt under my fingernails, and the smell of sap on my hands.  I’m glad for the zen training I’ve had so much of in recent years involving hands on labor.  I’ve learned to value the work, and to embrace it as part of the meditation practice.  Everything is practice, even these very difficult parts.  Even these questions and doubts about taking the lives of trees.

And so keeping my heart open to the pain of it is also part of what I’m doing.  And I won’t do it perfectly.  Sometimes I’ll need to shut down and not feel, and that’s okay, as long as I’m conscious of it, and not trying to excuse my behavior somehow.  I’m realizing that every piece of this process is important.  All of it helps me deepen my commitment as a Dharma practitioner, as one who is alive and in the real life situations, dealing with the real questions that emerge for everyday people.  I’m part of this human equation, not sequestered off somewhere in an unreal environment.  Nothing is as real as my hands and heart shaping this place on the earth, running into complex personalities, coming up against unexpected problems.  To wish life was somehow easier or different, that I didn’t have a herniated disc in my back, had more energy, more time, a more focused brain, is sort of pointless.  This body and this mind is what I have, and these problems.  There’s depth and richness here, if I can allow it in.  And I have to say, it’s damn interesting, watching others, watching myself, and noticing our habits and whether or not we are truly free to act.  There’s a lot more to think about this, to say about this, when I’m less tired.  When I’ve had my epsom salts bath…

The dream begins on a difficult uphill slope, with doing things I never thought I’d have to do.   Some trees need to be cleared from the site where we will build our home–mostly alder grown old and at the point of breaking off and careening like missiles into the ground, through a roof, or a car. I’ve seen many broken off alders jutting out of the ground in the woods.  Christopher and I have had long conversations about clearing trees, with me mostly wanting to leave everything, and him wanting to clear widely for light.  We reached a compromise, and are clearing a bit more than half an acre for safety.  Still, I am struggling with many complicated feelings.  It was so much easier when my consciousness was less developed and I thought of trees as just things.

We prayed for the trees, conducted ceremonies, lit incense. We determined to use all parts of the tree, to waste nothing. Don, the arborist, came, and was surprisingly gentle and aware.  As I watched the first trees come down, I thought I was hearing God speak.  It’s not something one easily forgets.  I thought of the stick used in Zen practice, the  keisaku, and of how that smack on the shoulder of a drooping meditation student helps her stay alert.  Watching a tree fall had the same effect on me.  I was at the far end of one such tree, and it was as if it was coming at me in slow motion, the branches snapping off, the limbs flying up–the violence and thunder of its descent. It lay on the ground, a fallen soldier in death throes, and then it settled.  I was alert, utterly without thought and in the moment.

Hearing how heavy a tree is by listening to it hit the ground helped me fully appreciate its strength for the first time.  It seems so unlikely that something that heavy can be upright, can withstand winter storms and wind like we have here, without being buttressed or supported or reinforced by some sort of complicated system of engineering and rebar.  Indeed, it does the opposite of buttressing and opens its arms to the elements.  A tree is a standing miracle.  It’s impossible.  It stands in opposition to all common sense, defying gravity and building codes.  That kind of upright strength is unfathomable, and watching it fall, I felt like the puny human that I am.

I’m trying to think of resilience, of things coming back, of floorboards and handrails lasting many years, of a handle on a door, of walls and board and batten.  I tell the trees how they will go on in another form.  But I am troubled.  Taking life to make my life better–how is this justified?  And part of me knows that this has always been going on, and that I just haven’t seen it so intimately before.  I’ve moved into houses already made, places where others have already done all the damage, and things are long since gone or grown back.  Like the packaged chicken one buys from the grocery store, the blood is always on someone else’s hands.  But is it, really?  We are the ones eating the chickens and living in the houses.

We’ve promised to plant new trees for all of the ones taken.  A man who works nearby tells me about how this forest needs clearing for the health of the remaining trees.  Another man comes by and compliments the ring of cedars the house will now be encircled by.  We are beginning to see where the new trees will go.  New light floods into the area.  But it is still a mess, and I am eager to clean up the fallen trees.

Last night Christopher and I both woke up and were unable to sleep, both so deeply effected by the chaos of this part of the process.  He will be happy when it’s cleaned up and the evidence is stacked neatly, the wood milled, the plans laid out.  He decided to do Tonglen for the trees, and I just felt the sadness in my heart, and did my best to try to shift the vision.  It’s hard to reconcile wanting to create a space for healing with what we are doing now.

It’s important to witness what we do that enables us to live in the way that we do.  I doubt I will ever be able to use a sheet of paper in the same way again, or ever act in a careless manner again about how much I recycle or use paper products.  Like seeing the body of a loved one, witnessing the effects of what we do is essential in coming to terms with what is living now.  Watching Don work, I came to appreciate his trade.  How he aimed his gaze at where he wanted the tree to land, how he perfected the trajectory using wedges, accounted for wind direction.  The wind has been blowing up from the south–a warm Chinook wind, and I feel impotent and helpless as I mark off plants I want him to be careful around–ferns, oregon grape.  I’m told they’ll come back.  I’m told about how strong their roots are, how resilient.  My hands are covered in dirt.  Another tree goes whomp, vibrates through the duff and through roots of other trees still standing.  Leaves fall.  Birds scatter through the newly created brush, gathering seeds, almost eager.  I imagine they chastise me.  There is no excusing this.  There is no real mitigation.  It’s a sin against the earth that we have to live with now, and I’m feeling it fully, feeling it in my deepest being, resolving to work ever harder to restore, redress, and heal places that have gone under in much more thoughtless and aggressive ways.

This week we began our new direction.  My partner Christopher and I are now stewards of land in Maxwelton Valley, a couple miles east of our current location near Useless Bay.  Nestled in wooded lands near the Whidbey Institute, our dream of creating an edible forest garden with meditation trails is now taking shape.  Our intention for the land is to create a healing space, both for ourselves and others who may be able to come to workshops we now hold on the island, or intern with us to learn the ways of contemplative forest gardening.  I am currently in the process of re-creating my business as a non-profit, and focusing exclusively on contemplative writing and nature activities that promote healing.  And we are building our home there.  The posts to follow will be a document of this process, the shaping of a dream, and the long and difficult journey of making a place for healing and meditation.

Recently my partner and I started a new business, Nature Therapy Retreats, offering healing practices in and with nature, and I am interested in hearing any comments or suggestions for the website.  Our first retreat was a wonderful success, and we both knew from the start we were doing the right thing by focusing our energies in this new direction.  Good things are happening in terms of new retreat locations becoming available at the Whidbey Institute, and we are making connections with others who are involved in spiritual practices and the work of healing in nature, which will no doubt enrich our future retreats. I’m also offering a retreat on re-emplacement therapy through sacred writing. I hope you’ll visit the site, tell your friends, and offer any suggestions you feel might be helpful!  Thanks for reading!

As I sat in my contemplative place yesterday in the heart of the woods, I opened my notebook and a bright orange meadowhawk dragonfly plopped immediately onto a note I’d written that said: “passion-do it for love, not for money.” These were notes I’d made after watching a brief video by Richard St. John about the “secrets of success”. I liked the video because it was short and to the point, and I thought I could fill in the blanks myself.

Passion. It’s difficult, sometimes, to know how to turn one’s passion into work that can sustain a living. And yet, if we don’t find a way, we become like the walking dead, coldly moving through boring routines that aren’t fulfilling or stimulating. Passion is the thing that keeps us interested through the difficult parts of our work. It’s what helps us keep going when obstacles emerge, and gives us the persistence to get through. Without a real love for what we do, it will be difficult to commit to the inevitable rote work that exists in any field. When I’m doing something I don’t want to do, it takes me much longer, I wrestle with resistance, and I find it drains me much more physically.

And yet, there a thousand menial tasks that have to be done by someone, and we can’t always do just what we want to do. Every day the dishes need to be washed, the food cooked, the bed made and the floor swept. If we are lucky enough to have them, we have to take care of our children and cars or bicycles or gardens. If we can’t find a way to enter these tasks without struggle and resistance, our lives will be very dreary indeed. If we are depending on excitement to get us through, we are setting ourselves up for failure. And so we need a passion that is bigger than our love for business, or farming, or marketing, or airplanes, or espresso. That’s what I like about Zen practice. Since it is based on bringing awareness and mindfulness into every aspect of our lives, I find I can connect with my passion for this contemplative practice no matter what I do.

Back to Goldsworthy: watching this man make his sculptures, one can see that each one is an incredibly tedious process. So why does he do it? Listening to him speak as his sculpture is claimed by a flooding tide, he talks about how he still feels very connected to the stones he piled one on top of the other–though he cannot at the moment even see his sculpture which is below water level, he feels it in his body.

And I think it can be this way with Zen practice. I feel with each dish that I wash that connection I have with it. When I am out in nature, walking or sitting, I sense its presence. When my passion flags, there is something much bigger and I am still in its embrace. And what a waste, my life would be, if this were not so. How I would spend my hours in regret and tedium! So, Zen is a good passion for me. It works on every level. It helps me connect with nature, and nature helps me connect with my zen practice. It helps my writing, and in my everyday chores. Everything that I do becomes its vehicle, and every encounter I have, is its opportunity to deepen in me.