I live among huggable trees. What I mean is that their girdles are not usually bigger than the span of my arms, just shy of 5 feet. These trees are small, not at all like the wide armed oaks and lofty redwoods of California that stand as my reference point. The mature trees of the Northeast yield to the myriad of hungry woods dwellers while still upright, and continue to live long lives of service after they’ve laid down their crowns and stretched up on the ground. They are, at first glance, nothing special, majestic, or stately. They blend in humbly, birch and alder yielding to oak and hickory, beech and maple making room for pine and hemlock. Branches snap off in the wind and snow, and sap runs just enough to push the leaves out of their tightly curled fists. These woods give off the scent of ordinary - no one is trying too hard or too much. When there is diversity in the size, age, and species of trees, no one has to.
Perhaps because of their acceptance and reliance on distinction, these woods are teeming with life. Pileated woodpeckers burrow huge canyons into the biggest trees, shortening their upright lives by much but also extending the bird and bug populations in creating such abundant, ready made canopy apartments with an excellent view. The squirrels are prolific here too, along with mink and ermine and fisher and chipmunk and rabbit and beaver and vole and porcupine and skunk and bear and of course the ever-present deer, who reminds us to be graceful. And oh the mushrooms - shelf and slimy and poisonous and delicious - they hang off these trees like big, gaudy earrings. The birds are only here half the year, but their commitment to return to this north wood is understood in their exalting songs of praise.
Maybe these small trees, thin and diverse, generously give themselves over because, more than being large and erect, they love being in relationship. Maybe these trees are okay with a shorter lifespan, knowing their saplings have plenty to grow on. There’s something watery and feminine in there, the part of us that desires connection. At first glance it looks like a wild tangle of hair out there, in need of a good brushing. But choosing to stop and lean against a maple, encircled by decaying birch logs, is like choosing to sit back and let the quieter voices speak into the circle…to let the other species scamper into the space left open.
Translated into the parallel universe we call culture, I’ve found myself weary of listening to the voices that speak loud and erect. So many amazing intelligent people are talking about how to hospice modernity, be with the grief of the end of an age, re-imagine what it is to be human. They seem so loud in a moment where listening might glean the deepest wisdom. Listening long enough for the big important brain to empty, and forget even, how to refill with ‘new thoughts’. Allowing for such emptiness is quite possibly the only way to hear what’s thrumming under our feet.
We are like a perennials, destined to push up into the light when it reaches just the right slant and continue on to leaf, flower and bud our way as the spinning planet directs. There is simply no use in claiming independence. That word was invented about 400 years ago, in the early 1600s, so it seems like just the right time to let it compost. To be interdependent, first we’ve got to look up from our vantage points. We are mimics here, it is perhaps our greatest gift, second only to our gratitude. Our job is to watch, listen, receive the intelligence, and put it to good use. Watching is receiving. Receptivity is the antidote to supremacy.
The woodpecker hammers into the half dead tree. The trout lily on this side of the hill is directly interwoven to the trout lily two hills over. The hocketing of the phoebe and the coyote inspire song writing through the curve and contour of the land. There is so much talk about how to re-create ourselves during this time of great collapse, great turning, great resetting. I wonder what the curve of the tailbone is like in the ones who are talking. Can they feel the cycling of blood through the pelvic floor? There is a place between the tail and pubic bones, deep within each of us, that the pathway of belonging emerges. The pathway is called the ren channel, or sea of attachment. Are words welling up from below, or trickling down through the sky? Which do we give the most weight, which do we call truth?
If I had to guess what humans might look like in 5000 years, it’s a little like a lollipop. It’s not an exciting image. Positioning ourselves - and more accurately our thoughts - above everything else has begun to shift our shape. Our modern idea of specialness is a grand story that has changed our bodies, the landscape, and indeed the planet, so what might a different story yield? Maybe the best use of all of our grand ideas could be to let them be hammered by the woodpecker, overtaken by the finch family, and composted by the inky black beetles.
There are a lot of us here, and likely will be a whole lot more very soon…what shape could we assume that encourages more listening, not just to a diversity of human voices - although that is crucial too - but the myriad of other beings, ready to step into the forest with us? We tend to think of trees as being upright, but most of their physical lives are spent lying supine on the ground. We are no different, gravity has its way with us all. Different thoughts arise when more of us is in contact with the ground. Aligning the ren channel with the earth requires touch, navel to navel. Perhaps this is a place to start, to mimic the small trees, to allow contact, to be alright with less. In doing so, possibilities emerge from unknown places.
Porcupine sits high up in the tree, munching. Squirrels and chipmunks seem engaged in a fight over territory, or maybe it’s just a morning game. I return my attention to the birdsong, telling the gossip of the day. Together they give the day sweet taste, and a medicinal dose of what it means to be ordinary, woven in community.