“But I do want to be distracted by the rest of this: the world that humans didn’t build but that we are part of, evolved with, interacting among all of the time. The world that we use and exist with and could attend to more if it weren’t constantly being pressed into service for solely human purposes.
How many people get times like I get, to watch a full Moon rise over a silent lake, listen to birdsong and the sound of air moving through the trees? I want everyone to have access to it, to choose where their attention goes and to always have opportunities to restore it.”
Reading this poignant piece sitting here late at night watching the moon from the window of my city dwelling, listening to the crickets and occasional nightingale perched on nearby banyan tree. Everything you write resonates deep within, reminds me of my own delirium of morning exhaustion of having to put up with the noise and hustle of this city life temporarily. Reinforces my plan to move to the hills permanently as soon as I can. I live to be distracted by the nature, to be coddled and teased and entranced by its rugged beauty, to be thrilled by its dangers, to learn what to do when the bear starts to eat me.. Thank you for reminding me always of what is important Nia💜🌼
And here I am hung up on how much I'd love to hear a nightingale ...
I imagine you distracted by nature all the time, so strange, but it's the way you write of beauty and the small, wonderful lives of the world, and the ways we touch everything when carrying pain and grief and mourning. Though I do not wish for the bear to start to eat you! Even metaphorically. 🧡☺️💚
When proximate to a grizzly I note to myself, if there's time, that bears usually do the right thing for all concerned, and sometimes my inclination is to do something that is stupid, like draw a large revolver with one hand while attempting (it will not work, ever!) using the off hand. That reminds me of the time my girlfriend and I (behind her as it turned out) had a young (and very large boar) approach to within 12 feet and stand, staring at her pack on the ground in which there was lunch double OP sac sealed. She took a stance with pepper spray at the ready, she is a 7th degree black belt, and I drew my pistol and aimed (over her head- she's 5'2, and I am about 5'10) for his face. He had a permanent scowl showing his sizable incisors, likely the result of a clash with another boar and we faced off for a timeless space alert without fear.. At one point she whispered "l think I'll have to spray," but fortunately he walked off. We kept watching over our shoulders until we were back to the vehicle and checked our underwear, so to speak.
That is a riveting story! I have thought about carrying, but don't. I'm just too clumsy and don't trust myself. Not sure if I could do it in the moment, either. For food, yes, but for self-defense I'd probably just lose my head. "a timeless space alert without fear" -- whew.
Wonderful, Nia. Thanks. As you might know, Montana has three species of those yellow swallowtails. This one is looking to be Western Tiger Swallowtail (Pterourus rutulus). (They can be tricky to ID with only a dorsal view.) And hooray for the wild distractions!
I did not know but I do now! And speaking of wild distractions, you've turned me into an iNaturalist enthusiast. My family are now very tired of my taking and uploading photos and muttering about which species we're looking at ...🌸
iNaturalist has become arguably the most important source of eco-data in the world. If there can be anything good for nature online, it's iNaturalist. And get this: iNaturalist isn't making a bunch of privileged white guys filthy rich. It is crowd-sourcing at it's finest. And we iNaturalist users aren't the commodity -- nobody's mining us to make money (that we know of). It's all about documenting nature (even as it's vanishing ... or especially because it's vanishing). It's really incredible.
I have to say I'm hooked. AND -- take this and run with it for an essay if you want because I'd love to read your take on it -- the first time a total stranger corrected my identification with a suggestion, I got the little "you're connected with another human" dopamine ping that social media promises but with a healthy, non-addictive feeling rather than a craving to keep scrolling. Just a little 👋🏿👋🏽👋🏻
Add that to "not being a commodity" and I'm even more hooked! In a good way!
It is getting to be late in the evening, I am tired, and yet this post absolutely filled my sails. It made me want to go outside, lie in the grass (being careful to watch out for dog poop), and just stare at the stars. I can think of no better use of time than to be still and allow, if only for a few minutes, my spirit to melt back into the cosmos, back into infinity, back into the center.
My favorite quote from the book you referenced is this: “The myths with real power are the ones we don’t notice—the ones that affect our thinking in ways we seldom recognize and therefore seldom challenge. The most effective myths keep people from asking the right questions.”
Especially that last line. Like other forms of delusion, it is the myth that lurks unnoticed in the dark corners that holds the most sway over our way of seeing the world, and henceforth, our way of being.
In his book, A Brief History of Time, Ronald Wright states the following: "Myth is an arrangement of the past, whether real or imagined, in patterns that reinforce a culture's deepest values and aspirations. Myths are so fraught with meaning that we live and die by them. They are the maps by which cultures navigate through time."
What does one do when a map based upon faulty premises is leading an entire civilization over a cliff and into the abyss?
I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to look at your beautiful images again, listen several more times to the song of the Swainson’s thrush, and imagine a different sort of world.
I know I say this a lot of your comments but this is another perfect mini-essay all on its own! "I know what I'm going to do" -- reading that immediately re-grounded me in a week of hectic discombobulation. Thank you. 🙏
That passage about myth got me, too. There's more of that toward the end of the book and I think it's so important. Though I felt like a plagiarizer afterward: I ended the introduction of my book (which is at the copy shop doing whatever she does and will be sent to you!) with the line "Humanity's original myth."
I haven't read Wright's book but yes, so true. "The maps by which cultures navigate through time." I remember years ago when my kids were little trying to tell them the story of the Industrial Revolution and the descent into destruction and climate change in the framing of "this is a story people have believed for a long time" and wondering how I would ever finish the story for them because I couldn't see if enough people would start telling and believing a different, healing story. I still don't know. But we can love what's here while we can.
One thing that's always true is that there is little original to say under this Sun ...
My favorite bird! Down here in the Sonoran Desert sky islands, we have hermit thrushes with a similar song. Before I knew what it was, I would say to friends, “Listen! It’s the stained glass window bird!” because to me its song sounded like, well, a stained glass window somehow represented aurally.
That beautiful bird call--love that you were able to record it and share it with us. And the camas--how I miss those flowers. I'm so grateful for your words and images, giving me glimpses of such beautiful country, and reminding me of summers spent in north-eastern Oregon long ago. I love that country and suspect that Montana is just like it but wider. :) Beautiful. 💜
Very similar landscapes, I think. And camas is something so special, isn't it? (The bird call was actually from a camping trip literally the next day. We go to this one campground every year that is full of them. It's something I really look forward to.)
There is a big Cedar up Haskill Basin. When I approach my departure date I Hope to walk, crawl, or be carried to rest against this tree until my spirit leaves my body. I always thought being a meal for a bear, cat, coyote or wolf would be a wonderful last gift to my four-footed neighbors!
It's funny I read this just now as we're unexpectedly back in north America for a couple of months and are discussing where to spend one month uninterrupted. And I absolutely do not want it to be a big city. I want a small town so I can be in green places as much as possible. I don't want the sound of traffic. I want the sound of wind in the trees so I can hear myself think and breathe.
The sound of traffic is such a drain. People don't always realize how much it adds to stress, along with the lack of shade and greenery because of all the space given to motorways through human living spaces.
I hope you find a good place! My mind immediately went to the Oregon coast. Actually, it went first to Lewistown, Montana, but the next couple months are going to be HOT on the prairie.
I am sure we will! I took the kids once before when my sister lived there, but they were too young to remember. I'm glad it was my son's choice this time.
After hitting a bit of wall on the water commons last week, I'm recharging my batteries among other communities that work.
I'll actually be in Portland this weekend, kayaking right through downtown with a friend who is doing the bridge-to-bridge swim on the Willamette from the Sellwood Bridge to the St John's Bridge. My friend is trying to win, so if you see a guy in a red hat and a yellow kayak near the front, it might be me.
Oh, the Swainson's thrush! I fell for them hard when we lived for a year on Lopez Island in the San Juans. Thank you so much for sending their voices out to us! As far as being eaten by bears, I believe the same thing goes (where I live) about hungry sharks. Most of them won't touch you, but once in a while. . . . A woman got attacked and disappeared just a few months ago off the beach closest to us, the shore where I just went diving last week. . . . Her death prompted a number of conversations around here, like, I definitely don't want to to go that way, but if I do meet a hungry shark, don't anyone think I'll be disappointed if the shark does decide to fill up on me. I'll be in a place I love, the ocean. It will likely be quick. And what an amazing thing, to feed the sea forever. I think about all the near-death experiences I've read about that happened because of physical trauma: they don't report terror and pain, only peace. Like something sublime happens in those last moments, something related to shock and maybe related also to what comes after. Anyway, thanks for recording these beautiful moments for us, in writing and audio.
"What an amazing thing, to feed the sea forever." I love the way you put that. I'm going to think of it that way always now, except for the forests and rivers and mountains (unless I make it back to the ocean and meet a shark).
I was always 100% a mountain person, being from Montana, until living by the ocean in Australia for a couple of years. It really gets in your blood, doesn't it? Even though I wasn't raised there, sometimes at night I still listen for it. 🌊
“But I do want to be distracted by the rest of this: the world that humans didn’t build but that we are part of, evolved with, interacting among all of the time. The world that we use and exist with and could attend to more if it weren’t constantly being pressed into service for solely human purposes.
How many people get times like I get, to watch a full Moon rise over a silent lake, listen to birdsong and the sound of air moving through the trees? I want everyone to have access to it, to choose where their attention goes and to always have opportunities to restore it.”
Reading this poignant piece sitting here late at night watching the moon from the window of my city dwelling, listening to the crickets and occasional nightingale perched on nearby banyan tree. Everything you write resonates deep within, reminds me of my own delirium of morning exhaustion of having to put up with the noise and hustle of this city life temporarily. Reinforces my plan to move to the hills permanently as soon as I can. I live to be distracted by the nature, to be coddled and teased and entranced by its rugged beauty, to be thrilled by its dangers, to learn what to do when the bear starts to eat me.. Thank you for reminding me always of what is important Nia💜🌼
And here I am hung up on how much I'd love to hear a nightingale ...
I imagine you distracted by nature all the time, so strange, but it's the way you write of beauty and the small, wonderful lives of the world, and the ways we touch everything when carrying pain and grief and mourning. Though I do not wish for the bear to start to eat you! Even metaphorically. 🧡☺️💚
When proximate to a grizzly I note to myself, if there's time, that bears usually do the right thing for all concerned, and sometimes my inclination is to do something that is stupid, like draw a large revolver with one hand while attempting (it will not work, ever!) using the off hand. That reminds me of the time my girlfriend and I (behind her as it turned out) had a young (and very large boar) approach to within 12 feet and stand, staring at her pack on the ground in which there was lunch double OP sac sealed. She took a stance with pepper spray at the ready, she is a 7th degree black belt, and I drew my pistol and aimed (over her head- she's 5'2, and I am about 5'10) for his face. He had a permanent scowl showing his sizable incisors, likely the result of a clash with another boar and we faced off for a timeless space alert without fear.. At one point she whispered "l think I'll have to spray," but fortunately he walked off. We kept watching over our shoulders until we were back to the vehicle and checked our underwear, so to speak.
That is a riveting story! I have thought about carrying, but don't. I'm just too clumsy and don't trust myself. Not sure if I could do it in the moment, either. For food, yes, but for self-defense I'd probably just lose my head. "a timeless space alert without fear" -- whew.
Wonderful, Nia. Thanks. As you might know, Montana has three species of those yellow swallowtails. This one is looking to be Western Tiger Swallowtail (Pterourus rutulus). (They can be tricky to ID with only a dorsal view.) And hooray for the wild distractions!
I did not know but I do now! And speaking of wild distractions, you've turned me into an iNaturalist enthusiast. My family are now very tired of my taking and uploading photos and muttering about which species we're looking at ...🌸
iNaturalist has become arguably the most important source of eco-data in the world. If there can be anything good for nature online, it's iNaturalist. And get this: iNaturalist isn't making a bunch of privileged white guys filthy rich. It is crowd-sourcing at it's finest. And we iNaturalist users aren't the commodity -- nobody's mining us to make money (that we know of). It's all about documenting nature (even as it's vanishing ... or especially because it's vanishing). It's really incredible.
I have to say I'm hooked. AND -- take this and run with it for an essay if you want because I'd love to read your take on it -- the first time a total stranger corrected my identification with a suggestion, I got the little "you're connected with another human" dopamine ping that social media promises but with a healthy, non-addictive feeling rather than a craving to keep scrolling. Just a little 👋🏿👋🏽👋🏻
Add that to "not being a commodity" and I'm even more hooked! In a good way!
This was pure joy, Nia.
It is getting to be late in the evening, I am tired, and yet this post absolutely filled my sails. It made me want to go outside, lie in the grass (being careful to watch out for dog poop), and just stare at the stars. I can think of no better use of time than to be still and allow, if only for a few minutes, my spirit to melt back into the cosmos, back into infinity, back into the center.
My favorite quote from the book you referenced is this: “The myths with real power are the ones we don’t notice—the ones that affect our thinking in ways we seldom recognize and therefore seldom challenge. The most effective myths keep people from asking the right questions.”
Especially that last line. Like other forms of delusion, it is the myth that lurks unnoticed in the dark corners that holds the most sway over our way of seeing the world, and henceforth, our way of being.
In his book, A Brief History of Time, Ronald Wright states the following: "Myth is an arrangement of the past, whether real or imagined, in patterns that reinforce a culture's deepest values and aspirations. Myths are so fraught with meaning that we live and die by them. They are the maps by which cultures navigate through time."
What does one do when a map based upon faulty premises is leading an entire civilization over a cliff and into the abyss?
I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to look at your beautiful images again, listen several more times to the song of the Swainson’s thrush, and imagine a different sort of world.
I know I say this a lot of your comments but this is another perfect mini-essay all on its own! "I know what I'm going to do" -- reading that immediately re-grounded me in a week of hectic discombobulation. Thank you. 🙏
That passage about myth got me, too. There's more of that toward the end of the book and I think it's so important. Though I felt like a plagiarizer afterward: I ended the introduction of my book (which is at the copy shop doing whatever she does and will be sent to you!) with the line "Humanity's original myth."
I haven't read Wright's book but yes, so true. "The maps by which cultures navigate through time." I remember years ago when my kids were little trying to tell them the story of the Industrial Revolution and the descent into destruction and climate change in the framing of "this is a story people have believed for a long time" and wondering how I would ever finish the story for them because I couldn't see if enough people would start telling and believing a different, healing story. I still don't know. But we can love what's here while we can.
One thing that's always true is that there is little original to say under this Sun ...
My favorite bird! Down here in the Sonoran Desert sky islands, we have hermit thrushes with a similar song. Before I knew what it was, I would say to friends, “Listen! It’s the stained glass window bird!” because to me its song sounded like, well, a stained glass window somehow represented aurally.
Beautiful piece, as ever. Made me think of this research I recently stumbled over — The Beyond-Human Natural World: Providing Meaning and Making Meaning https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/ijerph/ijerph-20-06170/article_deploy/ijerph-20-06170.pdf?version=1687142300
Stained glass window bird! I love that!
And that paper--thank you, that's actually relevant to the presentation I'll be giving next week. 😀
I loved every word of this beautifully crafted post and just knew I’d get to hear the bird at the end. Thank you!
I'm so glad--you know, I hope, how much your words mean to me!
That beautiful bird call--love that you were able to record it and share it with us. And the camas--how I miss those flowers. I'm so grateful for your words and images, giving me glimpses of such beautiful country, and reminding me of summers spent in north-eastern Oregon long ago. I love that country and suspect that Montana is just like it but wider. :) Beautiful. 💜
Very similar landscapes, I think. And camas is something so special, isn't it? (The bird call was actually from a camping trip literally the next day. We go to this one campground every year that is full of them. It's something I really look forward to.)
There is a big Cedar up Haskill Basin. When I approach my departure date I Hope to walk, crawl, or be carried to rest against this tree until my spirit leaves my body. I always thought being a meal for a bear, cat, coyote or wolf would be a wonderful last gift to my four-footed neighbors!
Thans for sharing the beauty of your thoughts
I am absolutely with you. Have some version of your Cedar in mind 💚
It's funny I read this just now as we're unexpectedly back in north America for a couple of months and are discussing where to spend one month uninterrupted. And I absolutely do not want it to be a big city. I want a small town so I can be in green places as much as possible. I don't want the sound of traffic. I want the sound of wind in the trees so I can hear myself think and breathe.
The sound of traffic is such a drain. People don't always realize how much it adds to stress, along with the lack of shade and greenery because of all the space given to motorways through human living spaces.
I hope you find a good place! My mind immediately went to the Oregon coast. Actually, it went first to Lewistown, Montana, but the next couple months are going to be HOT on the prairie.
We can all give up trying to write the best headline this year because your "If a bear starts to eat you..." is clearly the winner!
😂
Yes to the Japanese Gardens, be sure to sit a spell!
I am sure we will! I took the kids once before when my sister lived there, but they were too young to remember. I'm glad it was my son's choice this time.
Beautiful, thank you, that was a salve 💚
🙏💚
Yes to “Fight back in any way possible.”!
After hitting a bit of wall on the water commons last week, I'm recharging my batteries among other communities that work.
I'll actually be in Portland this weekend, kayaking right through downtown with a friend who is doing the bridge-to-bridge swim on the Willamette from the Sellwood Bridge to the St John's Bridge. My friend is trying to win, so if you see a guy in a red hat and a yellow kayak near the front, it might be me.
Alas I have to leave right after the race.
That is so cool! We get there Saturday midday (taking Amtrak), so we'll see what we see ...
So much yes to recharging the batteries. 💚
Oh, the Swainson's thrush! I fell for them hard when we lived for a year on Lopez Island in the San Juans. Thank you so much for sending their voices out to us! As far as being eaten by bears, I believe the same thing goes (where I live) about hungry sharks. Most of them won't touch you, but once in a while. . . . A woman got attacked and disappeared just a few months ago off the beach closest to us, the shore where I just went diving last week. . . . Her death prompted a number of conversations around here, like, I definitely don't want to to go that way, but if I do meet a hungry shark, don't anyone think I'll be disappointed if the shark does decide to fill up on me. I'll be in a place I love, the ocean. It will likely be quick. And what an amazing thing, to feed the sea forever. I think about all the near-death experiences I've read about that happened because of physical trauma: they don't report terror and pain, only peace. Like something sublime happens in those last moments, something related to shock and maybe related also to what comes after. Anyway, thanks for recording these beautiful moments for us, in writing and audio.
"What an amazing thing, to feed the sea forever." I love the way you put that. I'm going to think of it that way always now, except for the forests and rivers and mountains (unless I make it back to the ocean and meet a shark).
I was always 100% a mountain person, being from Montana, until living by the ocean in Australia for a couple of years. It really gets in your blood, doesn't it? Even though I wasn't raised there, sometimes at night I still listen for it. 🌊