The Earth is a Tremendous Teacher

 

“The Earth is a tremendous teacher,” writes Richard Wagamese in One Drum (p. 148).  I thought about these words as I walked a treelined trail through farmland this morning.  The sky was low and grey and waiting to release its heavy load of rain.  The low light created saturated colours all around me – rich greens, reds and oranges.  The air felt heavy as I made my way past the basal leaves of Burdock and Garlic Mustard, the edge dwellers of the trail.  A few yellow Sow Thistle flowers shone out as did the last of the white and purple Asters against the dark greens.  Leaves fell around me and covered the trail.  Summer is winding up and the trees are releasing their sugar producing leaves now that the fruit of their labours is safely stored underground in the roots.  To hold onto these leaves would create a huge weight in snowload during the winter that could snap the branches and trunks.  And so the deciduous trees and plants let go of their leaves..

I created a number of things this summer and had many experiences and conversations with people.  It was a busy time and I spent much of it outdoors.  But now, it is time to store the gratitude for all of those experiences and the wisdom they shared and release the summer patterns of behaviour and clothing.  It is time to wear warm shoes and jackets or raincoats.  It is time to look for the huge flocks of blackbirds preparing for migration and time to make pumpkin pies and wild grape jelly.

And what of the other things that I carry with me?  I am becoming more aware of the ancestral traumas of separation as people fled Europe for Turtle Island, leaving families, conflicts and land behind.  I am aware that these people and their descendants re-perpetrated this separation by taking children away from Indigenous people and separating them from their ancestral land, creating the same trauma.  How is it that settlers find it hard to understand the damage that this caused when they carry it within their own bodies?

My mother emigrated to Turtle Island from England and never really got over the trauma of leaving loved ones behind.  She made the best of it, but the sadness never went away.  And I carry that sadness as well since it was the only expression of love that she could find for those far away.  How do I let that sadness fall away like yellow-orange leaves?  How do I find another way to love from a distance, to connect across the miles?

After supper, we walked a different part of the same trail in search of flocking blackbirds.  For the past few years, we have gone to the places that we have previously seen large flocks of blackbirds travelling to the marshlands to spend the night.  It is thrilling to see these clouds of black individual birds flying as one.  Watching them lifts my heart and spirit.  I remembered the bench where I sat last year and heard the whoosh of a flock flying over me.  We found the same bench, sat down and began to scan the sky.  Moments later a flock flew over our heads and I felt our relationship renew itself. Despite the damp weather, I felt my heart soar with them for a moment.  

Waiting for more birds, I noticed the low grey rainclouds moving swiftly to the north, driven by a strong south wind.  I knew that the waves in the lake behind me would be doing the same thing.  The birds were flying from east to west at right angles to the wind, pulled from the farmers’ field where they had fed all day, to the safety of the cattails to sleep all night.  I could hear the sound of running water as the marshland on one side of the trail drained into the lake through a culvert under the trail, drawn by gravity in the same direction as the birds.

More flocks crossed the trail on either side of us before it began to rain.  The wind had driven a dark grey cloud over our heads and the water it held fell to earth, pulled down by gravity and filling in the third tangent, up to down joining the east to west and south to north tangents.  We were getting wet at this point and decided to walk back along the trail, following the direction of the wind, drawn by the dryness and warmth of the car that would take us east to our home and warm gas stove.

Constant movement was the teaching that I received today from the Earth.  Everything is constantly in motion.  Despite our human desire for stasis which feels like safety and control, this is not the way of the universe.  With constant motion, things are getting closer and farther away from each other all the time.  How can we be at peace with this constant change?  Indigenous wisdom offers a possible answer.  Remembering that we are all connected, the renewal of relationships becomes a way of strengthening this knowing.  Coming out to the marsh to see the blackbirds flocking every fall is a way of renewing our relationship with them and learning from their ability to cooperate.  Talking on the phone, texting, emailing, using platforms to see each other and speak are modern ways to connect, to renew relationships.  Connection is the important thing, even over distances.  Picking wild grapes and making jelly every fall is a way of renewing our relationship with wild grapes and walking the same forest trail is a more frequent renewal.  Feeling and expressing gratitude for all those we are connected to is another way of renewing our relationship with water, the food we eat, our friends and family.

In a Western culture that is based on scarcity and fear, these acts or renewal are counter-culture.  In an Indigenous way of knowing, they are acts of humility, recognizing that we are part of a giant web.  So writes Richard Wagamese: “Humility’s energy is the binding agent that holds all things together-- the glue, if you will.  When we look at Mother Earth, we are looking at a truly humble being.  She offers life to everything… That is the nature of a truly humble being, and she is why Indigenous people have always said that the Earth is our university – we learn all things from her example.” (One Drum p. 64)

And so, pulled from my warm, comfortable home to the forest, the lakeshore, and the marshlands by my Mother Earth, I watch and listen and learn and remember who I am as I navigate this ever changing world guided by relationships.