On Immersion and Curiosity

Ways of seeing, ways of being

While my essays and poems at The Dendroica Project have sketched the framework of an ecological spirituality - my personal spirituality - I have mostly refrained from any sort of instruction manual. I don’t wish to join the ranks of self-help authors or to assert that I know “the way”. That said, it is reasonable to ask “how do I get there from here?” and I would like to offer my own perspective, from my own experience.

I’ll get there in a roundabout sort of way, because first I want to challenge the common idea that our society is suffering from “nature deficit disorder” and that we would all fall in love with our planet if only we all went on more mountain bike rides and backpacking trips. Clearly it is very difficult to develop an ecological spirituality from an office cubicle or a prison cell, but I believe that most of us, wherever we dwell, have access to enough wildness to immerse ourselves and feel a true connection.

The vast majority of human encounters with nature - whether in a backyard garden or an alpine meadow - are largely devoid of a spiritual dimension. Much of the time, our living surroundings are simply a passive background to our inner monologue, our conversations, our preoccupations, our daily activities. I am always a bit saddened to see folks jogging through the forest wearing headphones, absorbed in a podcast, or blasting music at the top of Marys Peak, drowning out the White-crowned Sparrows and Varied Thrushes. Yet I too often find myself in this way of being as well, noticing only the most profound sights and the strongest scents.

Sometimes we set out seeking adventure. We climb sheer rock walls, ski down mountainsides, bounce our bikes along singletracks, kayak whitewater rivers. This brings an intensity of focus, snapping us out of our scattered thoughts. It brings a meditative simplicity, an escape from the complications of our lives, a means to face and overcome our fears, an opportunity for physical conditioning, the euphoria of success through skill. But that focus and intensity does not leave much room for anything else to get in. The rock climber does not really notice the soaring hawks or the thin crust of lichen. The skier does not notice the gray jays opening pinecones or the coyote tracks in the snow. The mountain biker does not notice the calypso orchids and trout lilies along the trail. The kayaker does not notice the kingfisher or the dipper sharing the same river.

Sometimes we set out to bring something home, to provide nourishment and to scratch a deep itch in our hunter-gatherer heritage. An elk, perhaps, or a pheasant or salmon. A bucket of berries or mushrooms. Even birders often become collectors, seeking rare sightings to add to life lists or aiming to see the most species in one day. This requires a level of immersion, of opening our senses to notice animal trails, microhabitats, bird calls, the subtle patterns of flow in streams. But as long as the focus is primarily on the goal, we remain somewhat single-minded in our observation. We care only about the sockeye, the morels, the Magnolia Warbler far from her usual haunts. And - although we can hunt and gather from a perspective of reciprocity - too often these acquisitive pursuits are about what nature can give us, what we can take home, placing humans in a position of superiority that precludes belonging.

It is intriguing to me that some of the best nature writing, some of the most ecologically spiritual prose that I have read, has been penned by fly fishermen. There is something especially immersive about that sport. Fly fishermen are not hiding in blinds or sighting through scopes or covering ground to find the next patch of boletes. They are standing waist-deep in rivers, casting and reeling but otherwise watching, listening, feeling the tug of the current and the wind, taking in the scents of the forests and meadows. Sometimes some of them will admit that it isn’t really about the trout. Sure they’re tasty and wild and beautiful, but the real joy is in the in-between moments, in the presence, in the feeling of coming to know and be known by the ecosystem, of belonging to a place.

That’s a dangerous admission, though, because from a social perspective the fly rod makes all the difference. Doctors and lawyers fly thousands of miles and hire guides to stand in rivers and cast for trout and regale their colleagues of their adventures. Only silly overgrown boys stand in rivers all day just for the sake of standing in rivers. So it seems that men who wish to stand in rivers will usually carry a fly rod, and hatcheries will raise fish and dump them unceremoniously in streams and alpine lakes so that they might occasionally bite on a bug-that-is-not-a-bug and find themselves hooked through the jaw and reeled in by a two-legger who will, more often than not, extract the hook and toss them back. Because it’s not really about the trout.

When we are not lost in our thoughts or focused on clinging to a rock face or intent on flushing a pheasant or finding the next patch of chanterelles or adding a Townsend’s Solitaire to a life list, then we have another option, another way of being in relation to the living world that surrounds us. We can attune our senses: hear the Rufous Hummingbird in flight and watch him drink from from a flowering currant bush, poke our noses into the currant flowers to inhale the unique jammy fragrance, caress the soil as we plant and cover seeds, taste a piece of yarrow leaf or fir needle.

When we immerse ourselves in this way we naturally become curious. What exactly am I looking at? Where is that wonderful scent coming from? What bird is singing that song? Those are answerable questions, and when we find answers - through observation, through research, or through asking others - more questions arise. How do the hummingbirds find their way back each year? Why are the morels fruiting right here, right now, and not over there? What sort of miraculous pattern of cell division creates a calypso orchid? If we are scientifically-minded, we might have partial, incomplete answers that still leave plenty of room for mystery. Then there are the truly unanswerable questions, those that leave us meditating on the nature of reality and the reality of nature. How is this moment experienced from a hummingbird’s perspective? How do I appear to her? Why do chickadees and oak leaves and garter snakes appear as they do, when they could just as easily be otherwise? What creative force gives rise to all of this, to our own animal bodies?

If anyone asks me how they might develop or deepen an ecological spirituality, my answer is to spend more time intentionally inhabiting this way of seeing, this way of being in nature. It does not need to be in wilderness or far from civilization. The idea that any visible human footprint is a poison that negates that natural world is a strange myth borne of an experience of separation. It can be in a park, or in a garden, or even gazing up at the canopy of a single tree.

Sometimes it is difficult to step out of our busy lives and enter this way of being, so I’ll offer a few suggestions from my own experience:

• Be still, or move slowly, allowing observations to bring you to a stop: a colorful fallen leaf, a trailside flower, a mushroom, a warbler flitting overhead.

• Choose for yourself one or more “chapels of nature”: special places that you only visit intentionally and in a quiet, contemplative manner.

• Learn about the world that surrounds you. The more you are curious, the more you will learn. The more you learn, the more you will be curious. Observe the cycles of the seasons: the progression of flowers, the timing of bird migrations, the ripening of fruits. While smartphones can certainly be an impediment to being present, bringing our emails and Instagram accounts out into the woods, they can also now listen to birdsongs and tell you who is singing, or identify plants from a photograph. It is difficult to feel an intimate and meaningful connection to “birds” and “plants”, but much easier to develop a relationship with Western Bluebirds and Oregon White Oaks.

• Participate. Sow seeds and watch them germinate and grow. Plant trees. Put up nest boxes. Build simple trails and bridges. Add your own weaving to the pattern - not from a place of dominion and control but from a place of co-creation. When Violet-green Swallows nest in your boxes and your tomatoes and apples bear fruit, it becomes easier to feel a sense of connection, to overcome the story of humans apart from nature.

I recommend nurturing an ecological spirituality not because I think you should, because I think it would save the planet from destruction, because I think it will save your soul, or because I think it is the highest truth, more true than all those other high truths. I encourage it because it has been invaluable to me, providing me with a sense of rootedness, of meaning, of purpose, of belonging. I cannot imagine my life without it, and I am eternally grateful to my father, Ed Stone, for teaching me the names of the birds and the trees and the stars and for creating a childhood environment within which I could explore, find my own chapels of nature, climb trees to watch sunrises and sunsets, and fall asleep to the song of the whip-poor-will.

I have a sense that our modern society has an epidemic of uprootedness, a crisis of meaning, and that traditional religions and the modern mythology of human progress no longer resonate with many people as they once did. So I wish to offer an alternative: one that is always available and that requires only opening our eyes and minds and hearts to the wonder and mystery and life that surrounds us.

Happy Equinox everyone!