Releasing the Mind
It is difficult to describe the experience that I had in the nine days leading up to the Winter Solstice. I might call it a re-birthing, an embodiment of my whole self. It certainly felt orchestrated, a beautiful sequence of awakenings and convergences and synchronicities, a grand tour of feminine and masculine aspects of my being, an opening of new ways of perceiving and experiencing existence. It was quite unlike anything I have so far experienced, at least as an adult. I had no solid idea of what was happening until it completed, but looking back it has been building for some time, at least as long as I have been writing the Dendroica Project if not much longer.
The result is that I am still me – my perspectives and identity are largely unchanged – and yet I feel more present, complete, whole. Longings for connections outside of myself, as if to fill a missing piece, have faded, as has my need to achieve recognition, to anticipate problems and head them off, in order to feel valuable. I am much less anxious, more grounded, more childlike in my wonder. I take more walks, notice all of the birds, sit next to small streams. And I have more ideas for essays and poems –six at the moment including this one – so I will probably increase my pace of posting here, for the time being at least. I may still publish a collection from the first two years eventually, but for now my energy is for writing and sharing – let’s call it Phase 2 of the Dendroica Project, perhaps Book 2 someday…
It has only been seven days since completion, so perhaps I should be more circumspect about understanding this new me, and yet it feels permanent, stable, like a birthing, as if parts of my essence that began to embody in childhood and departed in early adolescence have now come home to roost, to end my experience of separation, of mind-constructed identity.
The poems in We Are Wanderers seemed to serve as a catalyst for this process. It is almost as if they were magic spells woven of more than words, naming my longing for completion, generating an energetic charge as I read and re-read them, calling myself home and into being. I wrote to Hannah, only half-jokingly, that the book ought to come with a disclaimer: These poems may lead you to new depths of yourself, initiate a journey from which there is no escape until completion, it may be a wild ride, are you ready? I would be curious to know if others have found them to be similarly catalytic, or if that is unique to me. Now that the re-birthing process is complete, that magic has also faded. The poems are just words again. Beautiful, heartfelt words, but still just words, without the emotional and energetic resonance that I felt previously, that helped to move me into embodiment.
I can offer no roadmap for the process that I have just experienced, no instruction manual. I did not make it happen or determine its timing. But I can, perhaps, speak to the need to release the mind from needing to know, to control, to understand. To surrender the idea that I am who I think I am, that my surroundings are what I think them to be. I could have resisted the process, feared change, felt that I was losing control, losing sanity, losing myself. And yet something told me throughout to trust, let go, to perceive and recognize what is happening without needing to anticipate, to direct, to fit it into a mental framework.
Releasing the mind from its need to control, to manage identity, to judge truth and value is probably a prerequisite for an embodiment or rebirthing process, but it is also a step toward a deeper experience of an ecological spirituality. I wrote in On Immersion and Curiosity about how simply existing in nature is far from sufficient, if we are lost in our headphones or seeking adventure or laser-focused on bringing home elk or fish or mushrooms. We need to be present with a sense of openness and curiosity. And now I would add one more: it is very helpful to release the mind, to allow the living presences we are experiencing to be themselves rather than entries in our mental catalogue.
This all sounds very abstract, so allow me to give a couple of examples…
When I pass someone on a trail wearing my binoculars, I often hear the standard birder’s greeting: “Did you see any good birds?” To which I am sometimes tempted to reply: “Nope. Only bad ones today. Better luck to you!”
The “best” answer to that question – the one that will light up their eyes – is along the lines of: “I saw the Snow Bunting on the summit, and the flock of Gray-crowned Rosy Finches.” I have succeeded in finding the Very Special Rare Birds That Everyone Is Talking About, therefore I am happy and there is hope for you too. Also acceptable answers are eagles, hawks, owls, kinglets, warblers, and grouse. Common birds like robins, juncos, jays, chickadees, and wrens can be mentioned but should be diminished, as in “Just a few chickadees and robins, and a wren up the trail.” Under no circumstances should one mention seeing English sparrows or starlings.
I have now had the experience of appreciating birds intrinsically as a young child, then primarily intellectually as a teenager and young adult, and now increasingly intrinsically once more. The experience is quite different, as I will attempt to present with these internal monologues mined from my own memories.
My yard is full of birds. Just the usual sparrows, robins, red-winged blackbirds. Oh, and an English sparrow, invasive little bastard. And bushtits hunting lygus bugs on our quinoa plants. Cute, and thanks for the help! And our family of bluebirds. Beautiful creatures! Time to move on to wilder places. A hawk flying low over the pasture, what is it? Look closely, oh a white rump. Harrier. Now that I know, I can look away, continue onward. Flock of sparrows. White-crowned. Golden-crowned. Chickadees in the oaks. Often they flock with interesting birds. So ignore the chickadees, gaze about. Oh, a kinglet! Ruby-crowned, flash of bright red. More of them. And what is that? Must be a warbler. Not a yellow-rump. High contrast, black eye stripe, yellow dot. Black-throated gray! Exciting, and first one this year! And what is that other bird. Yellowish, moving quickly. Orange-crowned warbler? Vireo? Something else? Oh crap it flew, now I’ll never know…
The mind is curious, but it wants to catalog, to identify, to judge. Common birds are uninteresting, part of the background. Once identification is complete, it wants to move on, find the next “good bird”, pick out the special warblers from among the chickadees, cover more ground, see the first turkey vulture of spring, the first swallows, populate a mental framework of the natural world with observations so as to feel some semblance of connection.
My yard is full of birds. Red-winged blackbirds high in the poplar. Pumpkin-EAT-er! Good morning! And you, little English sparrow, seeking seeds. I honor the life in you. What are you eating, robins? Worms? Beetles? Hawthorn berries? Bushtits, so many! Are you all kin? How do you decide who will be in your flock? Thank you for protecting our plants. Good morning bluebirds! Thank you – all of you – for sharing our space, for blessing me with your presence. It takes some time to leave the yard, to meander down the street, noticing the mosses, the budding flowers, the soft new needles on the pines. There is no rush, no destination. A hawk flying low over the pasture. Harrier, I see. Happy hunting to you, may you find the voles you seek. I watch until he is out of view, and notice a pair of kestrels perched on the wire, with similar but smaller ambitions. I see you, white-crowned sparrows, in your usual spot, in the blackberries on the fenceline. Good morning, don’t mind me, thank you for sharing your beauty with me. Chickadees, finding bugs, flitting about, comfortable in my presence. And kinglets! And a warbler, black-throated gray! And who are you, little yellow one? I’m not sure, and now you’re gone, but that’s ok. Thank you for the gift of your presence.
That is a different experience, much closer to my current inner monologue as I wander. Sometimes I drift into pondering on what I might write, what I might do, and then the birds or the trees call me back into presence. My mind is still active, but it seeks primarily to recognize and remember rather than to classify and judge and set goals and derive meaning. It allows the birds to be themselves, whether “invasive” or common or unusual, and so I can see the spark of life in them, in all of them, and honor that, give thanks. The God in me sees the God in you.
I climbed Marys Peak to watch the Solstice sunrise last week, as is my tradition when clouds permit. I gazed at the horizon for twenty minutes or so, then looked down to polish my glasses and raised my eyes to see the sun peeking above the Cascades. And my first thought was, well dang I missed it! The sun rose and I wasn’t watching. And then I realized that’s a mind construct, one worthy of releasing. The idea that sunrise or sunset is a moment in time – and if I miss that moment, or if a cloud obscures the farthest horizon, then my experience is somehow incomplete or less whole. Sunrise is a process, a series of present moments from the first glow to the full brightness of day, no one more valuable than any other. I did not miss anything.
So…
The next time you are out, and you see a scrub jay, or a robin, or an English sparrow, or a starling, I encourage you to ask yourself what your mind is saying. Just a robin? Only a starling? Nothing to see here? And then relax that judgment and look her in the eye, this creature with whom we are sharing this Earth. Observe her doing what she does, finding food, interacting with others, watching the sky for hawks. What do you really see, then? How do you really feel, being in her presence? You might be surprised…
A call for presence many of us are in need of these days. Thank you for that. It is a beautiful reminder of how we are meant to be in right relations and communion with life. Our relatives are not objects to be cataloged but spirit to be witnessed and praised. May it be so. Blessings for this new~or maybe just re-membered~unfolding journey <3
Thank you. This perspective brings such peace. Brings to mind Allan Watts’ perspective on ‘mutual arising’ of the Tao”...that you as self are one life with everything you call “other”; your inside goes together with everything outside you, and you interdepend — you constitute one life. And it is not that the external world, or the environment, is conceived as something that determines you, that pushes you around; nor, on the other hand, that you are something that pushes around your environment; you are a single movement — a single life.” It is challenging for us who have been programmed with ‘that which must be named’ to simply experience a moment - to not name the experience and all the constituent parts. To embrace the don’t know mind and find a world of wonder within and then to exhale and have it all dematerialise.