Thank you very much, Greta and Matthew, for this resonant conversation.
One of your "Questions I was left with", Matthew, resonates very much with me: "How can I develop my capacity to attune to the land?" I read ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" recently, which was a door-opener to me in this respect, brim full of the reciprocity and love and support of the land and all its teeming life and inhabitants with each other – including us humans.
I think the breaking of our bonds with the land and nearly all our fellow species in life on this planet is one big reason for the mess and destruction and hurt and trauma we are in planetwide: an exploitative, colonial and extractive power-over human society would not be possible if most members of this society had a deep, resonant, attuned (and hence, I'd guess, loving) relationship with the rest of life around them. (I have even begun to see vacationing, in the incredible dimension and impact tourism has reached worldwide (a kind of "locust tourism", appallingly often destroying the places its infrastructure is built on, disregarding the local population and degrading the local habitats), as a signal of how untethered so many of us humans have become from anything and anyone but ourselves, uprooted and collectively dissociated, one could argue, flitting here and there worldwide, unsustainably and rather addictedly really, never really arriving anywhere, always on the go, on the move, to the next unknown, the next hip destination, for the next selfie to post on social media, to keep up with one's peers, to feel anything, to temporarily escape from the treadmill and hamster wheel at home ... if everyone's life includes as long as possible stretches not at home because at home is too stressful and too empty and too unbearable to stay in for too long, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, it seems to me, to borrow Shakespeare's words at the start of "Hamlet".)
All those centuries of trauma we all carry and the harsh conditions globalised exploitative power-over society imposes on most of us members do not, at first sight, invite a stopping anywhere, taking a breath, being where we are and feeling what is. But the land, the web of life and the living planet of which we are a part is a potent medicine and could help us so much to realign and to heal, ourselves and the land, I can only wholeheartedly agree with this indigenous wisdom.
Another book I'm reading at the moment suprised me by helping in just that realignment, also if you are living in cityscapes far away from immediately and powerfully felt wilderness and "land": Jon Young's "What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World". A primer of bird language and how to bring your awareness online and successively deepen it in your immediate surroundings. Guess how the sit spot from which you begin to get a feel for the life around you (after a time of regularly visiting it) is called in a North American / Turtle Island indigenous tradition? "Medicine place".
I'm hopeful that we are beginning to rediscover this medicine and the healing and fullness of a life in close reciprocity with the land also in Europe – I just read that another British river has been granted legal personhood, the Ouse. Hey! Let's do more of that and reweave ourselves and our human society back into the great society of all species and life on this planet. We're not alone, we do not need to be alone, there is medicine and healing for us right around us on this incredible planet we are a part of.
Anne, thank you so much for your beautifully precise articulation of what ails us as a global society, and your pointer to the remedy. I hadn't heard about Jon Young's book, it sounds beautiful. We do have robins visiting my dad's garden here in southwest London in the winter. And we are fortunate in this suburban environment to have real opportunities to connect with nature. Love hearing about the Ouse! A few year's ago I wrote a story about an initiative to grant legal personhood for the river Frome in Somerset. Yes to the great society of all species! Thank you for your support for Resonant World, and looking forward to being in touch!
I’m looking forward to listening to this episode. Just off the top, I’m reminded of an image I saw during a meditative journey during a collective healing lab meeting, where I saw and felt an ocean of grief, both emotionally, and size wise, but what I saw next was the ground rise to meet it. Yes, the ocean is big, but the earth that holds it, is bigger. I understood deeply how the land/earth holds all of life/all processes unfold held by this ground.
Thank you so much for bringing this. This resonates so much with me, especially because it indiffrience from a lot of often so called horse therapy where the horse is still some kind of tool. I
work in the same field and I really think that this is important to bringing more off into the world. So thank you, Greta and thank you, Matthew.
Thank you very much, Greta and Matthew, for this resonant conversation.
One of your "Questions I was left with", Matthew, resonates very much with me: "How can I develop my capacity to attune to the land?" I read ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer's "Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants" recently, which was a door-opener to me in this respect, brim full of the reciprocity and love and support of the land and all its teeming life and inhabitants with each other – including us humans.
I think the breaking of our bonds with the land and nearly all our fellow species in life on this planet is one big reason for the mess and destruction and hurt and trauma we are in planetwide: an exploitative, colonial and extractive power-over human society would not be possible if most members of this society had a deep, resonant, attuned (and hence, I'd guess, loving) relationship with the rest of life around them. (I have even begun to see vacationing, in the incredible dimension and impact tourism has reached worldwide (a kind of "locust tourism", appallingly often destroying the places its infrastructure is built on, disregarding the local population and degrading the local habitats), as a signal of how untethered so many of us humans have become from anything and anyone but ourselves, uprooted and collectively dissociated, one could argue, flitting here and there worldwide, unsustainably and rather addictedly really, never really arriving anywhere, always on the go, on the move, to the next unknown, the next hip destination, for the next selfie to post on social media, to keep up with one's peers, to feel anything, to temporarily escape from the treadmill and hamster wheel at home ... if everyone's life includes as long as possible stretches not at home because at home is too stressful and too empty and too unbearable to stay in for too long, there's something rotten in the state of Denmark, it seems to me, to borrow Shakespeare's words at the start of "Hamlet".)
All those centuries of trauma we all carry and the harsh conditions globalised exploitative power-over society imposes on most of us members do not, at first sight, invite a stopping anywhere, taking a breath, being where we are and feeling what is. But the land, the web of life and the living planet of which we are a part is a potent medicine and could help us so much to realign and to heal, ourselves and the land, I can only wholeheartedly agree with this indigenous wisdom.
Another book I'm reading at the moment suprised me by helping in just that realignment, also if you are living in cityscapes far away from immediately and powerfully felt wilderness and "land": Jon Young's "What the Robin Knows: How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World". A primer of bird language and how to bring your awareness online and successively deepen it in your immediate surroundings. Guess how the sit spot from which you begin to get a feel for the life around you (after a time of regularly visiting it) is called in a North American / Turtle Island indigenous tradition? "Medicine place".
I'm hopeful that we are beginning to rediscover this medicine and the healing and fullness of a life in close reciprocity with the land also in Europe – I just read that another British river has been granted legal personhood, the Ouse. Hey! Let's do more of that and reweave ourselves and our human society back into the great society of all species and life on this planet. We're not alone, we do not need to be alone, there is medicine and healing for us right around us on this incredible planet we are a part of.
Anne, thank you so much for your beautifully precise articulation of what ails us as a global society, and your pointer to the remedy. I hadn't heard about Jon Young's book, it sounds beautiful. We do have robins visiting my dad's garden here in southwest London in the winter. And we are fortunate in this suburban environment to have real opportunities to connect with nature. Love hearing about the Ouse! A few year's ago I wrote a story about an initiative to grant legal personhood for the river Frome in Somerset. Yes to the great society of all species! Thank you for your support for Resonant World, and looking forward to being in touch!
I’m looking forward to listening to this episode. Just off the top, I’m reminded of an image I saw during a meditative journey during a collective healing lab meeting, where I saw and felt an ocean of grief, both emotionally, and size wise, but what I saw next was the ground rise to meet it. Yes, the ocean is big, but the earth that holds it, is bigger. I understood deeply how the land/earth holds all of life/all processes unfold held by this ground.
wow Tracy, love hear about your vision -- and your reminder of the unfathomable depth of presence in the earth.
Thank you so much for bringing this. This resonates so much with me, especially because it indiffrience from a lot of often so called horse therapy where the horse is still some kind of tool. I
work in the same field and I really think that this is important to bringing more off into the world. So thank you, Greta and thank you, Matthew.
thank you Kir! It's great to hear from you, and so glad you enjoyed our conversation!