What the Landscape Taught Me Today

 

I walked along one of the trails near my house  with a loose intention to receive any lessons the landscape had to offer. I took pictures along the way and tried to hold an open unthinking mind. I am fortunate to have trails very close by that within twenty minutes take me into the foothills and impart a feeling of being far away from civilization. Today workers from the water company were laying new pipe to replace the storage tanks that hold water at the trail head in case of fire. I felt a little tinge of annoyance at having my views disrupted by technology but continued on my way. It was a cool morning but sunny, ideal for being outside and I breathed the fresh air in deeply. Among the experiences on this hike: a plant pretty much shouted: “eat me!” and so I did. It was beautiful green and white and very tasty, a variation of dandelion I suspect.

I found my eye drawn to what I think of as earth art, particularly striking arrangements of bits of stuff and I photographed a few of those. Each time I took a photo I felt a glowing or shining sense that I experience as a subtle energy of joy. That quality of noticing something beautiful and having that which is beheld shine back, much the way when we smile at someone that person usually smiles back. I experience this sort of ‘call and response’ when I make art and it is exciting to begin to notice it in nature. I made an offering in return.

I rested at my favorite spot and ate a snack and watched the clouds, they too, spoke, reminding me of the filaments of mycelia and the use of that concept in Avatar (see last post). I like to think that we all have wispy filaments of energy that connect us to those we love and we send energy to them and receive energy that way because all of us, living and those who have passed on, are enwrapped in a tissue of care together. I find myself utterly calmed and rejuvenated by this kind of a hike.

I climbed back down the trail after what seems like hours but wasn’t. This time I noticed the earth art made by the machinery used to grade the area so the newly constructed tanks could be installed.

Now the machine looked alive to me.

Now I felt a welling up of gratitude for the workers installing the pipe, the engineers who figured out how to do all this and everyone who is responsible for the amazing fact that I filled my water bottle by simply turning a tap in my kitchen sink this morning before I began my hike.  I spoke to the two men working on the project and asked to photograph the valve, a beautiful sculpture.

They explained that there is already built in a larger valve in case there is a need to expand the water service in the future. Next week the old rusted tank will be dismantled and I’d like to go and watch. This kind of patient care for infrastructure is something I usually take for granted and yet every day depend upon.  The skilled workers who design and install and care for these structures are as much my beloved kin as the plants, the trees and the rocks. This is what the landscape taught me today.

Avatar - Still Doing It the Hard Way

This morning on a hike I noticed a winged insect walking along on the ground. Why would a creature that can fly struggle along on the ground? Last night I saw the much hyped movie, alone, not in 3D, in a sparsely populated theatre in Ventura. Much as I enjoyed the beauty of the Navi and their world, the story fell far short. In essence I saw a mash up of Dances with Wolves, District Nine and all of various techno-war movies ever made. Far more screen time is spent on war and destruction than anything transcendent or spiritually aware. I do believe the movie probably reflects where our culture is at the moment: still believing in war, a bare hint that there is another way. I am grateful that folks who may never have considered that the earth is alive are being challenged to entertain the concept. It is great that Cameron uses a version of a real concept, mycelium, researched by mushroom expert Paul Stamets the filaments that fungi allies send underground for miles to explain how the trees communicate with one another.
Ultimately, however, I read the film as an Oedipal drama. The colonel is a buffed up and stripped down version of the Father, has no doubts, no empathy, no heart. Even when he promises Jake his 'real' legs it is a quid pro quo transaction with no evidence of human feeling. But its no surprise that the "sky people' would be portrayed as violence addicted, greedy robotic action figures, that archetype has been a leading trend in our culture for quite a while. The final battle is the aging father figure and the disabled son, unconsciously revealing the knowledge that the male archetype is a fading, unsustainable template for humankind. Check out the story on NPR about Y chromosome research. Research on the human genome shows that the Y chromosome, which is what makes men men (as we know them, the rascals) is a 'hollow shell' having edited itself almost into extinction. However,there are apparently long stretches of DNA that are quite adaptable to change. Hence the scene of Jake transferring into the Navi body is actually not so far fetched.
What is disappointing is the shallow portrayal of the Navi. They are aware of their connection to the Source of Life, yet Nytira seems to chide Jake for trying to tune into Her before the war. "She doesn't take sides" is the line but no other model of relationship is offered. Is this war for a purpose? Is the lesson that Ewa doesn't live in a tree so She is merely helping the Navi learn, in the most painful way possible, that She is beyond their constructs of Her? Must every thing be done the hard way, with vast contraptions of metal and fire? From the film's point of view perhaps both peoples are still quite primitive unable to imagine that love and sharing between human and human-like creatures can be generalized to become our chosen way of dealing with each other.

Bottling Wine, Weaving Community

We spent the day helping our friends, the Levins, bottle the contents of three oak barrels of wine. There were about sixteen of us carrying out the operation that involved filling the bottles, corking them, wiping them dry, labeling and packing the bottles into boxes. There is something about falling into a groove doing mild labor among friends with music on, outside on a beautiful day that is deeply satisfying. Details of the tasks, lining up the labels on an almost invisible line on the green glass bottle, stacking the cases of wine to maximize space on the pallet, using simple but ingenious machines like the corker which relies on leverage and a modest amount of physical effort. Some tasks require skill and knowledge, like tasting and timing when to bottle while others are simple and satisfying like peeling off labels printed out from the computer and affixing them to the corked wine. The light banter and occasional gentle remarks about quality control (no better way to figure out the Type-A's in the crowd)create an invisible fabric of relationship that all of us were woven into. I believe that experiences like this create the tensile strength of our life force energy, adding qualities of flexibility, texture and color. Without focusing on the blue of the sky, the white phlox sprouting on the hillside or the subtle shadows cast by the pepper trees, these all become part of me. I am also now part of all those I worked with today. We are made for doing work together, this kind of voluntary service to one another, not paid labor but a gift of time and energy given freely and gratefully received. Both the giving and the receiving are enriching, somehow dignifying. Sharing food together at the end of the work is a form of communion, shows the outlines of what the over used word community grows out of. Over the past several years I have been happy to join in this work, the harvest, even once stomping grapes, and the bottling, all the aspects of this very ancient art. I have seen my friend's operation grow, his accumulation of tools of the trade, more of his property planted with grapevines. It is still a small operation, a sideline, he is still an 'amateur' a winemaker for the love of it. If he crosses the threshold into enterprise, selling his wine, I wonder how this will all change. For now I simply savor the sense of peace that comes with sharing time and space and purpose with friends.

The Claims of Place

I couldn't get into the New Year's resolution thing with my friends last night. I kept feeling I was in a fragile state that shouldn't be tampered with. It had something to do with letting a mode of being fall away, feeling my way into doing things differently. Being claimed by a place.We started coming to Ojai in 2004, the beginning of a major transition. Today, the first day of the calendar year of 2010, I am here. With no external help, I woke up in time to see first the moon and then the edges of the sunrise, that's how I knew I was finally here. My intention for this blog is to explore the claims of place and to witness the changes that occur as I submit to this claim. The idea of being earthbound has come up in this context, being bound to the earth as tied to it as well as bound in the sense of traveling toward. It is a simultaneous sense of being both here and on my way here. Like many people I am aware of living a transition that is both personal and more than personal. I am reading lots of stuff in ecopsychology, permaculture, energy and seeing images in dreams and in my art and receiving intuitions about this. Feeling my way into a new space. I seek to share this experience.