Learning from Nature

My soft early morning eyes follow the chubby tuxedoed bodies of Buffleheads plying the jade surface of Richardson Bay. I watch. A poofy cottonball head and small gray beak tilt forward, puncturing the water’s skin; fat black and white rump slip noiselessly after. The water ripples out in concentric circles that give way to glassy stillness. In my somewhat unfocused line of sight, all is momentarily unmoving, silent. Submerged, the bird works his underwater duties, gleaning nourishment for the day, counsel for others about where real treasure lies.

She stands at the shoreline, elliptical body balanced on pencil-thin ebony legs, graceful neck folded neatly at its midpoint, watchful eyes observing, thoughtfully consuming. Motionless, long schooled in moving at nature’s pace. Her wedge-shaped beak begins a descent, lowers millimeters at a time, almost imperceptibly. Neck slowly unfurls, trailing golden beak. A momentary hovering, stillness gathered and held. At lightening’s speed, mouth drops to water, jaws open, shut. Gullet takes over, efficiently processing the morning’s latest morsel. Thirty seconds pass, gullet and figure working in seamless harmony. Gradually, she again assumes regal stance, presiding over the green Bay, the Mallards and Grebes, the Snowy Egrets. Pale eyes resume encompassing gaze.

Round and round she travels, rhythmically, purposefully, gossamer strand trailing then artfully catching a cross-thread, lending the work its telltale shape. Her squat gold and black body pushes along her eight deft weaving tools, forelegs gingerly guiding the thread’s placement – just so – before engineering a change in direction, a coupling of the new strand with a cross-thread to sturdy up the new home. Her path spirals inward, each revolution tighter, more focused. A silver dollar-sized eight-sided ring culminates the masterful weaver’s work. Noiselessly, with practiced efficiency, she crosses to the two o’clock corner of the web and settles in rest. Almost motionless, I can see-hear-feel her breathing. The sun finally rounds the girth of the eucalyptus grove and, warmth unfurling, casts its autumn morning light on the weaver, the web, and the witness.

Earlier this month, I spent three days and two nights camping in a meadow edging the Pacific. The meadow rests among the 17 acres that comprise The Regenerative Design Institute’s patch of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The Design Institute is a 2-acre permaculture garden and varied patch of wild lands within the park’s marvelous expanse. While the prospect of three days of camping in such a scenic refuge sounds idyllic, the weekend entailed more than lounging under my tent’s safe nylon canopy lulled by the waves’ music.  Rather, it involved more than 30 hours of solitary and group exercises, reflection, journaling, and activities otherwise aimed to facilitate a stock-taking of my life. The days marked the opening session of a six-month program called The Ecology of Leadership, or EOL. Per its website description, EOL aims to “awaken our unique gifts and [support us] to more fully participate in the extraordinary cultural and planetary transformation of our time.” For those familiar with the activist ecologist and philosopher Joanna Macy, the program responds to the opportunities inherent in what Macy describes as “The GreatTurning” – the turning away from an industrial growth society toward a life-sustaining civilization. For me, the program appeared as if by Grace, another step stone on this path to align my work and the daily pattern of my life to be synchronous with my belief in the interconnectedness of all beings and my desire to be a more active and effective healing resource. In truth, the program also provides me with a way to direct my energy from the despair and isolation of mid-career unemployment and uncertainty to pursuit of my vision of a wholehearted life of integrity and meaningful contribution. It enables me to commune with other seekers trying to discern their proper place on this Earth, yearning to discover and take up their particular and significant work in the world.

I count my new practice of sitting quietly in nature among the gifts already gleaned from EOL. In addition to nurturing a daily meditation practice, I have added the daily discipline of sitting quietly for 20 minutes in the same “sit spot” bordering Richardson Bay. There, I am instructed by my guides from EOL to simply observe. From this practice and my summer of farming, I am slowly learning that soundly immersing myself in our natural world helps me to re-member my place within the unfolding fabric, to claim my membership in the family of things. Observing the Great Blue Heron and the Bufflehead, I am re-learning the significance of standing still and diving deep. From the Great Egret, I am discovering that open and watchful waiting yields rich desserts, that I need not muscle and strive to earn my daily bread, that there is always enough – and often abundance. From the Robins outside my kitchen window, I take the lesson that small morsels consumed thoughtfully accrete to sufficient food for the journey, and that companionship and community are as important – if not more so – than a ready supply of bright red berries.

As in the practice of meditation, my sit spot practice also invokes the most basic onboard tool – the breath – as a means of restoring my attention and emotions to the here and now. Now, I’m finding it helpful to envision myself breathing alongside the regal Egrets and Herons, humming through my activities propelled by the self-same breath imbibed by Buffleheads and Mallards, respiring with the formidable stillness of Redwoods and Cypresses. These visualizations readily guide me into my Heart’s center, to its beating, which mirrors that of the Creator that sustains every living being. By consciously settling into silence, resting in breath and mantra, I hope that I am gradually becoming more adept at listening and responding to the way life continuously evokes us forward on a path with Heart. If it’s good enough for Mary Oliver, it’s good enough for me.

And so I try, moment by moment and day by day, to keep moving forward. I invoke the company of my breath and of faithful companions on this journey toward awareness, non-violence, and service in healing the earth. I sometimes falter. I sometimes check out. I've been known, too, to stumble and lose heart. It’s then that I close my eyes, find my breath, conjure the faces of those who encourage and inspire me. It’s then that I take myself to the edge of the Bay and regard the Buffleheads and the Blue Heron. I am learning to join them on their path, to rest and trust in abundance, in revelation, in nourishment enough for the unfolding journey.

And when I need further cajoling to re-join the path, to re-engage in the practice of slowing down and opening up, I turn to poetry - what poet David Whyte describes as, "Language against which we have no defenses." These words of Denise Levertov recently undid me . . .

We live our lives of human passions,
cruelties, dreams, concepts,
crimes and the exercise of virtue
in and beside a world devoid
of our preoccupations, free
from apprehension -- though affected,
certainly, by our actions. A world
parallel to our own though overlapping.
We call it "Nature"; only reluctantly
admitting ourselves to be "Nature" too.
Whenever we lose track of our own obsessions,
our self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,
an hour even, of pure (almost pure)
response to that insouciant life:
cloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing
pilgrimage of water, vast stillness
of spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,
animal voices, mineral hum, wind
conversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering
of fire to coal--then something tethered
in us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch
of gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.
No one discovers
just where we've been, when we're caught up again
into our own sphere (where we must
return, indeed, to evolve our destinies)
-- but we have changed, a little.

~ Denise Levertov ~

(Sands of the Well)