forest lesson
#7563
another thing i’ve encountered whilst walking barefoot in the forest is that when things get pokey or sharp or tough or rough there is only 1 thing for you to do. do you know what that thing is, sweetest anti-reader?
it is something you should be familiar with if you’ve been here a while.
all ya gotta do
is
moOove
a little
l i g h t e r .
wouldya look at that ! it’s our anti-recommendation number 1 in the wild, being backed by Nature herself!
travel lightly.
(one day we will move on to another anti-rec. once we’ve mastered this one)
awareness is key so you can pivot quickly if need be. you simply send that awareness down to your sweet feet and the peripheries. it’s being conscious of every step you take as you’re taking it. it’s directing your next step.
the path isn’t asking us to quit or turn around when it becomes rougher than it has been. we just learn to walk these parts a little lighter.
we put less weight on the moment.
speaking of putting weight on moments….
recently, someone i love said to me “i’m proud of you for saving your forest”
now, of course I didn’t save said forest *(said forest being one in the neighborhood my mom and i grew up in)* nor is any forest mine to save but alas english is a language of possession. the sentiment made me feel tingly because it served as a reminder that we actually CAN do things and so i share this with you, as a reminder should you need it.
did you hear that, anti-reader?! naysayers be silenced! we CAN change things! minds, even! and it doesn’t have to look like pleas for justice from faceless systems or an upsetting, poorly produced horror flick starring some White Man in Wolf Costume. there doesn’t always have to be tear gas or breaking glass. sometimes it looks like just 1 household letting their neighbors know what’s going on and that there is something y’all can do about it, together.
when i took to facebook (yes, the Facebook Hellscape but i had already successfully rallied some community members on there) to let people in the area know about the re-zoning and ask for some advice you know what the majority of people told me? that there was nothing i could do about it. that it’s the way things are. that nothing stops mOneY. essentially, that i was powerless!
hahahahaha imagine
i would smile and write something like “better to try than not at all” but i knew that that forest wasn’t going anywhere. there was no reason for it to. i could see the atrocities hidden in those re-zoning attempts and knew others would too. this forest i speak of is the last remaining green space in the area and it’s special for reasons beyond the fact that my mom & i grew up with it.
throughout the process, i would walk that thing for hours trudging through the red clay that had been deviously pulverized from the earth in areas where the bulldozers prematurely tore through our pines and magnolias many months before; prior to my homecoming. i would talk to the forest, gathering reasons why this destruction shouldn’t happen. i would rip out all of the pink utility flags scattered throughout, blemishing the beautiful browns and greens. hawks played a guiding role in all of this for me. one time, quite literally, guiding me around the forest showing my parts of it that i may not have noticed before. i’m not sure what other human people say about the behavior of hawks, i’m sure rabbits and chickens would have some things to say…, but hawks put me at a confident ease. they let me get pretty close to em, though i keep a respectful distance between us, even as they guide me. i see them and i hear “keep going. come on. you’re already fully equipped. you have the vision. onward.”
i say- thank you.
i think- what a contrast to the humans advice.
i carry on.
K Allado-McDowell writes that “Artists use new language to explore the world and to create new worlds” and that “As the poet, once again, becomes an artist, she becomes the world’s creator. When we enact the new, we become creators of the future. This is the most powerful thing we can do with our lives.”
hawks glide and guide me does graze and greet me spiders weave and watch me unbothered, with ease they all teach me like this every walk becomes a lesson in wonder. like this we create our new world.
more soon…
xx
for now have a look at This Weeks Flower Flex
and this baby bird (it looks like a cardinal to me. is it???) that hung out on our back porch next to a new 5 gallon bucket i’m going to use in my attempt to forage my own clay
