Conversations with a Bee, a Lily, and a Bear
Sara Wright
As a woman with Passamaquoddy Indian roots who was raised as a westerner I live, perched like a bird, on the edge between worlds. The ways of western culture defeat me, but in the natural world I feel reverence because here every being is alive and I am part of all there is. Wonder is part of everyday experience. What follows are a few experiences that illustrate the ongoing nature of awe in my life, some thoughts about interspecies communication and the nature of telepathy, and some personal reflections.
One day a friend and I were sitting on little benches leaning against a sturdy smooth skinned young maple watching my two dogs race around a sun bleached yard. Suddenly a small native mud bee appeared, landing on my bare arm. I watched her carefully, intrigued by this visitor from the insect world. She used her tiny antenna and her diminutive legs to inspect every inch of the flesh. I was captivated by her triangular face and bulging eyes and couldn’t help exclaiming how beautiful she was. I tried to imagine what it was like to see the world like she did. (Each bee has two sets of five eyes made up of three simple and two compound parts, the latter made of thousands of tiny lenses.) I could feel her curiosity about me seeping through my skin; it tingled. Because I was in a very relaxed and peaceful state it was a few minutes before I had the thought that this little bee could sting me if she chose to but I immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous. When she flew up into my hair I liked feeling that she was there. After a bit, thinking she might become dangerously entangled in a wind tousled bird’s nest I reached up and (in my mind) asked her to climb onto my hand, which she promptly did. For the second time we proceeded to inspect one another as she climbed up my wrist with what I can only call mutual inquisitiveness (and perhaps respect, certainly she had mine). Next the little mud bee flew over to my friend and visited with her in much the same manner. I had a feeling that we were being invited to participate, or perhaps we were being initiated into a native bee community that lives in the ground in some mysterious way. I was intrigued, and experienced a quiet calm. Before leaving the bee landed on me briefly as if to say goodbye before she finally flew away (this little bee felt female and I know too that she was a female worker bee). Afterwards it occurred to me that this particular creature might have been pollinating the deep purple crocus growing out of the still brown earth near my feet…
It was mid April, the time of the year when black bears begin to emerge from their dens. For 15 years I have been studying one kinship group made up of mothers and their (primarily female) cubs and yearlings. This spring I intentionally cleared a space in my mind to communicate with the last of these “kinship” bears (most if not all have been shot) asking them to visit briefly, but only if they could do so in safety. I also re lived some of their stories…
Midnight was a yearling (18 months old) and a member of this kinship group. She settled here in bear hollow in the spring of 2012 coming each evening to feast on a small snack of sunflower seed. Soon this shy skittish bear felt comfortable enough to visit me during the day and I could stand a few feet away from her talking to her in a low voice, making direct eye contact without having her bolt up a tree. She had the smoothest black seal-skin coat, the most beautiful I had ever seen, and it wasn’t long before I fell in love with her. She gracefully bounded up and down the hill to the bear tree, a white pine that I limbed many years ago for mothers who needed to tree their first year cubs. Midnight marked the tree hugging it and occasionally rubbed her back against it, just as her mother did before her. No doubt she recalled how much time she had spent in this pine as a 15 pound cub; her mother was fierce when it came to cub safety and always treed her cub before feeding. Although relaxed around me, Midnight disappeared instantly the moment a stranger approached. Her mother had taught her well.
Summer came too fast that year. In late June target shooting neighbors created misery and chaos by mindlessly firing semi –automatic weapons, sometimes for hours on end. The gunning echoed harshly through the valley. By the first of July the newly legalized fireworks created unpredictable explosions during the day as well as at night. The ever - present whine of the chain saw filled every potentially quiet space in between these assaults and I thought I would go mad from the noise. On July 5th I first heard the hounds baying at 5 AM as hunters began to “practice” treeing wild bears with hounds for the kill just down the road from my house (No one appeared to care that this cruel “practice killing” terrorized all bears even if they weren’t shot at the end of their travail). That same day Midnight and her kin, which included a mother with first year cubs, vanished.
I had never experienced a rupture like this one. Normally, as the berries ripened ‘my’ bears would disappear for a time but they would also return for regular visits until the beginning of August. No one had ever let hounds loose in this populated area before. Fireworks had never before been legal and the semi automatic bombing was a new addition to target shooting. I was bereft, missing Midnight and the others but grateful that wherever they were, the bears were probably free from audio assault and the threat of dogs at least for a few precious weeks. I hoped the terrorized first year cubs survived. I left a small amount of seed in the metal can by the bear tree just in case…
One night in mid August I heard the can being over turned just as I was falling asleep. Grabbing my flashlight and shining it out the bedroom window I was astonished to see Midnight inhaling the seed she had spilled on the ground. I stayed at the open window listening until she stopped eating and then I got up and filled another bucket with seed. I walked out the door with the bucket and quietly called her by name as I rounded the corner in the dark. I never carry a flashlight because its beam destroys my night vision.
I could never have prepared myself for what came next. At the sound of my voice Midnight huffed in wild fury and shot up the bear tree in a flash. Still huffing and clacking her teeth when she reached the uppermost branches she slapped the trunk of the tree repeatedly in a terrifying rage. I kept walking towards the tree calling her name over and over hoping that my voice would calm her as it had always done in the past. I didn’t stop walking until I felt the raw hatred rip through me like lightening. I remember gasping before collapsing onto the ground in a fit of weeping. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry” I choked out the words feeling overwhelmed by the cruelty this animal must have endured at the hands of humans. What right did we have to so terrorize such a shy and sweet natured bear? All my senses were on fire as I keened.
I lay there in a heap on the chilly ground. Suddenly it was quiet. It was in the silence that I first heard the clickety - clack of Midnight’s curved bear claws hooking the rough bark as she slowly climbed back down the tree. I no longer cared that an angry bear was approaching me in the dark. If this animal mauled me, well, what would be would be. I sat up but made no attempt to move. The dark bulky shape moved closer and closer until she was about two feet from me. I was stunned when she sat down on her haunches in front of me. And then the most incredulous feeling encompassed my whole being. Wave after wave of unconditional bear compassion flowed through every cell of my body. Midnight was comforting me. With tears streaming down my face I tried to process this extraordinary reversal and couldn’t. My brain refused to function; She and I were sharing a field of compassion so immense, so unconditional, so full of sensation and pure feeling that it was all I could do to stay present for it.
“Midnight, here is some more food,” I whispered softly after a time. I placed the bucket of seed in front of her and even in the dark I could see her head bow; soon she was eating. I stood up then, thanking her. I was still weeping but now it was with gratitude as I turned back towards the house. Once inside I climbed into bed totally exhausted. I could still hear Midnight munching seed as I drifted off to sleep. I never saw this bear again.
I have often wondered if it is possible that Midnight might be alive somewhere, perhaps even raising her own cubs in a place that is still uncontaminated by humans? I’d like to think she is, though wilderness in western Maine is shrinking faster than I ever could have imagined. Either way, I hope that by writing about Midnight’s gift of compassion and her great generosity of spirit that she will live on in many hearts, and not just my own.
Recently, I was trying to understand what was meant by a phrase I read “the grammar of animacy” when a lily spoke to me. She captured my attention quite dramatically by suddenly wafting the most intense scent in my direction from the table a few feet away. As wave after wave of the powerful fragrance broke my concentration I stared at her in awe feeling myself being pulled into her large white trumpet shaped flower. Once inside her deep pale green throat I examined the delicate flower parts much like a bee would, I realized afterwards… Then just as abruptly the communication ceased. I could sense her turning inward as the strength of the scent diminished.
Once again gratitude flooded me. I believe the lily that interrupted my thought process did so to remind me that I already know how to communicate with plants. Trees and plants had been instructing me for many years through dreams and through personal experiences with individual flowers or whole forests. This lily chose scent as her bridge to communicate with me but I knew that she also could have used color, sound, movement, voice or a feeling - sense to make contact. At the quantum level all living beings are connected and the doors of perception are always open. The key for me has been a willingness to be open to learning the language of plants and animals, to engage with them on their own terms. All non - human species converse amongst themselves and each other effortlessly probably because most of this communication occurs at the cellular level and telepathically.
Telepathy is good example of how effectively we humans manage to dismiss a normal form of communication. Anyone who has an animal companion, or any person who studies animals and plants in the field with an open mind will recognize that telepathy is a form of interspecies communication that is routinely used by animals, plants insects etc. Humans experience the effects of telepathy as a kind of instant knowing, a flash of insight, an image, word, song, poem, or a sudden wave of feeling depending upon one’s learning/listening style. Telepathy is not distance dependent so this form of communication works just as effectively when individuals are separated from each other.
Rupert Sheldrake believes that telepathy evolved as a biological survival strategy to help animals to stay in touch with each other and to pass along important information. Based on my observations of animals in particular I would have to agree with him. Of course, even today there are a few Indigenous peoples who still use telepathy as their primary means of distance communication. So why is it that when I bring up telepathy as an ordinary form of communication that people get that glazed look?
I think that people are afraid to allow this kind of information in, because it threatens the materialistic paradigm that dominates our culture: If we can’t prove it, it’s not real. This paradigm is based on having power over Nature not working with her. Reciprocity, on the other hand works through choice making between species, often taking communication out of human hands. A good example is what happened to me with the lily. It’s not as if I can force a lily to speak to me through scent on command. My personal experiences with the bee, the bear, and the lily all speak to the powers of direct communication between species, and all involve a choice made by other species to communicate with me. Nature has taught me again and again that it is my job is to keep an open mind and heart, to create the space for that communication to occur. Paying attention to any insights or nudges from my body, patience, and opening myself to the unexpected seem to be what’s required
I think humans have relied on words for so long that we have forgotten how to communicate with the rest of our bodily senses (sight, touch, taste, sound, smell) and we deliberately deny the realities that include telepathy and other so called paranormal abilities (presentiment, clairvoyance, clairaudience, pre-cognition). Plants have spent more than 400 million years perfecting their form of communication. It would seem that plants don’t need words at all. Animals appeared more than 300 million years ago and are also adept at communicating without language as we understand it. Animal vocalizations and other behaviors carry conviction and are unlike words in that they are emotionally expressive, intrinsically meaningful and reliable – almost impossible to fake.
Humans on the other hand are the youngest species on the planet and apparently developed language less than 200,000 years ago. Countless theories as to how humans acquired language abound, but one point stands out. In humans the use of language allows us to separate words from emotions. Deception enters the equation as the ability to say one thing and mean another. What was the purpose of humans evolving a verbal language that separated us from Nature? This adaptation remains a mystery to me unless I consider the human need for deception (including self deception) and the dynamic of “power over.” It seems to me that language allowed us to separate ourselves from the rest of Nature so we could control and dominate our “environment” turning Nature into an “it”. With this power over dynamic in place humans automatically become the “superior” species.
How ironic at this time of planetary crisis, we are being reminded that we need to create a bridge back to (our own) Nature in order to save the planet and ourselves – or not. All indigenous peoples’ stories tell us that at one time we could communicate with other species and that we once lived in harmony with Nature. What is striking to me is that the means to this communication must be bridged through the unconscious. We have been pushing all that “old” bodily knowledge of interconnection between species below the threshold of daily awareness for millennium and now we need access to this ground of universal awareness. If we are fortunate enough to be dreamers our bodies may instruct us through dreams, as has often been the case with me. The caveat that accompanies dreaming is learning how to read these images, symbols or stories accurately on more than one level and I have been engaged in this process for most of my life without ever moving beyond the “beginner” stage. Carl Jung once said that in order to understand dreams we have to treat each one as unique and forget whatever we thought we knew about dreaming beforehand. Good advice, I think.
In order to communicate effectively with non-human species we have to follow a few important steps. Learning how to listen means that we have to quiet our minds through breathing, walking, meditation, focusing on a single phrase etc. For me it is also helpful to think of myself as a receiver.
Discernment is perhaps the most difficult part of receiving information because we have to separate what belongs to our own psychology from whatever information that is being conveyed by the plant or animal. Self awareness/reflection is a skill we can’t afford to by -pass. Our attachment to language has narrowed our perceptions of what is real; the word is still god, and our unhealthy relationship with mechanistic Newtonian science has kept us stuck in outdated thinking even though quantum physics has been around for almost a hundred years. We are still asking the same questions: Are these other ways of knowing real and valid? The voice of the culture - what I call “powerarchy”- drones on incessantly. Humans have learned to trust “the experts,” instead of the truth of our own experience. Happily, we can learn to identify and ignore that voice although I, at least, have never been able to shut it up.
Finally we need to trust the images and thoughts, flashes of intuition, bodily sensations etc that come directly through our unconscious mind – body awareness. For me this process has required years of practice and patience. I am still learning how to trust my perceptions.
Most astonishing to me is that the moment we open ourselves to conversations with Nature, our perceived separation from other species crumbles as we are invited to make a radical choice to change the way we see the world in order to continue to live more harmoniously in Nature and with ourselves.
At this critical crossroad I believe that Nature wants and needs to communicate with humans for a number of reasons. First she is urgently attempting to restore the bridge that has been broken between us because the Earth is suffering, and her peril is our own. Secondly, based on my personal experiences, I believe that Nature’s need to communicate with humans has as its root her compassion for us as a truly lost species. Finally, I think this invitation to begin a dialogue with her may also help us both to prepare for and to accept whatever unprecedented Earth changes may lie ahead.
One day a friend and I were sitting on little benches leaning against a sturdy smooth skinned young maple watching my two dogs race around a sun bleached yard. Suddenly a small native mud bee appeared, landing on my bare arm. I watched her carefully, intrigued by this visitor from the insect world. She used her tiny antenna and her diminutive legs to inspect every inch of the flesh. I was captivated by her triangular face and bulging eyes and couldn’t help exclaiming how beautiful she was. I tried to imagine what it was like to see the world like she did. (Each bee has two sets of five eyes made up of three simple and two compound parts, the latter made of thousands of tiny lenses.) I could feel her curiosity about me seeping through my skin; it tingled. Because I was in a very relaxed and peaceful state it was a few minutes before I had the thought that this little bee could sting me if she chose to but I immediately dismissed the idea as ridiculous. When she flew up into my hair I liked feeling that she was there. After a bit, thinking she might become dangerously entangled in a wind tousled bird’s nest I reached up and (in my mind) asked her to climb onto my hand, which she promptly did. For the second time we proceeded to inspect one another as she climbed up my wrist with what I can only call mutual inquisitiveness (and perhaps respect, certainly she had mine). Next the little mud bee flew over to my friend and visited with her in much the same manner. I had a feeling that we were being invited to participate, or perhaps we were being initiated into a native bee community that lives in the ground in some mysterious way. I was intrigued, and experienced a quiet calm. Before leaving the bee landed on me briefly as if to say goodbye before she finally flew away (this little bee felt female and I know too that she was a female worker bee). Afterwards it occurred to me that this particular creature might have been pollinating the deep purple crocus growing out of the still brown earth near my feet…
It was mid April, the time of the year when black bears begin to emerge from their dens. For 15 years I have been studying one kinship group made up of mothers and their (primarily female) cubs and yearlings. This spring I intentionally cleared a space in my mind to communicate with the last of these “kinship” bears (most if not all have been shot) asking them to visit briefly, but only if they could do so in safety. I also re lived some of their stories…
Midnight was a yearling (18 months old) and a member of this kinship group. She settled here in bear hollow in the spring of 2012 coming each evening to feast on a small snack of sunflower seed. Soon this shy skittish bear felt comfortable enough to visit me during the day and I could stand a few feet away from her talking to her in a low voice, making direct eye contact without having her bolt up a tree. She had the smoothest black seal-skin coat, the most beautiful I had ever seen, and it wasn’t long before I fell in love with her. She gracefully bounded up and down the hill to the bear tree, a white pine that I limbed many years ago for mothers who needed to tree their first year cubs. Midnight marked the tree hugging it and occasionally rubbed her back against it, just as her mother did before her. No doubt she recalled how much time she had spent in this pine as a 15 pound cub; her mother was fierce when it came to cub safety and always treed her cub before feeding. Although relaxed around me, Midnight disappeared instantly the moment a stranger approached. Her mother had taught her well.
Summer came too fast that year. In late June target shooting neighbors created misery and chaos by mindlessly firing semi –automatic weapons, sometimes for hours on end. The gunning echoed harshly through the valley. By the first of July the newly legalized fireworks created unpredictable explosions during the day as well as at night. The ever - present whine of the chain saw filled every potentially quiet space in between these assaults and I thought I would go mad from the noise. On July 5th I first heard the hounds baying at 5 AM as hunters began to “practice” treeing wild bears with hounds for the kill just down the road from my house (No one appeared to care that this cruel “practice killing” terrorized all bears even if they weren’t shot at the end of their travail). That same day Midnight and her kin, which included a mother with first year cubs, vanished.
I had never experienced a rupture like this one. Normally, as the berries ripened ‘my’ bears would disappear for a time but they would also return for regular visits until the beginning of August. No one had ever let hounds loose in this populated area before. Fireworks had never before been legal and the semi automatic bombing was a new addition to target shooting. I was bereft, missing Midnight and the others but grateful that wherever they were, the bears were probably free from audio assault and the threat of dogs at least for a few precious weeks. I hoped the terrorized first year cubs survived. I left a small amount of seed in the metal can by the bear tree just in case…
One night in mid August I heard the can being over turned just as I was falling asleep. Grabbing my flashlight and shining it out the bedroom window I was astonished to see Midnight inhaling the seed she had spilled on the ground. I stayed at the open window listening until she stopped eating and then I got up and filled another bucket with seed. I walked out the door with the bucket and quietly called her by name as I rounded the corner in the dark. I never carry a flashlight because its beam destroys my night vision.
I could never have prepared myself for what came next. At the sound of my voice Midnight huffed in wild fury and shot up the bear tree in a flash. Still huffing and clacking her teeth when she reached the uppermost branches she slapped the trunk of the tree repeatedly in a terrifying rage. I kept walking towards the tree calling her name over and over hoping that my voice would calm her as it had always done in the past. I didn’t stop walking until I felt the raw hatred rip through me like lightening. I remember gasping before collapsing onto the ground in a fit of weeping. “I’m so sorry…I’m so sorry” I choked out the words feeling overwhelmed by the cruelty this animal must have endured at the hands of humans. What right did we have to so terrorize such a shy and sweet natured bear? All my senses were on fire as I keened.
I lay there in a heap on the chilly ground. Suddenly it was quiet. It was in the silence that I first heard the clickety - clack of Midnight’s curved bear claws hooking the rough bark as she slowly climbed back down the tree. I no longer cared that an angry bear was approaching me in the dark. If this animal mauled me, well, what would be would be. I sat up but made no attempt to move. The dark bulky shape moved closer and closer until she was about two feet from me. I was stunned when she sat down on her haunches in front of me. And then the most incredulous feeling encompassed my whole being. Wave after wave of unconditional bear compassion flowed through every cell of my body. Midnight was comforting me. With tears streaming down my face I tried to process this extraordinary reversal and couldn’t. My brain refused to function; She and I were sharing a field of compassion so immense, so unconditional, so full of sensation and pure feeling that it was all I could do to stay present for it.
“Midnight, here is some more food,” I whispered softly after a time. I placed the bucket of seed in front of her and even in the dark I could see her head bow; soon she was eating. I stood up then, thanking her. I was still weeping but now it was with gratitude as I turned back towards the house. Once inside I climbed into bed totally exhausted. I could still hear Midnight munching seed as I drifted off to sleep. I never saw this bear again.
I have often wondered if it is possible that Midnight might be alive somewhere, perhaps even raising her own cubs in a place that is still uncontaminated by humans? I’d like to think she is, though wilderness in western Maine is shrinking faster than I ever could have imagined. Either way, I hope that by writing about Midnight’s gift of compassion and her great generosity of spirit that she will live on in many hearts, and not just my own.
Recently, I was trying to understand what was meant by a phrase I read “the grammar of animacy” when a lily spoke to me. She captured my attention quite dramatically by suddenly wafting the most intense scent in my direction from the table a few feet away. As wave after wave of the powerful fragrance broke my concentration I stared at her in awe feeling myself being pulled into her large white trumpet shaped flower. Once inside her deep pale green throat I examined the delicate flower parts much like a bee would, I realized afterwards… Then just as abruptly the communication ceased. I could sense her turning inward as the strength of the scent diminished.
Once again gratitude flooded me. I believe the lily that interrupted my thought process did so to remind me that I already know how to communicate with plants. Trees and plants had been instructing me for many years through dreams and through personal experiences with individual flowers or whole forests. This lily chose scent as her bridge to communicate with me but I knew that she also could have used color, sound, movement, voice or a feeling - sense to make contact. At the quantum level all living beings are connected and the doors of perception are always open. The key for me has been a willingness to be open to learning the language of plants and animals, to engage with them on their own terms. All non - human species converse amongst themselves and each other effortlessly probably because most of this communication occurs at the cellular level and telepathically.
Telepathy is good example of how effectively we humans manage to dismiss a normal form of communication. Anyone who has an animal companion, or any person who studies animals and plants in the field with an open mind will recognize that telepathy is a form of interspecies communication that is routinely used by animals, plants insects etc. Humans experience the effects of telepathy as a kind of instant knowing, a flash of insight, an image, word, song, poem, or a sudden wave of feeling depending upon one’s learning/listening style. Telepathy is not distance dependent so this form of communication works just as effectively when individuals are separated from each other.
Rupert Sheldrake believes that telepathy evolved as a biological survival strategy to help animals to stay in touch with each other and to pass along important information. Based on my observations of animals in particular I would have to agree with him. Of course, even today there are a few Indigenous peoples who still use telepathy as their primary means of distance communication. So why is it that when I bring up telepathy as an ordinary form of communication that people get that glazed look?
I think that people are afraid to allow this kind of information in, because it threatens the materialistic paradigm that dominates our culture: If we can’t prove it, it’s not real. This paradigm is based on having power over Nature not working with her. Reciprocity, on the other hand works through choice making between species, often taking communication out of human hands. A good example is what happened to me with the lily. It’s not as if I can force a lily to speak to me through scent on command. My personal experiences with the bee, the bear, and the lily all speak to the powers of direct communication between species, and all involve a choice made by other species to communicate with me. Nature has taught me again and again that it is my job is to keep an open mind and heart, to create the space for that communication to occur. Paying attention to any insights or nudges from my body, patience, and opening myself to the unexpected seem to be what’s required
I think humans have relied on words for so long that we have forgotten how to communicate with the rest of our bodily senses (sight, touch, taste, sound, smell) and we deliberately deny the realities that include telepathy and other so called paranormal abilities (presentiment, clairvoyance, clairaudience, pre-cognition). Plants have spent more than 400 million years perfecting their form of communication. It would seem that plants don’t need words at all. Animals appeared more than 300 million years ago and are also adept at communicating without language as we understand it. Animal vocalizations and other behaviors carry conviction and are unlike words in that they are emotionally expressive, intrinsically meaningful and reliable – almost impossible to fake.
Humans on the other hand are the youngest species on the planet and apparently developed language less than 200,000 years ago. Countless theories as to how humans acquired language abound, but one point stands out. In humans the use of language allows us to separate words from emotions. Deception enters the equation as the ability to say one thing and mean another. What was the purpose of humans evolving a verbal language that separated us from Nature? This adaptation remains a mystery to me unless I consider the human need for deception (including self deception) and the dynamic of “power over.” It seems to me that language allowed us to separate ourselves from the rest of Nature so we could control and dominate our “environment” turning Nature into an “it”. With this power over dynamic in place humans automatically become the “superior” species.
How ironic at this time of planetary crisis, we are being reminded that we need to create a bridge back to (our own) Nature in order to save the planet and ourselves – or not. All indigenous peoples’ stories tell us that at one time we could communicate with other species and that we once lived in harmony with Nature. What is striking to me is that the means to this communication must be bridged through the unconscious. We have been pushing all that “old” bodily knowledge of interconnection between species below the threshold of daily awareness for millennium and now we need access to this ground of universal awareness. If we are fortunate enough to be dreamers our bodies may instruct us through dreams, as has often been the case with me. The caveat that accompanies dreaming is learning how to read these images, symbols or stories accurately on more than one level and I have been engaged in this process for most of my life without ever moving beyond the “beginner” stage. Carl Jung once said that in order to understand dreams we have to treat each one as unique and forget whatever we thought we knew about dreaming beforehand. Good advice, I think.
In order to communicate effectively with non-human species we have to follow a few important steps. Learning how to listen means that we have to quiet our minds through breathing, walking, meditation, focusing on a single phrase etc. For me it is also helpful to think of myself as a receiver.
Discernment is perhaps the most difficult part of receiving information because we have to separate what belongs to our own psychology from whatever information that is being conveyed by the plant or animal. Self awareness/reflection is a skill we can’t afford to by -pass. Our attachment to language has narrowed our perceptions of what is real; the word is still god, and our unhealthy relationship with mechanistic Newtonian science has kept us stuck in outdated thinking even though quantum physics has been around for almost a hundred years. We are still asking the same questions: Are these other ways of knowing real and valid? The voice of the culture - what I call “powerarchy”- drones on incessantly. Humans have learned to trust “the experts,” instead of the truth of our own experience. Happily, we can learn to identify and ignore that voice although I, at least, have never been able to shut it up.
Finally we need to trust the images and thoughts, flashes of intuition, bodily sensations etc that come directly through our unconscious mind – body awareness. For me this process has required years of practice and patience. I am still learning how to trust my perceptions.
Most astonishing to me is that the moment we open ourselves to conversations with Nature, our perceived separation from other species crumbles as we are invited to make a radical choice to change the way we see the world in order to continue to live more harmoniously in Nature and with ourselves.
At this critical crossroad I believe that Nature wants and needs to communicate with humans for a number of reasons. First she is urgently attempting to restore the bridge that has been broken between us because the Earth is suffering, and her peril is our own. Secondly, based on my personal experiences, I believe that Nature’s need to communicate with humans has as its root her compassion for us as a truly lost species. Finally, I think this invitation to begin a dialogue with her may also help us both to prepare for and to accept whatever unprecedented Earth changes may lie ahead.
Working notes
When I wrote this essay, I was feeling frustrated by hearing the same old question repeated by folks whose writings about Nature seemed to be stuck in their thinking: Are there other ways of experiencing “reality” in Nature that are valid besides our own?
Having been brought up in a culture that dismisses personal experience as irrelevant, on bad days I still find myself questioning my perceptions at 70 even though Nature has been incredibly consistent in her teachings, so I can certainly empathize with the query. At the same time I feel that in this time of planetary crisis there is an urgency to get beyond this particular question. I wrote this essay as an attempt to create a bridge between thinking and experiencing by demonstrating how Nature teaches one person through experience.
As I write these words, my dove Lily B coos loudly from his basket on the porch, reminding me that this process of breaking the silence started with him 22 years ago. All my life I have had unusual experiences with animals and plants but had never spoken of them to anyone.
From the first day I got Lily B. he literally read my mind telepathically and demonstrated to me that I was on the right track by his responses. After a few months I could no longer dismiss what was happening between us on a daily basis. My journals were stuffed to the brim with our exchanges grounding them in a context I couldn’t deny.
Curiously, the same year I got Lily B, Rupert Sheldrake was collecting anecdotal information on telepathic experiences between humans with birds and animals. I took what was for me a huge risk, and sent him anecdotes about Lily B’s telepathic ability and was shocked when he took all of this information quite seriously. We then began to correspond on an irregular basis and I sent him all kinds of personal experiences with my dogs and other animals. For the first time, that inner cultural voice that routinely cut me away from experiential knowing was silenced, the pattern interrupted. In retrospect I see that both Rupert and Lily B changed my life.
The second reason I wrote this story was to help me deal with a grief so huge that I fear it will swallow me whole. I am living through a holocaust as I witness the loss of species after species of trees, plants, and animals that I love.
My friend and most powerful poet Harriet Ann Ellenberger expresses what I feel in words much better than I ever could in her poem "The Watcher and the Watched" when she writes:
“We’ll say that humans are become
a single suffering tribe,
wandering far from the tree of life,
moving into unmarked territory,
hungry and hallucinating.
We’ll say, here’s a truth of human feeling:
It hurts to be awake out here.”
Having been brought up in a culture that dismisses personal experience as irrelevant, on bad days I still find myself questioning my perceptions at 70 even though Nature has been incredibly consistent in her teachings, so I can certainly empathize with the query. At the same time I feel that in this time of planetary crisis there is an urgency to get beyond this particular question. I wrote this essay as an attempt to create a bridge between thinking and experiencing by demonstrating how Nature teaches one person through experience.
As I write these words, my dove Lily B coos loudly from his basket on the porch, reminding me that this process of breaking the silence started with him 22 years ago. All my life I have had unusual experiences with animals and plants but had never spoken of them to anyone.
From the first day I got Lily B. he literally read my mind telepathically and demonstrated to me that I was on the right track by his responses. After a few months I could no longer dismiss what was happening between us on a daily basis. My journals were stuffed to the brim with our exchanges grounding them in a context I couldn’t deny.
Curiously, the same year I got Lily B, Rupert Sheldrake was collecting anecdotal information on telepathic experiences between humans with birds and animals. I took what was for me a huge risk, and sent him anecdotes about Lily B’s telepathic ability and was shocked when he took all of this information quite seriously. We then began to correspond on an irregular basis and I sent him all kinds of personal experiences with my dogs and other animals. For the first time, that inner cultural voice that routinely cut me away from experiential knowing was silenced, the pattern interrupted. In retrospect I see that both Rupert and Lily B changed my life.
The second reason I wrote this story was to help me deal with a grief so huge that I fear it will swallow me whole. I am living through a holocaust as I witness the loss of species after species of trees, plants, and animals that I love.
My friend and most powerful poet Harriet Ann Ellenberger expresses what I feel in words much better than I ever could in her poem "The Watcher and the Watched" when she writes:
“We’ll say that humans are become
a single suffering tribe,
wandering far from the tree of life,
moving into unmarked territory,
hungry and hallucinating.
We’ll say, here’s a truth of human feeling:
It hurts to be awake out here.”
About the author
I am a naturalist and a writer; I live in a little log cabin in the woods by a brook with two small dogs and one dove. I write stories about the animals and plants that live here on my property in the western mountains of Maine and publish them regularly in my nature column in the local paper. I am also an independent black bear researcher who uses “trust based” research to study the bears that have visited me here. Trust based research/fieldwork allows me to apprentice myself to Nature through any of its individuals if they are willing. I am the student; each species is the teacher. I have Native American roots, which may or may not be why I have dedicated my life to speaking out on behalf of the slaughtered trees, dying plants, and disappearing animals. This is the only work that matters to me. To learn more about Sara's work, visit: www.sarawrightnature.wordpress.com