Other Being

As part of an Outward Bound trip in Canada recently I spent 24 hours ‘on solo’. They were magical, quiet, warm hours. Alone with my notebook amongst the bees and the trees, I wrote a poem. I wrote it for the ten human beings I was adventuring with that week — Stef, Ally, Sarah, Jen, Leslie, Magali, Steve, Nick, Kyle and Laura. I shared it with them when we reassembled that night. It was the first time I’ve shared a poem I’ve written, the first time I’ve wanted to.

A few days later, I stumbled on this line in a book in a second-hand bookshop, which seems to encapsulate beautifully that this may have been no coincidence:

“What is any art but an effort to imprison the shining, elusive element which is life itself — life hurrying past us, too strong to stop and too sweet to lose?”

Willa Cather — ‘The Song of the Lark’ 1915

Such was the reach and depth of that day, I wanted to try and keep hold of it somehow, keep close the magic of this somehow-not-so-solitary ’solo’ experience. Find a way of revelling in it, making sense of it. Not just for me, but for all of us.

I share it again here to remind myself of the magic of that slow day of ‘other being’. I share it too in the spirit of the exhilaration and sense of stretch I felt that week in the mountains. I may no longer be carrying that heavy pack, teetering along new mountain paths — but I can still keep pushing the edges of my comfort zone. And finally, I share it in celebration of all the connections, interactions and unintended impacts — in the human realm and beyond — that make our lives what they are.

Other Being

Absolute silence
Connects our little spots between the trees
The spruce and the larch
As the peaks darken
And we slide into
Self-strung muddles of cosy wonder
And the orange moon rises.

At last stillness.
Resting weary minds, bodies, souls.
A place from which to see with new eyes
Hear new calls
Crush sprigs of pine between our palms
And breathe
Deeply.

This so-called solo is anything but
It is time
To be with
Be amongst
Other beings
Quieter beings
The beings that are not
Human beings
Tree beings, moss beings, ant beings, bee beings
Bear beings.
The beings who are always
Quietly being
Here together
As the human beings mostly race above this place
In narrow metal tubes
Busy being human.

This day is different
Some human beings are choosing to stay awhile
Interrupting
Intruding
Impacting
On this every day, night and day, being.

With our rustle and tarps
Our sitting and picking
Our proteinaceous poop
The flakes of our skin
The tread of our boots
We claim our space
Squish a fly
Move a stone
Sneeze in the night
A bear stops in her tracks
And chooses a different path.

Who knows what else
The trees see
The mountains look upon
As we exchange our gaze
Our air, our water, our spirits
Who knows what’s different
Because we are here.

We will return to our every day
Human being
To the hum and the drum of our ordinary lives
With the earth beneath our fingernails
The scent of the pines in our souls
And perspectives from mountain days in our pockets
But traces of us remain.
Here. With these beings
It is, because I was.
I am, because they are.

Solo, sweet solo day of quiet rest and other being.
We were never alone.

Written near Rae Lake, Alberta — August 2017

Updated version of this article published on www.NatureandForestTherapy.org March 2018