Unless

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not." -Dr. Seuss in The Lorax 

This reflection on conservation was written during week three of a four-week long backpacking trip in the Wind River Range in Wyoming: 

When I am out in the mountains living out of a backpack (well a team of backpacks really), I remember what it means to live simply and tread lightly, marking the world with only a few bent blades of grass and a little greasy residue from my evening meal. I remember why it is important to walk as Thich Nhat Hanh says--with my feet kissing the Earth--because everything from the fragile nectar-filled tail of the Columbine to the hulking, jagged body of the mountain it lives on is heartbreakingly beautiful, and the crime of destroying such fierce beauty is self evident. 

I become a better person out here. More of my problems are real; more of my actions are intentional. Laughter floats up freely. Generosity feels essential. To bring these qualities, and this awareness, out of the mountains and into my life of excess and rush and me, me, me--this is the challenge. 

These mountains in Wyoming, and the lower crumbly Appalachians that I grew up in, do not exist in a bubble, as far removed as I may feel sitting on this lichen covered rock, mosquitoes buzzing in my ear, Indian Paintbrush catching the slant of sunset light in front of me. If we ruin the world out there, we ruin this world. They are two sides of the same coin. I can't feign ignorance. I know. I know that it is not acceptable to live a life that is complicit in the rape of the world. But most days I do. 

I do not trust that technology will save us from our missteps. I do not trust that we humans will electively stop our destructive ways. And also, I do not think it is time to party while the ship sinks. A life of partying leads to bloat and indigestion…half-cocked ideas and vapid memories. If the ship is sinking, I want to go down caring for her as best I can because there is a richness in living this way that is even more life affirming for the practitioner than it is healing for the land. It is both-and. 

And as bleak as it looks, some stubborn streak of optimism lives in me: that someday I will have children who will also be brought to their knees by the beauty of this place. 

Rat Snake

Rat snake
Muscles her way up the post 
Tongue flicking 
Smelling bird eggs 

Pale blue
Yolks the color of sunshine 
Unsung notes 

She wraps around the box
Coiling her body inside
Until only the tip of her tail 
Peeks out  

Jaws unhinged 
She eats her fill 
Then backs out 
And slips away 

A circle of light 
Floods in the opening 
Warming an empty nest 

Mama bird 
Is winging home now 
To a new reality 

Yesterday morning, out on a walk, I watched a rat snake coil into a nesting box, and I felt my heart sink. They must have still been eggs because no noise accompanied the snakes arrival. It seemed a wildly unfair match...unhatched eggs against a strong snake. 

Since most of my food comes from the grocery store, I am cushioned from the daily reality that to sustain life, I have to take life. I understand this truth on an intellectual level, but don't usually engage with it on a visceral level. And yet, as a privileged member of the human race, I am complicit in taking life and harming life, not just to sustain me, but also to thrill, pacify and delight me. 

My self righteousness and indignation at the snake prevailed until yesterday evening, when I was out on a hike and my dog, Pia, stopped to sniff what appeared on first glance to be a dark earthworm. On closer inspection, it was a baby black snake who was pinned by the gaze of my six pound dog, trying desperately to flatten into the rocks. Baby rat snakes, it turns out, are just as heart melting as a clutch of eggs. Back home from the hike, I read that black snakes only eat bird eggs if desperate. 

If only all the heartache and harm we humans cause could be chalked up to something so worthy as quelling genuine hunger. 

Spring Peepers

The peepers are rioting
in the garden 
The sound is so full 
I nearly have to cover my ears
Life dancing in the margins 

Inside, the roar is dulled
But the ache in my chest pulses loudly 
Alone, but not lonely
Well, sometimes lonely

I want to join in
the riotous dance outside 
To be like the peepers
Ecstatic at moonrise 
Dancing and singing 
for all the world to hear 

Confession & Anonymity

Confession isn’t limited to the Catholic tradition. It is common practice in many of the world religions and is an integral part of twelve-step recovery programs. Today’s blogging, tweeting and posting seem to be modern day forums for confession, with the notable distinction that the audience has swollen from one to many.

I’ve been an off and on journaler since I was 13 years old. My first journal had a mini padlock and accompanying key. The pen that came with the journal had a built in flashlight so you could write under the cover of darkness. Secrecy was paramount. Around the same time I started journaling, I read The Diary of Anne Frank for the first time. I could appreciate that her journal chronicled the horrors of the Holocaust in a very intimate way, but my 13 year old self couldn’t really get past the idea that her journal—her secret repository of her secret thoughts—had been published for the world to see.

So why go from being a journaler who kept my thoughts under lock and key to a blogger?

In her book I Thought It Was Just Me, social worker and author Brene Brown writes: “One of the most important benefits of reaching out to others is learning that the experiences that make us feel the most alone are actually universal experiences.” This, in essence, is my answer to why I decided to crack open my façade and expose what is most raw in me. So many people in my life opened up to me in this way, and this was perhaps the only truly effective medicine, besides time, for my own healing. Even though I was alone with the particularities of my story line and my unique cocktail of thoughts and emotions, I felt real kinship with the experiences of my friends and family and this commonality kept (and keeps) assiduous loneliness at bay.

Frank Warren’s community art project, Post Secret, is a visual representation of the value of sharing with others that which you’ve kept hidden. In November of 2004 he printed up 3,000 self-addressed post cards that were blank on one side and had instructions on the other: “Share an artful secret that you’ve never shared with anyone.”  His project quickly grew and today is represented in several coffee table books as well as the world’s most visited ad-free blog. Many of us are hungry to share, or to know, what lies beneath the shiny, happy exterior.  When I have revealed parts of myself that feel ugly and messed up and bad, and then have heard from others, “I have those parts too,” the relief has been palpable, and I have been able to move closer towards those elusive states called “self-compassion” and “accepting reality.”

Both confessing and receiving confession are healing. So why not share everything with everyone all the time? Why pair confession with anonymity?

In another book, Daring Greatly, Brene Brown states: “Vulnerability is based on mutuality and requires boundaries and trust. It’s not oversharing, it’s not purging, it’s not indiscriminate disclosure, and it’s not celebrity-style social media information dumps. Vulnerability is about sharing our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear them.”

Deciding who belongs in your circle of trust is immensely important. The people who will scoff at, or poke and prod, those raw places in you do not deserve to hear your full story. Intuition has been my best guide for choosing which people to open up to. I’m not far enough along my own path at this point to want to attach my name to my blog, or to truly blog about everything—some topics will always be reserved for in person conversations with people I already hold dear. But in my experience, the longer I sit on a secret, the larger it looms in my mind and heart and the more self-flagellation (proverbial) I endure because of it.

So find your people and share your secrets, or if you can’t yet share them directly find a way to release them anonymously to the wider world. Write them down on slips of paper and throw them into a fire. Send your own postcard to Frank Warren. Find a private place and simply say them out loud.

If you need to be on the receiving side of confession visit postsecret.com or read Cheryl Strayed’s advice column gone book Tiny Beautiful Things and luxuriate in the realization that no matter what it is that makes you feel broken, you are not alone—you are simply human. 

Boulder Fields

Several years ago I hiked through boulder fields in the Wind River Range of Wyoming for the first time, and they terrified me. I am a person who wants firm plans, guarantees, iron clad promises, detailed itineraries, the feeling that I can always count on certain people for comfort, help and love. Leaning into the inevitable uncertainty of the real world felt like something to be avoided as much as possible. Walking through the Wyoming boulder fields was like physically treading through my personal existential crisis.

This time last year, I was treading through the even more treacherous boulder field of my own mind. It is bad enough when something someone else does triggers your breakdown, but when you are both the source and the expression of your suffering the reality of how little control you have flares so bright that you cannot ignore its message.

I've led a charmed life, but despite the luck and love and beauty that has fallen into my lap, I couldn't stop myself from tripping into my personal rabbit hole of dark thoughts and deep sadness. So I spent a winter wading in the muck of my heart and soul, feeling wretched and damaged and unforgivable. And as I cracked wider open, wonderful people came into my life, and people I'd known forever opened up to me in ways that made me feel like I was meeting them for the first time.

I wanted one of these remarkable people to have my answer for me, and it felt achingly lonely that nobody could provide what I so desperately wanted. And so “Collective Wisdom” was born. Seeking my answer, ending up empty handed and also, paradoxically discovering a growing sense of fulfillment anyways. I turn 29 today, and my life is very different from what I imagined it would look like. I still chaff against the uncertainty and am still learning how to give myself permission to be forgiven, but I am doing the best I can, and in some moments--and even some long stretches of time--I am profoundly happy. 

I've spent the last nine months rooting into the lower, craggy Appalachian mountains, whose shiftiness is much more subtle. While out in these ancient mountains this fall I wrote: 

I feel as full as a womb carrying a child
I feel my sitz bones grow roots that curl below the leaves, below the moss,
down into the Earth
where they gnarl like old lovers hands
around Birch, Rhodo, Oak and Chestnut roots
I can drink the air here and be cradled by the ground. 
These mountains are so old and strong that they can bear my bad
The heft of my insecurities, fears, hurt, wrongdoing,
And also, my love, my passion, my joy
there is room for all of it
The unbearable weight of my humanness barely dimples this land
Pain, so fresh and fierce to me is able to float out here
I find laughter gurgling up
I feel beautiful and bold
I am a wise, old, child-woman
I am an Amazon River Princess
I am heft and lightness
I do not even think of the dark hole I have called home
It exists in another universe
Where dark and twisty stories kept the key to my cell
How fresh and light to walk along the ridge line now
To look purposefully up towards the silver moon and to call out
with all the wildness in my being: YES! 

(If you hear shades of Carl Sandburg's "Wilderness" and Oriah Mountain Dreamer's "The Invitation" above, you are right. They are always in my pack when I am out for an extended trip.)

To express profound gratitude for the many people who didn't give me my answer, but who were with me along my way, I am marking my birthday this year by starting this blog. In so doing, I hope to live in alignment with one of the truths that stands out most clearly from this year of study, articulated by Brene Brown: vulnerability fosters connection and connection is why we are here. Here's to another year of  walking through boulder fields in good company.