28. Silencing

Last week, a meteorite smashed down on a driveway in rural England. The homeowner thought that someone had thrown a lump of coal on their tarmac. Thankfully, the news that day was full of scientists asking people to look out for unexpected lumps that had appeared overnight, and this homeowner responded. Officially, the lump is the most valuable space rock ever to fall on the UK.

The rock is carbonaceous chondrite – a dark material that retains unaltered chemistry from the formation of our Solar System 4.6 billion years ago, and, as such, could give us fresh insights on how the planets came into being.

It got me thinking.

We too are particles on this planet, breathed to life by some colossal chemical catalysts. We are part of a whole that is much larger and more complex than we could ever comprehend. We have learned to act upon it as if from a distance, as if we are separated by lab coats and plexi-glass from the effects of our experiments. This has brought us great knowledge and advancement. It is definitely hugely important to the success of the human race.

However, we have learned to prioritise this acting upon above acting with or being acted upon. And surely that must leave the whole^[1] uncompleted?

My wife has an undiagnosed illness which causes her ongoing pain, and with it comes tiredness and sometimes despair. But she has a trick that pushes back the onslaught. She swims out in the local lochs and rivers when she can find time. When she can't, she showers under the hose at the end of our garden.

There is a moment when she decides to do it that her body gathers itself, and then oof. There is a moment of pushing out into a winter's loch where her breath is stolen from her, where her body freezes at the shock. Oof it's cold! But a moment later, I'm alive!

Her immersion into the sensation wipes her experiencing mind. Instead, she is completely present. There is no room for anything but sensation – being with the cold, being acted upon by the cold. Of course, her body is not passive in this moment, it responds with great speed and power to reduce the potential shock. But the ego She is quieted momentarily.

I don't jump into the lochs with her. So what do I do?

Today, one of my father's old records is playing as I write. I remember him spending his weekends sitting quietly just listening – encountering, perhaps. (I'm not, it's too trill for me, and I'm busy wrestling with these words).

Instead, I yearn. The unwritten thesis throughout all these words has been that there is encounter waiting for us. We can't make it happen, we can't control when/if it does. All we can do is prepare ourselves so that we are open to the possibility of it. If I am a little less caught up in the human world^[2], perhaps more of me is available to be brought into the whole, if only momentarily.

I endeavour to see things slightly differently, recognising that my eyes cannot see all there is to be seen. I listen carefully, knowing that I can't hear all noise. Those beautiful, joyous springtime birds outside my window are also singing notes beyond human audio range. What are they communicating in those moments? And to whom?

How can we regain a sense of relating with the earth, not just notionally but within our bones?

There is a language older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this language. We do not even remember that it exists – Derrick Jensen

We've lost the intimate connection to Mother Earth that creates meaning. Sans meaning, Mother Earth becomes just inanimate soil. We are animals of meaning. It is not just the earth that suffers; we too become smaller.

When I walk with my back open to the hill behind me, I can feel it – the dividing line between I and It thins until our relationship is visceral, I-and-Thou.

More importantly, when I don't do that, I am cutting my smaller self off from the larger possibility. Every breath in is a gift from Mother Earth that inspires me; but when I cut myself off from her, I simply breathe gas. No inspiration. No tenderness. I make myself alone. My body adapts to solitariness. In time, I cut myself off from other people too. After all, the divine manifests as Mother Earth, as animals and birds, trees and hills, and other people.

If I can't open myself to the possibility of encounter with everything, I will not encounter anything. I leave the last word to R.D.Laing:

Our behaviour is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed, our behaviour will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves - R. D. Laing