Becoming Indigenous - Rewilding

Brasilian Portuguese has a well used word 'saudade' that is not simple to translate directly into English, however, it is easy to translate into Welsh 'hiraeth'. It variously means longing, homesickness, yearning. The translation websites then take the meaning to another place 'nostalgia' and this is where we take a wrong term in my opinion because it harks to the past. Moving between languages and cultures can reach a boundary of understanding.

There are languages that still carry words to describe this feeling of coming home or longing for home that English does not describe in a single word. That in itself is interesting to me. Why does the English language not have a hireath or a saudade?

A hiraerth or saudade for what? That is where I find myself today. I'm asking what does this feeling of longing and yearning have to do with people living in the modern world? For me it suggests that modernity is missing something or ailing in some way. That deep inside people are waking up to this notion of separation within themselves, from life, from Gaia and the cosmos.

It is said that Indigenous peoples have kept this connection, this flame of transcendence alive. Indigenous people use ritual, ceremony and rites of passage to maintain and build their relationship of deep belonging and connection to all that is.

I have been on this path, that I call the heart path for quite a  number of years now. Nevertheless, from September I am taking a deep and intentional dive into becoming indigenous. Will I be claimed by the land, animals, trees and plants of this place in which I now live? Will I discover new worlds? How will I be shaped and changed by this experience? I cannot say until I live into each moment. I guess this is not so much a place of destination as a reordering of perspectives. Like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.

What I don't want is a mimic of other cultures or a misappropriation of ways from other lands. This would represent another form of exploitation and theft upon which much of my ancestral inheritance is based. If nothing else a certain humility, respect and etiquette needs to emerge from this experience if it is to be different from the modern path I have been brought up in and that predominates around me. I live in a taking culture, a  linear world that feeds a story of competition, scarcity and lack. All of this breeds enormous amounts of fear and anxiety. That results in hierarchy and separation. 

To live from a place of connection, relationship, wholeness, cyclicality, reverence and love would be counter cultural. To learn how to give now that would be different, and to uncover what my gifts are that I am meant to give back into my community, now that would be good to know.

I like to think of this process I am going through as 'Rewilding'. The word 'Wild' in English has resonance and energy. Wild acknowledges that we humans are not in control of everything nor are we at the top of the chain of evolution. Wild indicates to me that I share in common with all forms a life a sense of togetherness in process and with purpose.

  

Say yes to boredom

I remember as a kid being so bored on Sunday afternoons. Especially so in the winter months when it was cold, dark and rainy outside making it next to impossible to be outdoors. From behind the window looking out on the world there seemed very little to do besides wait for Monday and school which was a tad more interesting than nothing.

Boredom is not the preserve of the bone idle. Even if it was it would venerate idleness to greater heights. Learning to be bored is a life lesson. Boredom is a state of being we are meant to believe is indicative of a lack of imagination.

I'd like to offer a counter view. Boredom is in fact the road to wisdom. By embracing a state of nothingness we potentially embark on an inner journey of self discovery.

Boredom is the doorway to new insights.

In the last few days I have been able to slow down for the first time this year. By slow down I mean I have no where to be and mostly nothing to do. No plans have been made. There is nothing readily available to occupy me except for myself. When I have been on the life/work treadmill for a long period of time I get out of the practice of simply being. My transition from doing to being is mediated by a period of boredom. This lasts until I can adjust myself. Until my imagination fires up. Until I listen to what I love and get myself together to reconnect with what matters to me in that moment.

Now there will be some reading this who will say, just flip the switch - why does it take time to go from doing to being? And I'd say, most people conflate doing what they want with 'being'. Without transitioning through a state of boredom or awareness I don't think doing what you want is 'being'. It is another form of busyness.

Busyness is a distracted state of doing what we think is expected of us, seeking approval or wanting to please others, of buying into a story of acquisition and/or aspiration.

Knowing yourself sufficiently to be in a state of being takes more than a recognition of external influences. It requires a deep relationship, listening and dialogue with the soul. That doesn't come easily. Hence in my case the meeting of boredom first.

From this perspective boredom is to be welcomed as it is the precursor to something more mysterious, deep and life enhancing than a linear experience of busyness and doing.

This is why I say yes to boredom.

Jesus to Shesus

This is a photograph of a postcard of a huge stained glass window I found myself sat before this afternoon. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take your own photographs of the window. I have always found this enormous vibrantly coloured image of Jesus an impressive sight. When I visit Buckfast Abbey I am often drawn to the quiet room at the far end of the main building to sit in front of this window.

Today I am reminded of a presentation by Sean Kelly given at Schumacher College in 2010. I remember asking Sean why Jesus was born a man and not a woman? His reply, which to this day still startles me, was, 'No one would have listen to what he came to say if he was born a woman'.

What Sean seemed to be saying is that great thinkers, philosophers, theologians and spiritual teachers come in the male form so that we will pay them more credence.

I know we live in a patriarchal world, but nevertheless, OUCH!

As one half of the world that happens to be born into a woman's body, to be told by someone purporting to be a liberal progressive thinker, that by being a woman the world will not listen to what you have to say no matter how wise - these are harsh and demoralising if not offensive words indeed. And when I stop to reflect I can name woman whose words have made a difference; Mother Theresa, Hildegarde of Bingen, Maya Angelou, Joan of Arc to name a few. But that's simply it, they are a few when balanced against the predominant avalanche of patriarchal voices history and contemporaneous times presents us.

When will the human species be ready for Shesus?

At the centre of the modern story is the idea of Gaia, a whole system supporting life on planet Earth. No Gaia, no life and more specifically no human beings. Gaia is a female goddess. Thus we are presenting Earth and her life supporting systems as generative, life giving and female. Gaia is speaking to us constantly and whether we be a listening scientist, consumer, gardener, nurse, priest or poet many of us are hearing a similar message ... "our ecological systems are changing to such an extent that temperatures will rise to levels that will no longer support human life (and many other forms of life hence the 6th mass extinction we are now experiencing), as temperatures rise we will experience sea levels rising, floods, droughts and other climatic events. All of which add up to a big ole hollering from Mama Gaia to say mind your ways homo sapiens, if you're not carefully you'll unwittingly dismantle the conditions that support life on earth.

Granted this earthly message from Gaia is not coming in a readily digestible movie, TV broadcast or book. It is coming through in more naturalistic languages.

My question to Sean Kelly and his like is, will we hear her voice in the babbling brooks and the reshaping of rocks, in the cries of the animals, birds and fish, in the shifting and swaying seasons, will we hear it this time when it comes in non-human form and yet in a projected feminine voice?

I ask because it would appear we humans don't listen to woman, human or otherwise?

Can we change?

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests that the Dalai Lama will not be reincarnated as a person but as a community. Now that is a radical thought. When you think that all, if not most, of the primary spiritual and religious leaders of the last 3000 years have been male would it not be as radical if the next spiritual voice was female and non-human. Gaia. Now that is possibly even more radical. Not only is she here and speaking to us, she has always been here and always been speaking to us. We are born of her and go back to her in our death. You could say the bigger body is trying to communicate with her billions of little bodies.

Can we hear her speak to us?