A Memory for the Earth

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Dear Friend,

To venture outside of your comfort, when it comes to the outdoors, can be called many things: adventure, quest, journey, or simply, a walk. Depending on the person, it can look very different. Some quench the desire for breaking new ground by climbing Mt. Everest. Some find it in their own backyards. There is no right or wrong when it comes to getting to know the natural world. The important thing is that we do, respectfully, in our own way, find our connection. 

The living world is as complex and deep as our own psyche. It is natural that we may find there, an understanding of ourselves that goes deeper and wider than any intellectual pursuit. Through contact with the wild world, we find meaning through metaphor; we feel the touch of cool rock on our feet, the brush of grass against our hand, see the play of light on leaves, and take in the scents, which together create an orchestral memory. 

When I come across nature places I knew long ago, memories often emerge like hidden gems. The trees may be taller, and some are altogether gone. Many things may change, yet always there are remnants of what was before. Without disruption, whether from human development or from natural causes, the quality and memory of a place can be preserved for decades and longer in the trees, waterways, topography, and species of plants and animals.

We, like the plants, animals, and rocks around us, are not anomalous in our existence. We are connected to the beginning of it all, linked by blood to a greater number of ancestral souls than we can logically comprehend. In our bones we contain the delicate and vulnerable blueprint, DNA, the memory, preserved through time, of us and those who came before us.

I prepared my own type of quest in the wild recently. In early June, in the middle of an atmospheric river and severe downpour, I camped in the woods on the Kitsap Peninsula, WA State. This is the story of what happened, both true and beyond truth in the same way that a chrysalis in transition contains both caterpillar and butterfly, and still somehow, neither.

It was the rain that whispered to me that night, through the howling wind. 
In its gentle way, it seeped into every crack and crevice and loosened the hard soils. 
It washed away the crust of grief and bitterness, grit, and pebble.
A soft loam began to bloom from what had been ash. 
Through the wind and rain and sharp claps of thunder, we saw with our dreaming eyes, the spirits of the land were dancing. 
Their whooping and laughter could be heard echoing across the meadows. 
So, we danced with them and in our dancing and delight, we painted the edges of the leaves gold and draped the land with a feast of gems and silver. Slowly the skies began to lighten.

For the Earth, 
Sayre Herrick
OMEC Board of Directors