Real Conversations, Part 2

Niagara Gorge, 400 million years old rock

“The whole world is, to me, very much “alive” – all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.” ― Ansel Adams via Goodreads

Ansel Adams is the reason I took my first photography class. His life and work, especially his photographs from Yosemite National Park, inspired me. He saw something in the world around him that I didn’t yet see. For Adams, the world was very much alive. 

Last week, we focused on conversations that happen with people (who are very much alive) and how we respond to the events in our lives. Conversation is about so much more than words spoken. Gestures, facial expressions, tone, emotions, and preconceptions also play a part in every conversation. 

The same goes for the world around us. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we’re always in conversation with the world around us - the plants and animals, landscape features, and the spaces we inhabit. How we relate to these conversations affects our experience and how we see. This week, I’d like you to focus on the conversations you’re having with the non-human world around you. What is alive for you?

Animism

The word animate (as adjective) means “possessing or characterized by life, alive, a living thing, full of life” (Merriam-Webster). We generally think of humans, plants, and animals as being alive. However, rocks and water, mountains and fire, songs and places, all have elements of animacy, of aliveness. We just can’t see their growth and change with our eyes.

This is not about assigning human qualities to non-human beings or subjects, but rather recognizing their essential aliveness and ability to communicate in their own way. We know that trees communicate with each other underground, that animals have finely tuned senses that make them deeply aware of their environment, and that birds sing. What are they saying? Let’s start by just listening.

In his book, Becoming Animal, David Abram writes that the best way to describe the animate nature of things is to articulate your direct experience. He shares a story of a man, well-schooled in listening to needled evergreens.

“On a breezy day you could drive him, blindfolded, to any patch of coastal forest and place him, still blind, beneath a particular tree—after a few moments he would tell you, by listening, just what species of pine or spruce or fir stood above him (whether he stood beneath a Douglas fir or a grand fir, a Sitka spruce or a western red cedar). His ears were attuned, he said, to the different dialects of the trees.”

Now that’s a special type of listening and many indigenous cultures had, and still have, these deep relationships with the land. It’s something that many of us have lost but it can be reclaimed. 

A Grammar of Animacy

“To be native to a place, one must learn its language.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer says we need to learn how to listen carefully to the ways our places speak in languages different from our own – plant fragrances, bird song, the wind. Or what about the force that causes a flower to bloom? These invisible forces are what Kimmerer calls the grammar of animacy. In the Potawatomi culture, of which she is a member, they speak of the living world as if it were alive, as if it was a person, as if it were kin. A language of animacy holds all things with equal respect and worthiness. 

When learning a new language, we often begin with nouns, or naming things. We’re very good at talking about things. Yet, this tells us nothing about the things themselves. In the Ojibwe language, many things that we would consider nouns in the English language are, in fact, verbs. For example, “to be a bay.” What does that mean? Here’s what Kimmerer has to say.

“A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikegama–to be a bay–releases the water from bondage and lets it live. “To be a bay” holds the wonder that, for this moment, the living water has decided to shelter itself between these shores, conversing with cedar roots and a flock of baby mergansers. To be a hill, to be a sandy beach, to be a Saturday, all are possible verbs in a world where everything is alive. Water, land, and even a day, the language a mirror for seeing the animacy of the world, the life that pulses through all things, through pines and nuthatches and mushrooms.“

Talking about things is not conversation, nor is it listening. Imagine if you talked about a person while they’re standing right there. They’d think you were very rude! If we think of everything as alive, if we practice listening, we might hear more clearly the conversations happening all around us. 

Practice

This may be out of the comfort zone for some. If so, take it slow and be open. Read Thomas Merton’s Rain Text. Consider Ansel Adams’ quote. What is alive to you? What is not and why?

Pay attention to the languages of animacy around you. Write them down as you experience them. For example, what is the wind saying about the possibilities of a storm? What are dying fish telling you about the water? What are drooping plants telling you about what it needs? What is a plant growing in the crack of a sidewalk telling you about resilience?

Practice listening to the world around you. Emergence Magazine offers some ways to start - listening to birds, the aroma of trees, listening for silence. 

Visit a place near you, whether your backyard or a local park or a body of water. Just listen. What are you hearing? Write about it. Leave an offering. Say thank you. Artist Basia Irland writes essays from the point of view of rivers all over the world. Here’s an example.

Here are three exercises offered from the film, Becoming Animal (largely based on the work of David Abram).

Please share your experiences in the comments or on Instagram (add the hashtag #seeingclearly2021).

Resources

Learning the Grammar of Animacy by Robin Wall Kimmerer

An Obsession with Rocks and How an Ansel Adams Book Changed my Life by Me