Finding my proper place in the natural order of things

My son would like me to move into town and thinks that my animals and garden are responsibilities that are tying me down.  I found myself reflecting on why I feel a deep need to live in the country.

When I was in my 20's, living on a farm in rural Wisconsin, we had chickens who roamed around in the day but who needed to be shut up snug in their coop at night, lest varmints get them.  Chickens have a deep homing urge as it becomes dusk, so all I'd have to do was wait 'til it was full dark and then shut their door.  The chicken house was several hundred yards from the house down our dark driveway, and I noticed that I felt a little scared as I walked down the drive.  Staying in the bright cone of a flashlight made it worse as it blinded me to, made me feel even more separate from,  what was outside the light.

One time as I was walking down, I asked my self what was I scared of?  I felt
       "I'm scared of the wild things"
and then I heard a voice answer from the backroom of my mind,
       "you are a wild thing too, with tools and mind instead of tooth and claw.  You are a wild thing amongst wild things."

It hit me like a bolt of lightening.   I turned off the flashlight.  And walked the rest of the way feeling how I was one more natural force, in some ways stronger in others weaker, just one more wild thing amongst wild things.   I have never been afraid of the dark since.  In fact, I prefer walking in the dark; I feel that I see better.

Growing up by the Atlantic ocean, I loved to sit for hours watching waves come in.  And mountains, I loved that slightly shuddering feeling of smallness that came from looking at their mightiness. When I moved to the Midwest, I missed the ocean and mountains a lot until I met Midwestern storms.  Watching the clouds roll across the sky and foment the intimidation of wind, thunder, lightening, I found some of what I'd missed about oceans and mountains.  They all made me feel small in a good way.  Living in Chicago at that time, it was easy to feel the street cleaners and forecasters had gained the upper hand over storms.  Until one would just roll over the city and knock all our collective socks and infrastructure out!  I liked the feeling of being put in my place.  The natural order was bigger then me, thank God!

Over time, as I've lived in the country, gardened, raised animals, I've become more humble from necessity.  The bugs, and weeds and poop, the winds and storms, they all out number, are more powerful than me.  Oh  I've learned a trick or two over the years, and I love when I'm able to manage some natural force to my vision, keep my animals safe, keep weeds from thriving in my garden.   But I have no illusions of my ultimate power.

This is somewhat comforting in another arena.  I'm old enough to have noticed the changes to thriving flora and fauna populations over the years.  I've seen some colonies of magical wildflowers disappear from too many grazing deer or invasive species moving in. I remember when the DNR introduced multiflora rose as a "living fence", when introduced bass pushed out the pickerel and perch from our childhood fishing pond.   Yes, humans are speeding up all sorts of ecological change. We are not going to be able to return to the wilderness of our youths; it continues to grow and change and rebalance.
Nature is not nostalgic.  It accepts the loss of the passenger pidgin and the introduction of carp and kudzu.  Yes humans have blindly messed up our environments and Lord only knows, we are starting to pay the price along with lots of life on earth.  We may be well on our way to our own extinction.  But like the astroid which may have led to the dinosaur extinction or the "year long winter" that happened from volcanic ash which blocked the sun, the natural order continues to rebalance, recover into some new reality, to be resilient.  

We humans have lots of wonderful tools, and the ability to notice and savor, to plan and to correct course, but we are not all powerful.  We do what humans can do with hands and plans, but we can't drive the ecology car; we're part of it, and a small part to boot!  The Natural Oder of things is dynamic, not sentimental, and doesn't give a hoot in what form life will go on. I am sad from all the losses I've noticed in my lifetime but humbled that people couldn't/can't control all the forces we've played with, sort of like The Sorcerer's Apprentice. The natural world is bigger than we are; we are small and not God, despite our ambitions.

This is why I need to live in the country as long as I'm able, to feel small in a good way, to find my proper place in the natural order of things.

Shifting

Something is shifting.  I'm trying to figure out what will make my hips less painful, more functional.  I had a fall, and was carrying too much weight too early in my recovery from surgery.  (Oh my life just loves to hit me up side the head with metaphors, so apt they're funny!) The jury is out.  I may have a pinched nerve in my spine causing the thigh pain or perhaps it's just taking the muscles, which atrophied and foreshortened from my bad hips, time to stretch and grow. I track this and try that and hope the changing sensations will move more strongly in the functional direction.

But the shift I'm feeling has more to do with my last post about personal responsibility.  What I hoped for and sensed the day after the election seems to be happening.  People are standing up, speaking out.  Yes there are more knee jerk partisan positions but there is also thoughtful reexamining of what's real, of not countering the fake news and exaggerations with exaggerations and blame but with as truthful truth as we can tell and taking responsibility for our share of bad decisions.

I'm feeling the shift in odd things like keeping my kitchen counters and sink clean and put away at all times.  Who knew how clearing and empowering that simple consistency would be?  It came, as have several of my shifts, from some out of the blue misfortune that part of me decided was a gift, a challenge from the Universe to step up and into my life.  Perhaps it comes because I have no illusion that I know what's going on in this crazy world or how things will turn out.  Though I do sense that there's more going on than meets the eye; things are not simply black or white.  Times like these require a delicate balance of honest effort and voluntary free fall.  And being open to the subtle shifts of energy and willing to catch the change, in whatever domaine it may be.

Next week it will be 5 years since Gil's Easter morning death.  I'll be on the train with my 7 yr old granddaughter Piper traveling cross country to visit David in California.  I've been feeling Gil's presence a lot of late. I was at Piper's 2nd grade concert where they sang an assortment of jazz standards and I wept through the whole thing. Gil was palpably present.  I've had more conversations with him recently too.  All those posts where I wrote of waiting to be swept off into the next phase of my life,  Now I'm feeling like a cool breeze is blowing through an open door and that when I'm ready   I can shift my weight in a just a few little things and see how it feels to live my life in a new way.