Learning to Listen

            Here, for my final blog post of the semester, I believe it wise to reflect on what our time at Nine Mile Run revealed to be my biggest struggle: listening. As we walked along the water/sewage system on that day more beautiful than any that had come this year, I struggled a great deal to listen to our leader. She would speak about the drainage system, and I would immediately tell myself, “I do not understand that,” or, “this is boring.” Unable to recognize these thoughts as indicative of my default responses, I continued onward under their jurisdiction, never really hearing what she was saying. Thus, I am sad to admit that I came out of the day with a very small amount learned about Nine Mile Run and its significance.

            But how much I could have learned! I had walked alongside the run several times in the past, and each time I had thought only, “what a pretty stream.” I’d even crossed it, thinking the water to be the purest water in existence. I was caught within a limited aesthetic, unable to see that there is more occurring than meets the eye. Factual knowledge of a place or thing expands one’s perception of that place or thing. That may be the most important lesson this course has taught me.

            I am not sure if this is the case for all, but for me, listening takes great effort. It requires me to breathe deeply and do my best to open space for new sounds to enter. I, like many, become all too engrossed in a routine, both mental and physical, until the routine becomes all encompassing.

            I was able to break out of my thought patterns a bit, however, during our writing exercise. I ran up a steep dirt hill, exerting great effort not to slip or fall backwards, and arrived at the hill’s peak. My shoes crunched over fallen oak leaves, leaves that the warm wind swirled around me. Up there, unseen, immersed in the sweet scent of dirt, I heard the sounds of my breath, of the robins, of the wind. Up there, I felt calm and receptive.

            All it takes is a small amount of daily effort. I have sacrificed this daily effort for the sake of more productivity, more pages produced, and in the process I sacrificed components of the receptivity to stimuli I’ve always held in such high regard. The funny thing about this “effort,” however, is that it demands one merely sit still and breathe. Of course, amidst a life transition from Grad School to the World Beyond, this sitting still can be difficult, for it requires me to face the fears that arise. Yet during these transitions, sitting still is more important than ever before, for it allows one to realize that the world still exists outside the sphere of individual consciousness. And that world is full of so much to learn.

Aesthetics vs. Inquiry

I miss the smell of grass in the spring. Then again, I miss the smell of grass in general. Grass conjures up so many memories: of mowing the front and back yards beneath the St. Louis summer sun in High School, listening to The Who and dreaming about asking out the girl I liked; of wrestling with the guys after school in Seventh grade in Brian’s front yard; of sitting on top of the grass hill at the park after the Fourth of July and watching the fireworks show. I don’t often pause to appreciate grass. But today, I did pushups in a large field of graves and felt the soft dirt form to my hands. Moving up and down in rapid breath, I smelled the crispy leaves.

Through my time in this Nature Writing course, I have become aware of a disconnect between the aestheticization of nature and the inquiry into nature, a discrepancy between appearances and depths. Typically, I would remain in the former category, for my traditional view on the natural world has been entirely sensory: listening to the calm chirps of the robins, feeling the gentle touch of the wind, seeing the vibrations of the willows. In fact, I love remaining in the former category, for I find such marvel in the patterns I see—the stream-like formation of the veins splaying through a leaf, the near-perfect geometry of a fallen pine cone. As I focus on these patterns in their aesthetic manifestations, I am calmed, and my worries drift. Investigation into can certainly increase the marvel, but I do not believe it is necessary for appreciation. All depends on how one chooses to relate to nature. 

But now I feel immense pressure to “go deeper,” to spend time researching, that I may be a more informed nature writer. In fact, I feel like a bad person for not veering toward doing that, as if my view on the natural world is somehow incorrect. I have become so much more neurotic about writing, about “entering the flow.” Pre-Chatham, while doing my best to be a Kerouacian vagabond, I would have had no trouble (or displeasure) sitting here on this grass full of leaves and writing about it. Maybe it would have been something like:

The cool wind blows and massages my neck, ruffling my hair and sending the fallen brown leaves twirling in unpredictable motion. Gray clouds migrate rapidly, dropping the first drops of the late afternoon. A beautiful woman jogs by, her Nike soles clomping against the gravel path. Breathing deeply, I am unseen; transparent, I enter into the limitless moment.

Now, I can barely write that, for a wholly new voice has entered my mind. The voice says: “What do you know about leaves? What kind of leaves are they? Do you even know why grass grows? Clouds don’t migrate, you dumbass! And stop checking out every woman you see and just focus on your damn craft.” 

I’ve never been one to understand nature or learn a vocabulary of categories by which we classify it. At Yosemite, I did not stop to read the signs explaining how Half Dome came to be. Rather, I sat on the grass and stared at it, breathing deeply and trying not to blink. 

Maybe I’m lazy, unwilling to learn new things that may amaze me. I am not sure. I am just so amazed by aesthetics, by the way things unfold and deepen the more we focus on them. The Fleet Foxes sing, “If I know only one thing, it’s that everything that I see of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak.” To be moved into wordlessness, into pure perception. That is how I enjoy nature. That is how I will always enjoy nature. But I now recognize how scientific facts can deepen a perception of something natural. Neither category excludes the other. The grass will always smell delicious. 

Change Occurring

I am surrounded by robins.

The birds are playing today. Their chirping is incessant, diverse in pitch. They dart after one another at rapid speeds down over the pond. The wind blows softly, rippling the green-brown water, water that has been concealed by ice for many months now.

Change fascinates me. Some of us love it, some of us hate it. But what fascinates me, apart from its inevitability, is its dependence upon memory. We perceive only instants, and our recollection of previous instants informs us that this moment is different, that change has occurred. I remember total silence last time I came to the cemetery. Now, the robins' noise is perpetual, and I deduce that weather patterns account for the change. I search for reasons for this instant being different than the instants of my memory.

I suppose change is inseparable from time. Over time, the dead brown spindles of the weeping willow before me will fall, and the limbs will sprout green life once again. The beige grass below me will not remain beige. Change and time occur and progress, regardless of our intentions. I could have received the most devastating news of my life this morning, but in coming here, I still would have heard the birds in their play. They do not seem concerned that we just experienced a brutal winter. They just seem happy they are here.

There's never enough time. Well, maybe I should rephrase. For some things, some experiences, there is never enough time. Big projects. Moments spent with loved ones. Yet for other experiences, time cannot move fast enough. I could not wait for winter to end. Now it is coming to a close, and still I feel great pressure. For Graduate school is coming to a close, and never again will I be able to devote two years so wholeheartedly to a project, surrounded by energetic, smiling people doing the same thing. Life is getting in the way.

But I am in a place where I believe this to be a good thing. Being occupied with various tasks allows for space. The further I dive into my novel, the less connected I feel with people. Other tasks help. This walk helps. Deep breaths help. The robins help.

We aren't here to do just one thing. We are capable of so much.

I've Got Something to Say... But it's all Vanity

Golly was it nice to read David Gessner’s essay “Sick of Nature.” He said so much of what I have been thinking and feeling lately, and he said it in human, conversational language. My patience with lofty, elevated language is running thin. Consider this a warning that a rant is to come. 

                I’m so goddamn sick of this snow. If it doesn’t stop I’m going to destroy something. Like take a bat to it. 

                Annoyance and anger carry me into the graveyard. I’ve felt so stifled lately. My go-to simile is that I feel as if two large hairy hands are gripping my brain and slowly adding pressure. I don’t give a shit about the writing today. I lack the energy to transform visions of the same shit into something supposedly meaningful.

Two deer are near the entrance. I don’t see innocent beauty. I see two dumb animals about a hundred feet from being pummeled by a speeding vehicle. I run toward them, and they trot away. 

Deeper in now, I arrive into my space of openness. I stand still, as I have done. At least the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I like the sun. But I like it because of what it does for me, how it warms my skin. I, like Gessner, am a great narcissist. And my approach to nature writing thus far has only increased my narcissism. When I look at the cemetery, at the snow, I think—how can I relate this to me? What can I learn from this sycamore, these footprints? How does this scene inform the struggles I face?

I hate this mentality. Goddamn does it reduce the world. The world, this graveyard, doesn’t give a shit about the fact that I feel stifled and am anxious about graduating and am barely finding time to work on my novel amidst all my other classwork, even if the novel is the main reason I’m in this program. No, the world just is. The tree says nothing about my frustration. It’s just a tree.

Ken Kesey was a smart dude. He said, “We’re always looking for, never looking at.”

These thoughts in mind, the world opens. The moment shines with clarity, and the snow glitters. My dumb narcissistic thoughts have moved temporarily aside. 

This thinking, this relating, is new to my life. Before my MFA experience, I did not see something amazing and think of what it meant for me. I just saw it. The peaks and waterfalls of Yosemite, the lakes of Glacier, the mountains of Olympic—I just saw them, and goddamn did I marvel at them. When my friends and I passed around a flask in a cave of boulders at Joshua Tree, near a precipice overlooking a grand desert expanse of craggy Seussian trees, I didn’t try to condense it into a distinct quantifiable phase or moment. It just happened, and I loved it. Now, my friends and I look back with admiration, simply because it occurred.

The more I try to relate the nature I see to this particular point in my life, the more I get trapped in my own head.  We can only learn of an experience’s true significance over time. We can never predict all that will result from an event’s transpiring. The more we try to understand it immediately, the more we suffer at the realization we cannot. 

 I want to go back. Back to that time where I wasn’t trying to form everything into something it’s not. Cause that feels like lying, and it hurts my brain to do it. 

I’m not blaming anyone or anything. It’s the way I’ve been approaching writing. Only I can control that. And I’m changing it. Too concerned I’ve become with expectations of teachers and journals and employers and yadee yadda. I have not been listening to the voice inside my head. I’ve been trying to form it into something it’s not. 

The birds are chirping. This sounds nice to me. I’ll leave it at that.

A Moment of Sunlight

           For the first time in many months, I overlook the cemetery bathed in unobstructed sunlight. I stand beside the willow at the meeting point of the three paths, the three directions, breathing in the space of the open-air auditorium (the name I’ve given to this section of the graveyard I’ve made my space). The strong wind sends a collection of brown leaves swirling into a whirlwind, a whirlwind that carries off into the distance. Today, people pass perpetually—couples walking hand in hand, individuals jogging.

            With all this sudden activity, I become self-conscious of my still self. I stand on the precipice in mountain pose, gazing over the vast sweep of headstones, the fluttering trees. I breathe myself toward transcendent consciousness, but my assimilation is thwarted by my self-consciousness. What do these people think of me? Do they find me weird, standing still and not doing anything?

            It’s strange that stillness has become a source of self-conscious anxiety. We’re so often in go-mode, encouraged to keep ourselves busy at all times, to always remain productive. Apart from within various spiritual texts and communities, stillness is rarely, if ever, prized for its own sake. It is not seen to have practical value, and thus it is avoided.

            But here, standing, coming into presence with these thoughts, I must diverge from this thinking. For as I stand still, my thoughts settle, and I feel the sun on my barren legs.

            Can I control my mode of thinking? I want to think of something different. So I begin to direct my thoughts toward changes, toward phases. The question of changes leads me to the question of freedom: within an ever-changing world, how free am i? How connected to the world’s ceaseless changes am i? Is it a mere coincidence that today, the first day of unobstructed sunlight in many months, I feel calm, elated, and full of bliss? Am I free to control my moods, or are my moods inevitable consequences of the weather?

            It is true that this winter season has been, for me, a season of record-low morale. But is this reducible to the weather? Or is this me projecting my state onto the low gray clouds, the ceaseless haze of snow?

            I believe I am connected to the world in its changes, its phases. I am not this independent solid ego detached from all things that I often convince myself I am. But perhaps being connected to worldly changes does not mean I am unfree. Maybe it simply shows that ceaseless layers of reality exist beyond myself, that I am in a Nature beyond my comprehension, and that as the world moves forth in ever-changing phases, so do I. 

Snowflakes Falling

Questions that enter my mind at the culmination of today's meditation:

When did it become so difficult to be still?
Why do my temples feel full of great pressure?
Why the hell won't it stop snowing?
Why this ceaseless feeling of dread in my heart?
Can a simple smile really transform a day?
What if the snow out my window hangs perfectly still, and it is in fact I who am moving?
Will this winter ever end?

Several inches of snow cover the ground. I'm long past the point of admiring its beauty. I have become weary. I have become encased within myself.

I sit in my still room. I will not enter this cold, for today is the first day in many where I do not have to. Thus, I pull apart the black curtains that have shadowed my windows now for nearly three months. Light pours through them, sent from a sun concealed behind this grey cloud consuming this white city.

All I see out the window is falling, falling, falling. Gravity pulls things down. The elevated floor supporting me shall crumble. Are we different? Do we, like birds, have the ability to rise? Or are our moments of bliss simply brief interludes of comfort amidst the perpetual fall?

I do not know why, but my mind has been in great turmoil since last Tuesday. I wrote an essay on silence amidst noise, of calm receptivity and inner stillness. In forming the ideas, I felt at peace, calm with the changes occurring. But the moment I turned it in, turmoil ensued. I felt suddenly highly sensitive to the chaos surrounding me. Contrary to the doctrine I decreed, I could find no calm.

My mind was barraged with all the confusion of my current place: What will I do once I graduate? How will I plan my next lesson at the jail? Why am I not publishing? Why am I not applying for more jobs? Why can't I be still? Why don't I work more on my thesis, my novel? My novel is a cluttered mess. Why can't I just recognize my countless blessings, the futility of my problems? Do I feel this way because I consume meat of caged animals and thus consume their fear and anxiety? Do my emails come across as arrogant and accusatory? When did being become so difficult? My stomach is currently making strange noises. My jaw is clenching. I should probably see a psychiatrist ASAP. But prescription meds didn't work last time and only made the pain worse.

Does any of this have to do with nature? Yes, insofar as I currently sit in still nature, and in silent nature these thoughts are revealed to me. I want to ignore them. To bury them. But what good will it do? They shall rise once more.

I brought a piece of flash fiction to my class at the jail, a piece called "The Voices in my Head" by Jack Handey. An unnamed narrator talks about his struggles with the voices he hears in his head. Toward the end, he says: "Maybe the answer is not to try to get rid of the voices but to learn to live with them." A nice statement, though it is directly followed by the parenthetical: "(I don't really think that; I'm just saying it for the voices.)" The internal thoughts become so loud, so overbearing, that they become the architecture of all thinking, even the thinking that I think is trying to help me.

This snow out my window keeps me inside. The voices I hear do as well. This goddamn winter just keeps going, and I cannot find peace amidst it. But hell, I couldn't find peace if it were fall or spring. There's something within that demands my attention. I am unsure what it is. But goddamn I'm trying to figure it out.

Maybe it's the trying that's holding me back.
Or maybe that's just another voice in my head.

Screw this. I'm going outside.

***

I made it to the graveyard. I ran there, in fact. I know that's against the rules, but the spirit moved me so. At least a food-deep blanket covered the ground. My shoes were nestled by the softness. I did not stumble.

Many of the gravestones were completely covered. I saw no one. I ran as instincts carried me, away from my usual direction, and soon I found myself in an auditorium of open space. I knew this space. It was my first idea for my weekly location. But in the early weeks, I was searching for something--solace, space, or sycamores--and traveled elsewhere. But henceforth, this is my space.

Three paths branch off from a tall willow, each descending a different direction. Two border the cemetery's greatest expanse of graves. All directions culminate in barren trees; I am cradled within the space between.

The silence today is astounding. I listen to it. The occasional jet engine sounds muffled. I hear a distant whistling which reveals itself to be a siren. I stare at the sun, glowing like the moon behind the dense grey cloud of winter, and feel as if gazing into the orb at the end of a wormhole, a void through which all the snowflakes of the universe travel directly at me. 

The flakes appear to be falling. I follow one, and amidst its fall, the wind blows, and it rises, twirling. Perhaps the flakes are falling; perhaps I am rising.

I step into a dense blanket of untouched snow. O the demons I've externalized onto these innocent particles! Memories of childhood surface, of laying back in the snow and creating angelic figures with my brothers. Before I can stop myself, I fall to my back. The blanket becomes a cushion. Here, now, 26-year-old Sean in his jeans and coat and gloves spreads his arms, closes his eyes, and feels the cool flakes fall onto his face, slowly melting away.

When I rise, I observe the marks I've made. Not quite an angel; more like a misshapen eagle. I gaze once more into space, the falling flakes accentuating distances. Never before has the graveyard felt so restorative. I do not want to leave. I feel warm here. But I know I must return. So, once again, I run and feel the enlivening cold enter my lungs.

I thought of several nice ways to end this, to make it feel whole, but all of them reach for something that is not there. These experiences are not meant to be analyzed. All this just happened. All this was just an hour of one of my fortunate days. 

Silent Meditations

            At the bottom of a slush covered hill, I discover homemade wind chimes dangling from a small tree. The metal cylinders hang motionless, circling a wooden peg attached to a thin rope. I grab the rope and thrust it hard. The chimes ring loudly, awfully, creating a nasty chaos of noise that shatters the stillness of the cemetery. I calm the chaotic motion. Now, I brush the rope gently. The peg touches the metal cylinders, brushing off them in a calm cool rhythm. Pleasing vibrations enter the space.

The harder I push, the more chaos is created. A gentle approach yields pleasant vibrations.

The chimes cease, and silence reigns once more. I am fascinated by silence. I have chosen to write my first nature essay about it. I am fascinated with how little I encounter silence in my day-to-day life. I am fascinated with how much I often fear it.

In silence, I become vulnerable to myself. Oftentimes, my mind is not a pleasant space to inhabit. My desires run rampant, screaming at me to satisfy them. My existential fears find a megaphone and barrage my struggle for peace of mind. In silence, I must face these demons. I cannot distract myself with a cell phone or a computer screen or a TV or a bag of buttered popcorn. 

Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle writes: "Whenever there is some silence around you — listen to it. That means just notice it. Pay attention to it. Listening to silence awakens the dimension of stillness within yourself, because it is only through stillness that you can be aware of silence." He goes on to say: "When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world." Tolle equates inner stillness with silence. We ought not simply seek silent places--we must listen to the silence. We are active participants. In so doing, we encounter depths to our stillness that can often be difficult to find. 

I once spent five days in total silence. I spoke to no one. I was in Guatemala, studying at a meditation center beside Lago de Atitlan, the most magnificent lake I’ve ever witnessed. During those five days, the final days of a one-month retreat, I was not even allowed to read. The mantra was: “You with you.” All I could do was write, sit, and breathe.

The first three days were remarkably difficult. I needed noise. I was so dissatisfied with my thoughts I could hardly sit still. Even in Atitlan, cradled within volcanic peaks, watching the sunlight glint off the lake’s surface, I could not find peace.

Gradually, something changed. I began to feel at peace with myself. I sat in the garden, watching butterflies move flower to flower, smelling the delicious herbs growing. I am not sure what changed, but a peace of mind I’ve never known before rose. With nothing to distract myself, my mind settled the muck that I often fill it with. I stopped thrusting the wooden peg, and the chimes of my psyche calmed their ceaseless ringing. I felt their stillness. 

Depths manifest in silence. Here, in the cemetery, I retreat from the noise of my life and encounter parts of myself I often want to keep buried.