In my first post on this page I wrote about the new trail to 70-Mile Butte (Where do I start out? August 4, 2014). First I expressed my gratitude to the Grasslands and to all the beings (other than humans and humans) that have inhabited and animated it through time. I also mentioned the emotions of sadness, disbelief and grief that welled up in me when I saw the scar left by this trail, particularly in the switch-back area. In this post I would like to explore two important teachings I have received because of this trail. I gaze at the photo of the trail zigzagging up the butte, the trail some call “a trail of destruction”. I remember my previous walks through the Grasslands. I can envision this scar cutting through the thin mineral soil and the geological layers of the Bearpaw Formation. In a deeply visceral way, I can feel its steeply cut banks rapidly slumping and the long fill slopes already eroding away. Then I realize that this trail wounds me too. I feel this scarring trail in my very body. This sadness, disbelief and grief, it is not only linked to the land’s wounding. It is also my own wound. I could easily dissociate myself from these emotions. Repress them. Bury them deep down, inside myself. For many years I have done just that with similar emotions. I use to tell myself: “Just get over it and keep on living.” The truth is that I can’t do that anymore. Five years of studies in ecopsychology have taught me to pay attention to these emotions. To tend them. And the emotions elicited by this trail have been haunting me not only during the day, but also in my sleep and in my dreams. So tend them, I shall. Thus, the first teaching I have received from the 70-Mile Butte Trail is to accept these emotions as they well up, instead of repressing them. Let them surface and sit with them. Tend them. That’s precisely what I have been doing for the last three weeks. Shortly after my first post, I opened a magazine from Greenpeace. In it there was a full-page aerial photo of a much larger and deeper scar on the Earth’s sacred landscape: one of the many the tar sands extraction sites near Fort McMurray, AB. Still raw from what I experienced regarding the 70 Mile Butte trail, I once again felt the upsurge of sadness, disbelief and the grief. And then about two weeks ago I watched video clips of the ecological disaster at the Mt Polly copper-silver mine in BC. A third gut wrench as I saw in all these events my own woundedness, but also the woundedness of our modern society and the resulting wounds that we collectively and individually inflict on the Earth. As I sit with these three ecologically charged events, a new pattern of understanding settles into my consciousness. It is one of connection. I think about the First Nations peoples. Often after talking in an Aboriginal sharing circle, the speaker touches the Earth and says “Mitakuye Oyasin”, meaning, this Earth I am touching, the entire creation, all the beings, these are all my relations. I am, we are one with all the beings living on this Earth. I sink into the realization that I am one with this place called the Grasslands and all the beings that inhabit it. I am one with the land and beings around Fort McMurray and I am one with the ecological disaster at Mt Polly Mine. I am one with those who are trying to protect the Earth. And, in the same way, I am one with those who, intentionally or not, are damaging and polluting it. We are all wounded and wounders, in various ways. So the second teaching I received from the new trail to 70-Mile Butte is that when I trust my emotions, when I open my heart, I can see that we are all related, that we are ONE. This is why, as we advocate for this trail, we have to be open and respectful in all our exchanges and contributions on this FB page. This is also true when we interact with others in our daily life or when we take action on the land because we are all related, we are one. This teaching second is perhaps the most important one as it keeps one’s heart open, giving and forgiving.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 13:16:57 +0000