Notes on a Long Winter

Finding the divine on the land

This winter has been cold in a way that's oddly reassuring. Winter in the Northern Hemisphere is supposed to be like this: bone-chilling, snowy, dark. There's comfort in experiencing the climate as it's been for the past 12,000 years.

But there's also the undeniable knowledge that it's the last gasp of a dying world. It's cold in North America because the air over the Arctic has broken into two enormous frigid blobs, which have gone for a southerly stroll. That's left the Arctic itself terrifyingly warm, a foreshadowing of the world to come. So while the weather has been good, the climate has not.

Adding to the sense of chaos is the demonic clown show of American politics. As with Trump's first term, his second has kicked off with a thunderous landslide of idiocy. The dumbest, most malevolent freaks on the planet have been handed the keys to a dysfunctional, ultra-violent empire, and they're gleefully driving it through a crowd.

When I'm able to find peace under these circumstances, it's always on the land. I use "the land" to refer not just to the ground beneath my feet, but to the community of life, the geology, the climate, its history, all of it. The wind, the grass, the barred owls, the deer, the springtails gorging on autumn's leaves. The ancient sedimentary stone jutting out from the shallow soil and the motley lichens that patiently dissolve it. The clay left behind by retreating glaciers like a snail's secretion. The ancient dry stone wall and the ice that coats it and the way it melts in a tinkling cascade when the sun shines. All of this is "the land," and it's where I experience the divine.

I am not distinct from the land. My body consists entirely of it. The water that makes up 60% of my physical being falls from the clouds onto the land, runs over it, and then percolates through its dead leaves, its soil, its clay, and its rocks. The minerals that make up my bones and much else were once its bedrock. The fats, proteins, and carbohydrates that make up my tissues and animate them come from the plants and animals that dwell here. I am literally nothing without the land.

Even trying to define where "I" begin and end relative to the land is a fool's errand. There are more bacterial cells in "my" body than there are human cells. They are distinct organisms, yet the human organism cannot function without them. They are greatly influenced by the food I eat, the water I drink, the weather I experience, the stress I feel. They, too, are a part of the land, and I am a part of them. This is the most literal example of the unfathomably complex web of dependencies that connect me to the land.

Crucially, there is also my sanity. I wouldn't be able to bear the weight of my own consciousness without the land. This is the most sublime gift of its divinity: it allows me to be human without going mad. What can sometimes feel like a hellish curse is rendered ecstatic by the land.

The ecstasy comes from experiencing the transcendent relationships of which I am a part, appreciating their cosmic unlikelihood, and participating in them with great joy. The more closely connected to those relationships I am, the better I feel. And the more I'm able to contribute positively to them, the more fulfilled I am in life.

This is what it means to me to experience the divine: to give and receive constructively in the web of relationships that constitute the land.

So this is my advice to you: experience the divine by being a part of the land. It's the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to the land, since you are one and the same.