Experiencing Nature

I've killed lots of people. I ran a guy through a wood-chipper once, and I relished every second of the event. I froze one person to the point of his insanity-driven necrophilia and ultimate demise. I've even grown a tree with a man inside. I've committed the most heinous of offenses, and I savor the administration of mental torture through the omnipotent puppetry of my work. That is the horror-fiction writer side of me.

But I also read textbooks for fun. A fan of MacGyver and a student of primitive survival skills, as well as an accomplished martial artist, I thrive upon knowledge and pragmatism. I crave detail and resolution of both the minute and the massive.

I have done something that most people in the modern world have not done. I lived in the wilderness during a year-long transition between military service and a wobbly, albeit earnest, attempt at assimilating into the system of our modern society. Not many people can say that they've lived in the wilderness for any long term without bringing any tools, clothing, food, weapons, equipment, matches, maps, or potato-peelers. I did.

I have slept in the rain, and I have swum in muck, and I have been a fox, and I have killed with the utmost reverence, for my survival. I have been mesmerized by the elements, and I have been mystified by what most consider to be the mundane. I learned that magick is real, and I learned that it is impossible to be lonely because in the natural world, no one is ever truly alone.

I lived in a way that I depended upon no artificial technology. The only safety-net I brought was the ability to walk out of the woods and return to my parents' home if I needed to, but I forced myself to disconnect from that option unless anthropogenic influences forced otherwise. I was living in a way that my survival was contingent upon not only my technical skills, but also my reconnection with the natural world. If I could not let go of my perceived self, then I would die, and I would accept that.

Technical knowledge and skills can keep an individual alive for a directly proportional amount of time, but there is a difference between surviving and living. In order to live with the wilderness, I needed to shed any shred of my subjective self and become a child of the Earth once again. It was my duty as a natural being to realize my role, my Original Instructions, and fulfill my true purpose in the real world.

We know that nature is reality. That is a given, and it is the fundamental concept I carried into the wilderness when I began this adventure. Based upon this universal truth, I was able to identify all subjective, artificial elements that defined me in the artificial, man-made world. At first I was lonely, but I wasn't scared because I was cocky. And when I had my first experience of awakening to deer "blowing" in the middle of the night outside of my poorly-constructed lean-to, I began to understand how scared I really was and that cockiness did not facilitate a smooth, comfortable transition into reality. I learned similar lessons when sleeping on moss in a downpour, as well as experiencing the reality of winter without fur.

During this time of being rudely awakened, I was not learning to find myself. I wasn't learning self-awareness and how to "center myself" in order to deal with life's every day stresses and become more economically productive and financially secure. In fact, I was learning past those concepts. Those concepts are the ending places for societal "self-help" workshops and books on cd, and they are empty, having no purpose beyond man-made parameters. I knew that money was a false idol, and I could not base my existence upon theoretical values. What I learned was that I was not really so much a "self" at all. Once all of my society-based definition was removed, based upon what was kept as essential in the reality of living in the natural world, I learned that I was not an "I", but that I was part of everything.

This turning point elicited a liberation. It allowed me to become imbued with nature, to lose the restrictive cabinetry of categorizing and labeling parts of nature in a scientific manner and instead channel my sensations and awareness of the natural universe through me, as if I'd become an essential component in a circuit between the ground and the universe.

In order to understand this role, I needed to realize the function of nature, what made it tick, how the system of reality worked. I needed to see how the vines wrapped around the trees, how the ants communicated with one another, how the rocks made the water flow, and how the stars revolved around me at night. I had to experience the chaos of a windblown seed's journey and witness the order of its finding a place and germinating, carrying on its line. I saw that the universe and the cycles of the ecosystems that the Earth established over billions of years were conditional, but not biased, and that all existence was a function of productive resolution in an endless oscillation of chaos and order, and that it all boiled down to love.

I learned that all things are connected, and as I studied the patterns of the wilderness, the cultures of the animal-people and the tree- and plant-nations, I learned more and more of the intricacies of their languages. But I learned how they needed each of the other nations of creatures within their environment to exist. And I understood that it extended from the micro-habitats all the way out to the universe in a procession of concentric ripples. The minute needed the grandiose to exist, and the grandiose could not function without the minute.

I am a Tracker. My passion is to study the marks and signs that creatures and things make upon surfaces. It would take decades for me to understand that those marks also translated to the spiritual field, and that all things are affected not only by the smallest movements from across the universe, but by mere thoughts, as well. Although many of us are not highly attuned to sense these subtle disturbances, they are there, and many of use experience these "vibes" often in our daily lives when they are strongly emitted from other influences around us. What we miss in our modern "de-evolution" or "mutation" is that we actually CAN become attuned once again.

In the tracks I learned that there is much more to a footprint than identifying the physical characteristics of the maker. Seeing a track and simply identifying the maker as a female deer of one-hundred pounds with a hip injury, for example, was basic, and merely following the tracks to find the deer could be difficult, but was essentially simplistic. As all creatures in the natural world are affected intimately by their natural surroundings, then their tracks, logically, were imprinted with their responses, and I knew that the entire universe could be seen inside of the tracks, not unlike seeing the reflection of the universe in a body of still water, and not unlike reflecting the entire universe in my quieted, tempered soul.

I could see that I was a link, and I therefore embodied the entire universe as I also held a place in the center of the universe. I became a track, and I recorded my place and responses to all of creation in my footprints. I needed more.

I learned that in order to become more attuned to the world beyond the physical, to the spiritual realm, I needed to quiet the waters of my soul. I needed to temper bias, temper emotion, and become the truth of the unbiased reality of nature so that I may channel truth with no personal, subjective influence. In doing so, I would become a carrier of truth, a fulcrum by which others would be able to find resolution. Aikido became the physical manifestation of my center and unbiased love. It would allow me to bring physical conflict to productive resolution while restoring the health of the natural world. Temperance would allow me to act purely so as not to become a bully or a tyrant that forces others to follow my rule, but instead assists others by offering opportunity for awareness and growth, offering the opportunity to reconnect with their original instructions and become children of the Earth once again.

And now I can see what is happening because I have lived with one foot in each world: one of the reality of nature, and the other of the fabricated world of man. I can feel what nature feels because I relinquished my false idea of self-import, superiority, sentience, and dominance. I let go of my fears of mortality and other natural laws. Now I speak for nature, not because I am grand, but contrarily, because I know I am not.

I am happy and fulfilled in the real world of nature. I am free, and it is the birthright of all beings to be free in nature. No one should be ruled by another. I strive to bring this opportunity for freedom to everyone, but these messages passed from countless generations before us fall upon fearful, deaf ears.

We have the potential to be amazing. We are blessed with the gift of free-will. We are accountable and we need to be responsible enough to follow natural laws and become Caretakers once again. We are in debt.