Species Loneliness
Written by Callan Burton-Shore
It feels as though this global pandemic is separating us and making an already individualistic society even more isolated. But what if this didn’t have to be the case? What if we could find community among the trees?
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Indigenous scientist and author, writes about the phenomenon of “species loneliness.” According to Kimmerer, “species loneliness” is a profound human sadness that stems from our estrangement from the rest of Creation. She explains that when humans separated ourselves from nature with walls, technology, and capitalism, we became visitors in nature, a place that was once our home. Our connection to other beings became one based on aesthetic and monetary value rather than reciprocity and understanding. When we walk through the forest now, we are surrounded by objects, not beings. Kimmerer writes, “We have built this isolation with our fear, with our arrogance, and with our homes brightly lit against the night.” However, it is not too late to repair this connection, and quarantine just might be the perfect time to do so.
Just as many humans are currently being forced to take something akin to a daily sabbath, so too are our more-than-human relatives. The birds no longer have to compete with car horns to sing their songs, the trees are taking a breath after years of battling carbon to produce fresh air, the earth’s crust gives a hum of relief and seismologists can hear her clearly. The rivers are able to move as they wish, no longer forced to follow the motions of boats. As the Bible asserts, our interconnectedness means that we never hold sabbath alone.
Species loneliness is a disease curable only through humility and gratitude, so keep your mind open, for there are ways of communicating other than through language. Below is an exercise, inspired in part by the Taoist tradition of Chi energy sharing and the Japanese tradition of forest bathing.
Go outside and let yourself be drawn to one of the trees around you
Stand or sit a couple of feet away from the tree
Attempt to clear your mind with a few deep breaths in and out
Then, when you feel ready, ask permission to greet the tree with touch and place your hands on the trunk or wrap your arms around it.
Focus on how the bark and soil smell or feel and on how the light is hitting the branches above you. Can you hear leaves rustling and the goings-on of the world beneath your feet?
Now, as The Soul Medic advises, focus on your negative thoughts: worry, sorrow, anger, and imagine this energy flowing down through the tree’s roots to be recycled into soil.
Then, imagine the renewed energy flowing back up through the roots and into your hands, arms, chest, stomach, legs, and head.
When you feel ready to break the connection, say thank you and say a prayer or send hope for the health and happiness of both you and the tree. You may even leave an offering, which Kimmerer suggests as an act of gratitude. In the past, I have left a cordage bracelet made out of plant fiber or a simple flower.
This exercise is not the sole way to find friends in the forest. You may simply choose to visit a tree, plant, rock, or stream and speak to it, learn its name, or put your hands on it. This practice, whether fulfilled daily or weekly on your chosen sabbath day, will comfort, and ground both you and the more-than-human being, just as your friends and family might do.
Tag @greensabbathproject on Instagram with photos of a tree, or other being, you bonded with or a poem about your experience.
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