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“Human beings depend on trees quite as much as on rivers and the sea. Our intimate relationship with trees is physical as well as cultural and spiritual: literally an exchange of carbon dioxide for oxygen. Once inside a wood, you walk on something very like the seabed, looking up at the canopy of leaves as if it were the surface of the water, filtering the descending shafts of sunlight and dappling everything….A tree itself is a river of sap: through roots that wave about underwater like sea anemones, the willow pollard at one end of the moat where I swim in Suffolk draws gallons of water into the leaf-tips of its topmost branches every day; released as vapour into the summer air, this water then rises invisibly to join the clouds, and the falling raindrops ripple out into every tree ring.” #RogerDeakin

Trees are the theme of the season, and I’m excited on this golden afternoon to finally step into a book that’s been standing so long on my shelf that it’s put down roots.

The introduction and the first chapter immediately sent me down the rabbit hole: “To enter a wood is to pass into a different world in which we ourselves are transformed….It is where you travel to find yourself, often, paradoxically, by getting lost.” (Roger Deakin, Wildwood, p. x).

I’ve gotten lost in so many different books that I’ve realized there isn’t one essential self that I keep finding. What I keep finding is the experience of adding to myself. My self develops a deeper, thicker, stronger set of roots that create a more plentiful, generous, and colourful crown; rooted and reaching.

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Sept 16, 2023

106 books in my shelf, 39 fully read, most others partially so. I spent a good hour today reorganizing this bookshelf and making room for all the books I’ve accumulated that didn’t have a home. I obtain them much faster than I’m able to read them.

I love picking up all of the books, skimming through the ones I’ve read, seeing my scribbled notes, reliving the excitement of the words and the ideas. The books that I haven’t read yet are exciting for the potential they hold; what wisdom, new perspective, new idea am I going to come across?

Coming to my bookshelf is like going to a party of friends and strangers. The comfort, familiarity, and shared experiences with old friends mixes deliciously with the novelty and delight of meeting new ones.

As I continue my mingling with these books, I hope to be more consistent in writing about them. My reading opportunities are fairly minimal, and my writing opportunities even less. I can try.

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“No matter what the world claims, its wisdom always growing, so it’s said, some things don’t alter with time: ….. spring unfolds in its appointed time, the violets open and the roses, snow in its hour builds its shining curves” #MaryOliver It’s “Choose a New Book Day”! My favourite day! I get to go to my shelf and let the weight of a new book drop into my hand. Choosing is a carefully thought out process, much like looking at a map and finding the next area you want to explore. All of the books return my gaze, each of them excitedly asking to show me all the amazing things they hold inside, and me knowing that most of them have the potential to change my life. It’s hard to leave any of them on the shelf! It’s an indulgence and a delight to savour each one individually. This little book of 16 small chapters will be my Advent calendar of sorts - leading me up to the winter solstice, the unalterable, appointed time for the unfolding of light, energy, warmth, and life. #maryoliverpoetry #PeterWohlleben #nature #humannature #poetry #poemoftheday #reading #reading_life #books https://www.instagram.com/p/Clw15qOPhUR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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When you’re in a tent with a dog at your feet and a love at your heart, and the world is swirling, swirling, and you think this moment could last forever.

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“That indigenous peoples can have gathered, hunted, fished, and settled these lands for such a tremendous span of time without severely degrading the continent’s wild integrity readily confounds the notion that humans are innately bound to ravage their earthly surroundings.” #DavidAbram The Spell of the Sensuous is a book very difficult to describe. It’s the philosophy (Phenomenology) of ecology, is how I’d caption it, and it’s an ecology that includes humanity. Not humans as being outside of it, objectifying their external environment as something that operates independently of themselves, but of the whole lot of it as a living organism, all fleshly connected. This is a welcome read. I manage to get through 3 pages before I’m writing down a flood of thoughts that have cascaded into my mind. Add a ray of sunshine that fractures air into colours, and you have fertile soil for imaginative thinking. #ecology #SiffleurFalls #treaty7territory #EcologicalReserve #phenomenology #phenomenal #philosophy #language #reading_life #books #waterfalls #Alberta #rainbows (at Kootenay Plains Ecological Reserve) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVa5E4mpvHM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“Slipping over the star-strewn surface of Black Bear Lake, I'm gradually imbued with the ordered goodness of our earth. Its gentle, implacable push toward balance, regularity, homeostasis. This seeps into my soul as surely as sphagnum moss absorbs water. Surely the entire universe must be operating in this way.” #AnneLaBastille A memoire published in 1976 about her Thoreau-esque experience of moving to a remote piece of land in the Adirondack mountains, Anne comes to the same conclusion as every nature-living author that I’ve read: she points to the cycles and rhythms of nature as being the unending, ceaseless, infinite constancy that keeps the world alive and well. Faith in that self-regulation, achieved by witnessing it for decades, brings with it feelings of safety, security, reassurance, and resilience. The steady heartbeat, the constant circulation of breath and blood that became patterned on our nervous system in the womb, continues to enfold us when we leave that generative space. Is it any wonder that we respond so beautifully to rhythm and cycle? The other element that’s related to rhythm is pace and tempo. Patience is the pace of Nature, to loosely quote Emerson. So too is patience a recognition that valuable things come out of slowness: nurturing, growth, and healing. It seems to be our human nature to value speed above all else: we root for the hare over the tortoise, we reward the fastest, we consider cleverness to be quickness, we call children who show their talent and skills early on “gifted” and decide their futures immediately. Through slowness comes a recognition that time goes a long way in healing all wounds, in allowing things to emerge, and in balancing things out. Watching how Nature operates - through centuries of rhythmic cycles - teaches us that (human) nature has this built-in, beautiful capacity to grow, heal, and balance itself. Slow down, take some deep breaths; be patient and attentive. Enjoy the ride. #Nature #humanNature #Patience #Resilience #Reading_Life #Reading #Writing #DeepThoughtsBySandy https://www.instagram.com/p/Ce9LGXxp5uA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“‘Every language is an old-growth forest of the mind,’ in Wade Davis’s memorable phrase. We see in words: in webs of words, wefts of words, woods of words. The roots of individual words reach out and intermesh, their stems lean and criss-cross, and their outgrowths branch and clasp.” #RobertMacfarlane (Landmarks, 2015, p.10). If I had one fantasy it would be to write something that Robert Macfarlane considered a literary landmark and hear his reflections on it. I’ve never enjoyed reading someone else’s writing about someone else’s writing quite so much as I enjoyed each of the ten such writings in this work. But this isn’t just an annotated bibliography. This is a personal book, with the author’s own words reaching out and intermeshing all of these venerable works; an overstorey transforming the individual trees into an old-growth forest. What a gift. This book will go on the shelf next to Wall Kimmerer, Oliver, Shepherd, Leopold, Muir, Thoreau, and Emerson - my own forest, as it’s shaping up to be. #Nature #HumanNature #Language #Reading_Life #Reading (at Edmonton, Alberta) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ca6L8xIOPkt/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“Wherever forests can develop in a species-appropriate manner, they offer particularly beneficial functions that are legally placed above lumber production in many forest laws....hope that in the future forests will continue to live out their hidden lives, and our descendants will still have the opportunity to walk through the trees in wonder. This is what this ecosystem achieves: the fullness of life with tens of thousands of species interwoven and interdependent.” #PeterWohlleben, pg 245. I finally finished another book I started, two years ago. It’s one that sits very compatibly beside Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass (2013), and Gathering Moss (2003); and Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac (1949). The common message of all of these books is their knowledge of how the world works holistically with humankind being inseparable from nature, the depiction of just how intertwined all of nature is with itself, and the call for people to live cooperatively with our environment, rather than exploitively. They make convincing arguments. #nature #humannature #trees #forests #reading_life #books https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ-Fx4PjDDm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (Thoreau, p. 98). “I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.” (Thoreau, p. 340). “Direct your eye sight inward, and you’ll find/ A thousand regions in your mind/ Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be/ Expert in home-cosmography.” (Thoreau, p. 338) “Going to Walden is not so easy a thing/ As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult/ Trick of living, and finding it where you are.” #MaryOliver Henry David Thoreau spent 2 years and 2 months living in a self-built cabin on a piece of property owned by his good friend Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 1845-47. Two years, coincidentally, is also how long it took me to read his book about his “experiment,” and it’s a proud day for me to be able to finally say I’m finished. There should be some place I can send off to, to receive a certificate. Books have been written about this book, and it’s no wonder. There are so many angles one can take in using this piece of literature. If you view Transcendentalism as a method, this book is as pure a demonstration of Transcendentalism as you’ll find anywhere. Explaining that sentence is a book unto itself. It was a hard read, requiring patience, and a lot of companion reading, to understand the New England Transcendentalists, and Emerson in particular. My brain is bigger now, no doubt. It’s also a book that models a level of descriptive writing and metaphor that differentiates the work from mere writing, to the highest art form. And it’s chock-full of inspirational quotes. Definitely a worthwhile read. #Walden #WaldenPond #Thoreau #henrydavidthoreau #poetry #maryoliverpoetry #transcendentalism #reading #reading_life #books #literature https://www.instagram.com/p/CPg_vTQjciT/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“...there is one vocation - philosophy - which knows that all men [sic], by what they think about and wish for, in effect wield all tools.” #AldoLeopold It takes me a very long time to make it through a book. I read in 15 minutes snatches of time in the mornings, before having to get on with the responsibilities of living. The pedantic pace of making it through a book often leaves me frustrated. But the way I’m thinking about it is setting me up for that. Caught up in socialized ideals of productivity and consumption, a book becomes an item to swiftly consume, to chalk up the achievement. This turns the whole experience of reading a book into something at which I can succeed or fail at doing. That’s not the experience I want to be having, I have to admit. Instead, I’d rather be viewing a book - especially this one - as a tool to enable me to take an enjoyable walk with Aldo every morning. Each section becomes a different path through the same landscape, light falling on shadows and illuminating new views and understandings. Halfway through the book, he’s taken us through a year on his farm in Wisconsin in 1948-ish, and described the Wisconsin landscape. If that doesn’t sound interesting, it’s because I’m not saying it the way Leopold says it, which is why I just stick to writing Instagram posts. Thank you @lcpaetz for giving me this book, and this daily pedantic meander through the American mid-western landscape and philosophy. It’s genuinely a treasure that belongs on the shelf beside the writings of Thoreau and Muir and Shepherd and Oliver 🙏🏻. #Nature #HumanNature #Philosophy #ChangeYourThinkingChangeYourLife #Reading_Life #Read https://www.instagram.com/p/CNxnt9KH-hE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“Let us hold a give away for Mother Earth, spread our blankets out for her and pile them high with gifts of our own making. Imagine the books, the paintings, the poems, the clever machines, the compassionate acts, the transcendent ideas, the perfect tools. The fierce defense of all that has been given. Gifts of minds, hands, heart, voice, and vision all offered up on behalf of the earth.” #RobinWallKimmerer Truly a masterpiece of writing, and one of the most important books of our time. Wall Kimmerer has given a high gift of her own making in this exceptional book that offers us another perspective on the climate disaster created by a capitalist world-view. Language is foundational, for language determines thought. Robin’s book is a genius introduction to a different language and a different way of thinking about our world that opens space for reordering our behaviours. It’s a book of translation between two very different worlds of thought, and in doing so, makes it possible for everyone in all those worlds to participate. This is a work of invitation and inclusivity in the process of loving and healing the world that has long loved us. “These contemporary economic alternatives strongly echo the indigenous worldview in which the earth exists not as private property, but as a commons, to be tended with respect and reciprocity for the benefit of all.” (Braiding Sweetgrass, p. 376). I’m coining it an “ecommony”. In this new ecommony, let’s start by recognizing EVERY space as sacred. “Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.” #MaryOliver #sacredspaces #wisdom #ecology #nature #earth #ecommony #economy #indigenous #reciprocity #love #maryoliverpoetry #poetry https://www.instagram.com/p/CNLKWupBuVC/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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“Such illusions, depending on how the eye is placed and used, drive home the truth that our habitual vision of things is not necessarily right: it is only one of an infinite number, and to glimpse an unfamiliar one, even for a moment, unmakes us, but steadies us again. It’s queer but invigorating. It will take a long time to get to the end of a world that behaves like this if I do no more than turn round on my side or my back.” #NanShepherd Written in the mid-1940s and kept in a desk drawer until 1977, this little book about the Cairngorms is a crown jewel of nature-human-nature writing. #nature #humannature #cairngorms #poetry #books #perspective https://www.instagram.com/p/CM3ZXA6Ba0y/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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It’s no coincidence that these two book covers have a resemblance in the figures set up as reflections of the other, like two sides of the same person. Who exactly the monster was in Frankenstein turned out, in Shelley’s morality, to be the doctor. Shelley herself, I think, came to think that she herself was a monster, both from the way the people of the time demonized her and her husband, characterizing them as perverse and evil, but also in the way that her own creation (birth, existence) seemed to bring so much death in its wake: Her mother died from infection 10 days after her birth, Harriet, Fanny, her four children. She assumed heavy responsibility for each of their deaths, in either causing them so much grief that they took their own life, or in not protecting them and being able to nurture them to sustain life. As F’s creative powers set into motion a story of death, so did her own. The guilt and remorse felt by the doctor were her own.

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In January 2020, almost a year ago, before we had any inkling about how this year was going to roll out, I set a goal to write 50 essays, before the end of the year. I made it to 20, by the end of June. “20 Essays in 2020” doesn’t have a bad ring to it, actually. I’m not exactly sure what derailed me so badly at that point, other than that I lost dedication to the task, combined with a weariness of solitary activities. Work from home, live from home, socialize from home...my most familiar relationship is with my laptop, which astonishingly I have yet to name.

The solitude and isolation press down on us in this part of the world more than ever before, and the “holidays” loom before me like a giant cavity. Now is the time more than any other to embrace the solitary activities, and become so immersed that the jarring loneliness and the sense that everything is terribly askew, is abated, even for a short time.

Knowing this, but feeling demoralized all the same, I turned to my unfinished work today and began reading, trying to see if there was anything of value in these rough essays, anything to feed some motivation to do more. And yes, there is. These aren’t essays to appeal to the masses, but they contain enough of my own quirky perspective to show me that I have a unique voice worth capturing, even if it’s just for my own amusement. There’s three weeks of 2020 left, and loads of time for solitary pursuits. Let’s see if I can take this into the homestretch and at least cap it off with a nice, round quarter piece.

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Looking forward to diving into this, in the lead up to Hallowe’en.

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Something a bit different today. For my 50th year, I’m going to turn the tide of my life and shift from reading and absorbing, to writing and creating. Reading is always required of course! The beast must be fed! But heaven knows I have enough collected notes to write an essay a day for the next decade. My realistic goal is merely to write fifty essays this year, at a pace of one each week. They don’t have to be good, or long, or say anything profound, or be anything else, except brought into existence. At the end of this year I will have fifty drafted essays (and likely even more notes!), which I can then shape into something with a coherency that will lend itself to becoming a book of essays. I whipped out the first essay easy enough yesterday, and am well on my way with my second. The hardest thing is to shake off the strictures of academic writing that were drilled into me for years. Those rules that, when followed exactly, imbue your document with legitimacy by others in your elitely educated circle. Those rules build the fortress of the ivory tower, stifling natural expression in favour of a literary culture designed to privilege and uphold a narrow means of understanding the world. Writing academically is a form of ascetic, pages and pages of institutional, restrained writing, more left off the page then added to it. That’s great and all, for those who get off on that sort of thing. I’ll be enjoying the freedom of shedding that skin. #writing https://www.instagram.com/p/B68texnHoxd/?igshid=9fvg0txqsypz