The Week: Oracles and Ecodelics

Tuesday, 7/30/24

Just add water.

Just add water and the harsh, dull grasses straighten their backs and laugh in green. Just add water and the stiff, crinkled dandelion stems hanging from my hutch revigor, and ply around my fingers, weave in, weave out, up and over. Just add water and the tomatoes blush, soil softens, and insects drink from the droplets shaken off their wings. Just add water with a bit of knotweed honey, elderberry, lemon, and ginger and my throat is soothed, stomach settled.

It rained--it poured--today. Twice. The first time was while driving into town to meet up with my Renaissance Women. When I meet with them, I am a cartoon. My eyes turned to hearts and my jaw on the table. The second time was when I was back home. The menacing clouds followed me on Old Sixth Ave.

Wednesday, 7/31/24

Again, I awakened in the middle of the night last night with vertigo symptoms. I was beginning to believe that anxiety was exacerbating the symptoms. When ill with anything, I try to relish in it, remembering that I’m a body undergoing something miraculous albeit scary and sometimes disabling. There’s nothing like illness or injury to remind you that you’re a body--a body connected. I consider this a form of kindness, reminding yourself of your vulnerability. So I lay on my back and thought of a peaceful person--in this case the Irish writer Kerri ni Dochartaigh. Immediately, my mind wormholed to an Irish coast where everything was cast in darkness due to clouds. Misty, pebbly, white foaming waves. And just like that, as if a button were pushed, the symptoms stopped long enough to let me fall back to sleep.

Serendipitously I began reading a book by John Green where in the introduction he talks about how he developed Labyrinthitis (extreme vertigo that renders the person bed-ridden) which disabled him long enough to curate the premise of the book in his mind.

Thursday, 8/1/24

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit.

Just add water over and over and over and over and over and over and you get a hole in a rock. Hold the hole close enough to your eye and the whole world fits inside.

Malaise--bad ease--clogs my brain and slows my steps up the creek. Someone has dammed it, creating a flat pool in which to sit. I wonder what I was doing while someone moved the stones. I wonder what was going through their mind when moving the stones. Were they looking forward to watching the pool swell? Did they keep a keen eye out for flat sitting rocks to line the bottom? One rock juts up like the back of a chair. Do they want to bring someone here? Do they want to create a soul-shaped space where they can escape or retreat? Do they want to watch their children wriggle like salamanders along the rocks, little slippery backs reflecting the little light pock-marking the stream? Are they sitting on a deck enjoying their view or bringing a fork to their mouth right now, wondering if someone is enjoying their pool?

A lot of folks scoff, touting 7+ ecological reasons not to move rocks or dam a stream. That work is for the beavers and bears. And sure, the scoffing folks can be right about their 7+ ecological reasons. They can tout that there are other ways to be curious, have a good time, and practice wonder. Their lack-of-ease sounds exhausting yet it makes me wonder if I am too at ease. Despite low levels, the water flows over the rocks, continuing its flow down the mountain. I wonder what the view from their deck looks like.

Friday, 8/2/24

Writer Maria Papova recently wrote on her website about how on her birthday, she consults Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. She conjures a question in her mind and opens randomly to a page to divine what it might mean for her. Like me, she spent a percentage of her life scrunching her nose at divination, Tarot, and the likes. However, we have both been moved and divined by oracles of our own choosing. I do own several boxes of oracle cards and Tarot cards, and when pulled they often lack significance for me or my imagination has to really work the cards into meaningfulness. I assume that it is because I am quite dull, in all the right ways. Sure, I have big and little struggles but they are my partner. They are a part of me. When ill or in pain, I am inconvenienced and sometimes fearful of unknown things, but this is what it is to have a body and a mind. I rarely get disappointed because I lack expectations. Not much surprises me. Who am I to have expectations of another person when their own umwelt and life is unknown to me? Who am I to have expectations of a circumstance when things can go awry because I don’t possess all control? For me, to be this way is common sense.

Oracle and Tarot cards are materials with symbolic images that are interpreted by set definitions that can waver this or that way. Some may follow strict and formal ceremonies and others may be loosey-goosey. They’re cards with images, for crying out loud. They’re part of a multi-billion dollar self-help/witchy/privileged industry. They’re capitalistic and aesthetic. One can be as conservative or liberal or in-between as they’d like. And in the same breath, one can say that these cards extend beyond the realm of capitalism. Their roots and history do, of course. Humans have been using these cards to divine and manifest meaning for a very long time.

Like I said earlier, other than the interesting history, artistry, and symbolism, the cards don’t do much for me. What does do it for me? Books. I own around 1,000 books…and I keep buying more. I have read many of them. Some I may never read. When bringing home a book, I stare at my stuffed shelves and think a few things:

·      Damn, I have a lot of books!

·      What a I going to do? I still have--I think--a lot of book-buying years ahead of me!

·      I’m never going to read all these books!

·      These books deserve to be read and cherished.

·      Who is going to want all these books when I’m gone?

·      Where am I going to put all the books of the future?

·      How am I going to get rid of books?

·      Do I have to get rid of books?

·      I need to start collecting all the banned books because this country is going to shit.

Maria Papova is an oracle for me. Literally. Two years ago, I tore out scraps of paper from a sketch journal and wrote names in sloppy writing on these scraps of paper. Nothing ornate. Nothing aesthetic or symbolic. But there are humans who I cherish and admire. Sometimes I want to conjure up the energy of that person and practice it, remind myself of that energy. And yes, Maria is one of them. Mary Oliver is. My mother is. My mother-in-law is. Even Jeff Goldblum.

But back to the books. A new project is on the horizon. I will dedicate a book shelf to the books I’ve scribbled in, highlighted, underlined, and tabbed. I don’t want to go the rest of my life with those scribbles, highlights, underlines, and tabs being enclosed in darkness. I want to revisit them regularly. I want pulling a book off a shelf to be the equivalent of choosing a Tarot or oracle card. I want opening the book to a random page to be the equivalent of flipping the Tarot or oracle card over. I want to revisit Sarton’s depression, Dickinson’s birds, Eiseley’s immense journey, Kimmerer’s sweetgrass. I want to weave Strand’s lyricism, Green’s passion for Diet Dr. Pepper, Macfarlane’s dark places, and Dochartaigh’s Irish countryside into my life.

Saturday, 8/3/24

I need a distraction, my colleague told me as we sat at our desks. It was just the two of us in the office and it wasn’t busy. She had been feeling unwell with something mysterious for longer than I have. I am finally getting over my silent migraine and sinus symptoms (assuming that’s what they were). I felt like I was meant to be with her then and there because I knew what it was like to want a distraction, to trick the brain into feeling well again. I suggested we put on a movie and let her choose from Netflix. Do you mind if I stand while we watch? Of course I didn’t mind if she stood while we watched. Do what you need to do, I said.

When I am well, I do not take it for granted. My sister’s terminal diagnosis at the age of 39 and death at 41 has led to my health paranoia and anxiety. I am a reasonably calm and intelligent person but I would be lying if I said that there weren’t times that I thought I was dying the past couple of years. On top of fearing being very ill, I fear becoming a hypochondriac. And on top of being ill from time-to-time, my anxiety exacerbates symptoms, I know it. I am 38. In three years, I will be my sister’s eternal age. Mind you, I do not lose grip of all my senses when ill. If I know I have a cold, I live with the cold and tend to my needs. I link the symptoms to logic and rationale. I proceed accordingly. However, there are sometimes outliers where I do have alarming symptoms and no answers despite tests and procedures.

There is a man on the internet who has lost his arm and practices meditation for growth/regeneration. Other than the obvious lowering of blood pressure, cortisol levels, etc., I am unsure of this plan just as much as I am unsure of prayer. Mindset is one thing. The body listening to prayer or meditation (which you can say is the body and mind in a form of prayer) is something to just a leveling extent. A person who goes gluten free and loses weight doesn’t lose weight because they stopped gluten intake. They lose weight because they’re not eating delicious bread, etc. And because they’re not eating delicious bread, etc., they may be introducing healthier foods which can make them feel better. And when they feel better, they may be more active.

Sunday, 8/4/24

My in-laws are visiting and when houseguests arrive, one may pay more attention to the house. So as we sat on the patio train-spotting and shooting the breeze, I remembered that my Norfolk Island Pine needed a soil upgrade. Despite the new growth this summer, I have been noticing that the soil, when dry, has been separating from the walls of the pot, creating a giant root bulb. Nutrients are needed. So I pulled the tree into the shade because it was damn hot and I added more soil. All done. I hopefully will have a happy Norfolk Island Pine throughout winter.

Still recovering from being sick, dealing with the heavy tree in the heat winded me a little. I collapsed onto the patio couch and stared at the tree. Like books, I have so many plants. So many needy, photosynthesizing, nutrient-eating beings that depend on me. I know very little about each and every one of them. Caring for them is more trial and error than research and mastering. I respond when change occurs. Do I nurture or do I simply keep alive? I couldn’t help but wonder how much I would know about the Norfolk Island Pine if it were my only plant. How much healthier would the tree be? Then I look into my yard where I spill compost, sweat, and money into the soil as I plant one native plant after another. I do regular tours of the land to pull away honeysuckle vines and other invasive stranglers. And despite the time I have given, I am not yet swimming in flowers. But I am committed and I am not giving myself enough credit.

In the world of chronos, how much of my time would be necessary to properly nurture all my plants, inside and out? Am I being irresponsible? I plant a lot of natives which I am led to believe shouldn’t require too much maintenance because they’re meant to be in Pennsylvania’s various biomes. They are the independent children who go to college, get satisfactory grades, and go on with their lives. Sometimes they send flowers. But other plants, they are my failures-to-launch, but no less important. They eat all the light I give them.

Monday, 8/5/24

Before disappearing into the woods today, I read a subjective claim that the body is an ecodelic. An ecodelic is a natural substance that allows the mind to feel more connected to the earth (like psilocybin and its ilk). We’re all aware that mycology (the study of mushrooms) is being taken more seriously now simply because of the health and healing benefits. Now there are drinks and tinctures and powders and oils and linens and what-have-you in the multi-billion dollar healing industry. Some of the feel-good may be a placebo considering that the amount in the coffee powder doesn’t actually amount to any noticeable benefit. Sure it may be the equivalent of eating an orange over eating a banana. But anyway. To read about the body itself as an ecodelic is another thing. The body as vehicle to compassion and unity with the more-than-human world feels like a soothing velvetleaf across my brain. If we are to live with the earth, give and take, in reciprocity, why can’t our footsteps be wanted by the earth? What if lifting a rock sets something afoot? What if pressing our foot into the humus encourages growth? Maybe, just maybe, the microbes on my skin benefit the stream?

Today was amazing day. I walked on paths, talking to myself like an old friend. The world would do just fine without us. Besides, we’ve only been here for 250 million years compared to earth’s 4.5 billion. We arrived at 11:48 pm on December 31st of the calendar year. But it will be sad when we’re gone. Sure, the bears sit at vistas and I often catch my dog eyeing the way light hits the sky and trees. But who would praise the earth like we do? Who would write the poetry? Who would remember it all?