“the speed of modern existence”: that phrase arrestingly (literally, stopped-me-in-my-tracks) reminded me of something I’ve been noticing recently in a specific setting: automated self-checkout machines. They are constantly nagging and hustling you along at a mechanical, one-size-fits-all pace, in that 1950s authoritarian librarian voice they inexplicably persist in using that makes you visualize Betty Crocker in an apron with a bullwhip. I notice it because I’m getting old and becoming that person ahead of you in line who’s maddeningly fumbling with cards and change. But what is the effect on young people of being subjected to this impersonal move along, move along? It tells your very cells that you are an interchangeable unit on a consumption assembly line which produces more profit the faster it runs. Like preparation for robots doing all the shopping.
I'm not familiar with that related to self-checkout machines, but there is a drive-thru I'm too ashamed to admit passing through on occasion whose order taking apparatus is exactly like this. No time for consideration, no time to try and understand the constantly changing menu, etc. It makes me seethe but also feels like a kind of penance for being there in the first place. I always vow, "Never again!" but then 4-6 weeks later, there I am. Ugh.
Yes, I think about this too! I avoid them as much as possible, but notice how they're seeping into 'normality' more and more, efficiently disconnecting us from each other, and most likely from ourselves too.
This week, I unsubscribed from gobs of political reporting and activism that I've piled onto my feeds. I need no convincing. I have clarity about the social diseases, and am completely worn out from the daily onslaught. To be informed or not? That is NOT the question. THANK HEAVEN for Drew and his Mystical Ornithology. So completely mindful, artful, and restorative. As I hunker down into how wisdom works, I cling to the way art speaks to the soul. Right now, art is key because it is inherently slow and rooted in nature. I know the eleven-minute film about Drew and the birds took money, time, decisions, edits, and more. I know that human souls took the project in hand to make something beautiful. The soul came through. That's real news!
thank you for this Cynthia .. a gloriously inspirational 11 minutes and no better way to start my day .. so touching, imaginings of a similar environment in which to complete my book that has been way too long in the fleshing out. Art truly is our connection to the Divine, keeping us sane in world that appears to have gone crazy.
Just one such gem keeps me here on Substack ... for now!
Yes, the soul came through! I'm also trying to be more mindful of what I engage with and it is nourishing even though it feels like a constant ducking from a lot of noise. I agree art is so important, always has been, but right now it is also a reminder to bring us back to process and curiosity, and play.
One other comment, this reminded me of N. Scott Momaday’s Earth Keeper: Reflections on American Land. “We humans must revere the earth, for it is our well-being. Always the earth grants us what we need. If we treat the earth with kindness, it will treat us kindly. If we give our belief to the earth, it will believe in us. There is no better blessing than to be believed in. There are those who believe that the earth is dead. They are deceived. The earth is alive, and it is possessed of spirit."
I’d like to send you a book of poems written by a friend mine that I think you’ll enjoy, I suppose I can Google around and find an address, but where can I send it?
Defying the speed of modern existence. I've never thought about it before in those terms, but I haven't had a TV in almost a decade, and I've never had a single streaming service. This means I'm sidelined in all conversations that revolve around "must watch" shows, but I find the volume and pace with which they're churned out to be an aspect of "the speed of modern existence" that I simply prefer to avoid. Something I've had to accept to pursue the things that are important to me is that time is limited and I have to make choices about what I consume. Having come up through the usual academic spaces that center white men, I choose now (with the rare exception) to not read books written by white men in order to focus on other voices. Sorry Thoreau, whatever I read of you in school that I can no longer remember will have to do.
Thank you for this. I'm with you on being "must watch" ignorant and it's curious how many people are judgy about that. I'm not trying to be "cool" I'm just not interested. Also, I've mostly not been reading white dudes either, with some exceptions.
I resonate with this! For years I was always completely lost in conversations to do with tv shows (and adverts, which seemed to invariably come up). Now I find I have extricated myself from many of those scenarios so it's less of a feature. But I do also try to choose with a lot more care what I read, noticing more and more that what I was fed earlier in life aligned with a narrow slither of the abundance of narratives and perspectives that are alive and creating Worlds.
I really appreciate the openness and honesty of this post. I see your struggle and it is real. The world and our society *really* want us to be busy and insecure. It truly is rebellious to refuse.
A favorite activity at this precise time of year is taking a slowed-down walk on the trails of Pattee Canyon to note every sweet little cluster and lone stem of Fairy Slipper coming into flower. If you're hustling along, trying to make your walk "productive" by getting your heart rate up or something, then you'll miss them! This time of year offers a ready abundance of opportunities to take note.
I appreciate your Thoreau ambivalence and can so relate to rebelling against his idolization. Now you've made me rent the documentary. . . . When I think of Nature writer, I honestly put you in that category because of how much land and place figures in Becoming Little Shell. Nature writing isn't just immersion in place, but also wondering about the Stories we share with land. As for the white male tradition--well, it ubiquitous across history and disciplines--but so many of us are focused on foregrounding voices like Kimmerer's and also Linda Hogan and CMarie Fuhrman and Leslie Silko to name a few. Like you, I'm certain the future is the future is intertribal and grounded in the awareness that Nature, the more than human world, isn't something out there, something separate. Instead She is Us. Anyway, thank you this lovely Sunday morning read. Sending Big love.
Yes, I totally agree, the stories we share with Land, that remind us that we are deeply enmeshed in relationships with others in Nature, that we are Nature, and that those relationships make up who we are.
In answer to your last question, Chris, I remember when being irritable put me in the right place, at the right time. I was on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada with a group of fellow students. We’d been in the Yosemite backcountry for a week. That morning I got frustrated by some group dynamics and, in a huff, grabbed my journal and stomped off to be by myself.
I sat down in a small meadow and leaned against a boulder. Just as I started scribbling in my journal, there was a low rumble and the birds stopped chattering. I felt the earth moving beneath me. A wave of energy approached from behind, rolled under me, and continued moving east. There was a brief pause, then it happened again … and again, and again. Wave after wave rolled under me.
I patiently rode those aftershocks for hours. It was like being an ant on the head of a drum. I never knew that earthquakes could flow like ocean waves beneath the surface. I'd always experienced them before as sharp, jarring jerks but this series seemed gentle. I wrote in my journal, "We live on a planet drum!"
I've always been grateful for this unexpected lesson. It was a Earth-mama gift. 🌎
I spend the first hour of most mornings on my porch drinking coffee, listening, watching the birds and squirrels as they wake up. Seeing the light change. Yes, scrolling a bit of Substack, too. And, it's a cherished part of my day to just watch what's in motion, to greet the birds, to hear new sounds, to smell the smells, and feel the weather. The world and I wake up together. I could label it "lazy" but it's such an important practice for me that I call it a different "L" word: LOVE.
So much to think about here! I have found myself savoring little moments during my day, trying to identify bird calls, and stripping my schedule back. I know that hurry, hurry feeling you talk about and I don't like it at all. When I start to feel panicked, I know I'm doing too much. As for writers I engage with but also find problematic, Charles Dickens comes to mind. His writings on the law and society are wonderful, his depiction of women, not so much.
I'm an introverted extrovert, so being alone in nature always feels like stillness to me, even if I'm moving. At the ripe old age of 69 I started taking art classes, drawing is hard for me but it forces me to sit and really look at the architecture of the forest or even one leave, it's like a meditation. I bring a sketch book with me everywhere now. RWK is not only a great writer, but her voice is like a lullaby sung by mother earth. I recommend her audio books to everyone. thanks once again for such deep, good, thoughts.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece and being new here (although now here I appreciate more the issues that I didn't see before so understand about the exit plan...although glad you are still here so I found this - will look at 'buy me a coffee' as an option now too) I am seeking out nourishing writings like this. I try to defy the speed of 'efficiency' by reading slowly, going back, re-visiting, noticing different perspectives (which in itself demands choosing intentionally and with care what I read in the first place), by writing, reflecting, by travelling as much as possible by walking or bicycle, by taking time to be in attentive presence with others, by walking and sitting among trees, mosses, rocks and appreciating our exchange of life, breath, matter, and noticing how they alter my thoughts if I listen, it becomes a kind of dialogue. This reminds me of one of my favourite chapters in Braiding Sweetgrass - Learning the Grammar of Animacy in which RWK (btw how wonderful to listen to her keynote) writes: “Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.”
I would also be putting this in bold: "When we make the experience about ourselves we are no longer present, humble, nor in relationship, no longer open enough to receive what is really there." It's such a dis-ease of modernity to direct attention to 'me' rather than to the entangled beauty of interbeing.
I have found the very word 'Nature' and by extension 'nature writing' more and more difficult as I feel that it somehow implies separation from. I am trying to become less irritable with words while also trying to acknowledge what they may be part of shaping, and of the importance of relationship in contextualising.
Thank you again for this inspiring read and for introducing Kooser's poetry.
Honestly, listening to J Drew Lanham when he hosts a Birdnote episode will stop me in my tracks every time, and always get a little choked up.
I've have conversations with my colleagues recently about not driving or taking an Uber to work. I generally take the bus, and sometimes bike. The first question I generally get is "how long does that take" and I realized I know how to get there on time, but I don't think of the time cost, because of the value is gives me. When I'm on the bus, I get to just sit there and stare out the window, or read, or listen to music or a podcast, and I can truly be in the moment rather than stress about driving and drivers. When I bike, I get to meander through the neighborhood, bike through the port and down the new waterfront trail, and get a little exercise in too.
I work in an incredibly demanding industry, but on the side of the business that makes less and works less. The fact I don't have to count my minutes to the extent of those with high-pressure positions reaffirms my choices, and is a small act of rebellion.
I’m trying to figure out how to exit this platform as well, and perhaps ironically had just read a piece about surveillance pricing when stores change pricing digitally to charge each person a different price based on all the data they collect on us. WTF? Anyway, love RWK, Kooser, his interactions with Kooser, there’s another book of them but I forget the title. Anyway, thank you for this post!
“the speed of modern existence”: that phrase arrestingly (literally, stopped-me-in-my-tracks) reminded me of something I’ve been noticing recently in a specific setting: automated self-checkout machines. They are constantly nagging and hustling you along at a mechanical, one-size-fits-all pace, in that 1950s authoritarian librarian voice they inexplicably persist in using that makes you visualize Betty Crocker in an apron with a bullwhip. I notice it because I’m getting old and becoming that person ahead of you in line who’s maddeningly fumbling with cards and change. But what is the effect on young people of being subjected to this impersonal move along, move along? It tells your very cells that you are an interchangeable unit on a consumption assembly line which produces more profit the faster it runs. Like preparation for robots doing all the shopping.
I'm not familiar with that related to self-checkout machines, but there is a drive-thru I'm too ashamed to admit passing through on occasion whose order taking apparatus is exactly like this. No time for consideration, no time to try and understand the constantly changing menu, etc. It makes me seethe but also feels like a kind of penance for being there in the first place. I always vow, "Never again!" but then 4-6 weeks later, there I am. Ugh.
Yes, I think about this too! I avoid them as much as possible, but notice how they're seeping into 'normality' more and more, efficiently disconnecting us from each other, and most likely from ourselves too.
Do less. Live with less. Allow boredom. Grow shit. Take lots of naps. Say no.
This pretty much says it all.
This week, I unsubscribed from gobs of political reporting and activism that I've piled onto my feeds. I need no convincing. I have clarity about the social diseases, and am completely worn out from the daily onslaught. To be informed or not? That is NOT the question. THANK HEAVEN for Drew and his Mystical Ornithology. So completely mindful, artful, and restorative. As I hunker down into how wisdom works, I cling to the way art speaks to the soul. Right now, art is key because it is inherently slow and rooted in nature. I know the eleven-minute film about Drew and the birds took money, time, decisions, edits, and more. I know that human souls took the project in hand to make something beautiful. The soul came through. That's real news!
💯
thank you for this Cynthia .. a gloriously inspirational 11 minutes and no better way to start my day .. so touching, imaginings of a similar environment in which to complete my book that has been way too long in the fleshing out. Art truly is our connection to the Divine, keeping us sane in world that appears to have gone crazy.
Just one such gem keeps me here on Substack ... for now!
Yes, the soul came through! I'm also trying to be more mindful of what I engage with and it is nourishing even though it feels like a constant ducking from a lot of noise. I agree art is so important, always has been, but right now it is also a reminder to bring us back to process and curiosity, and play.
Your newsletter never fails to arrive when it is most needed. Many thanks!
Thanks for reading!
One other comment, this reminded me of N. Scott Momaday’s Earth Keeper: Reflections on American Land. “We humans must revere the earth, for it is our well-being. Always the earth grants us what we need. If we treat the earth with kindness, it will treat us kindly. If we give our belief to the earth, it will believe in us. There is no better blessing than to be believed in. There are those who believe that the earth is dead. They are deceived. The earth is alive, and it is possessed of spirit."
Wonderful.
I’d like to send you a book of poems written by a friend mine that I think you’ll enjoy, I suppose I can Google around and find an address, but where can I send it?
Defying the speed of modern existence. I've never thought about it before in those terms, but I haven't had a TV in almost a decade, and I've never had a single streaming service. This means I'm sidelined in all conversations that revolve around "must watch" shows, but I find the volume and pace with which they're churned out to be an aspect of "the speed of modern existence" that I simply prefer to avoid. Something I've had to accept to pursue the things that are important to me is that time is limited and I have to make choices about what I consume. Having come up through the usual academic spaces that center white men, I choose now (with the rare exception) to not read books written by white men in order to focus on other voices. Sorry Thoreau, whatever I read of you in school that I can no longer remember will have to do.
Thank you for this. I'm with you on being "must watch" ignorant and it's curious how many people are judgy about that. I'm not trying to be "cool" I'm just not interested. Also, I've mostly not been reading white dudes either, with some exceptions.
I resonate with this! For years I was always completely lost in conversations to do with tv shows (and adverts, which seemed to invariably come up). Now I find I have extricated myself from many of those scenarios so it's less of a feature. But I do also try to choose with a lot more care what I read, noticing more and more that what I was fed earlier in life aligned with a narrow slither of the abundance of narratives and perspectives that are alive and creating Worlds.
I really appreciate the openness and honesty of this post. I see your struggle and it is real. The world and our society *really* want us to be busy and insecure. It truly is rebellious to refuse.
A favorite activity at this precise time of year is taking a slowed-down walk on the trails of Pattee Canyon to note every sweet little cluster and lone stem of Fairy Slipper coming into flower. If you're hustling along, trying to make your walk "productive" by getting your heart rate up or something, then you'll miss them! This time of year offers a ready abundance of opportunities to take note.
I love it up Pattee Canyon. And the flowers have been great on Waterworks this spring too!
I appreciate your Thoreau ambivalence and can so relate to rebelling against his idolization. Now you've made me rent the documentary. . . . When I think of Nature writer, I honestly put you in that category because of how much land and place figures in Becoming Little Shell. Nature writing isn't just immersion in place, but also wondering about the Stories we share with land. As for the white male tradition--well, it ubiquitous across history and disciplines--but so many of us are focused on foregrounding voices like Kimmerer's and also Linda Hogan and CMarie Fuhrman and Leslie Silko to name a few. Like you, I'm certain the future is the future is intertribal and grounded in the awareness that Nature, the more than human world, isn't something out there, something separate. Instead She is Us. Anyway, thank you this lovely Sunday morning read. Sending Big love.
Yes, I totally agree, the stories we share with Land, that remind us that we are deeply enmeshed in relationships with others in Nature, that we are Nature, and that those relationships make up who we are.
Big love back to you, Karen. 💚
In answer to your last question, Chris, I remember when being irritable put me in the right place, at the right time. I was on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada with a group of fellow students. We’d been in the Yosemite backcountry for a week. That morning I got frustrated by some group dynamics and, in a huff, grabbed my journal and stomped off to be by myself.
I sat down in a small meadow and leaned against a boulder. Just as I started scribbling in my journal, there was a low rumble and the birds stopped chattering. I felt the earth moving beneath me. A wave of energy approached from behind, rolled under me, and continued moving east. There was a brief pause, then it happened again … and again, and again. Wave after wave rolled under me.
I patiently rode those aftershocks for hours. It was like being an ant on the head of a drum. I never knew that earthquakes could flow like ocean waves beneath the surface. I'd always experienced them before as sharp, jarring jerks but this series seemed gentle. I wrote in my journal, "We live on a planet drum!"
I've always been grateful for this unexpected lesson. It was a Earth-mama gift. 🌎
That's a great story. Miigwech!
I spend the first hour of most mornings on my porch drinking coffee, listening, watching the birds and squirrels as they wake up. Seeing the light change. Yes, scrolling a bit of Substack, too. And, it's a cherished part of my day to just watch what's in motion, to greet the birds, to hear new sounds, to smell the smells, and feel the weather. The world and I wake up together. I could label it "lazy" but it's such an important practice for me that I call it a different "L" word: LOVE.
Love indeed!
So much to think about here! I have found myself savoring little moments during my day, trying to identify bird calls, and stripping my schedule back. I know that hurry, hurry feeling you talk about and I don't like it at all. When I start to feel panicked, I know I'm doing too much. As for writers I engage with but also find problematic, Charles Dickens comes to mind. His writings on the law and society are wonderful, his depiction of women, not so much.
Stripping the schedule back. Yes! 💚
I'm an introverted extrovert, so being alone in nature always feels like stillness to me, even if I'm moving. At the ripe old age of 69 I started taking art classes, drawing is hard for me but it forces me to sit and really look at the architecture of the forest or even one leave, it's like a meditation. I bring a sketch book with me everywhere now. RWK is not only a great writer, but her voice is like a lullaby sung by mother earth. I recommend her audio books to everyone. thanks once again for such deep, good, thoughts.
I've been intending to take up drawing/illustrating myself, as much for all the reasons you've given for yourself as anything else.
🎶🎵doo be doo be Doo🎵🎶
Do day was yesterday
Be day is today !
⚖️
Thank you for this thoughtful piece and being new here (although now here I appreciate more the issues that I didn't see before so understand about the exit plan...although glad you are still here so I found this - will look at 'buy me a coffee' as an option now too) I am seeking out nourishing writings like this. I try to defy the speed of 'efficiency' by reading slowly, going back, re-visiting, noticing different perspectives (which in itself demands choosing intentionally and with care what I read in the first place), by writing, reflecting, by travelling as much as possible by walking or bicycle, by taking time to be in attentive presence with others, by walking and sitting among trees, mosses, rocks and appreciating our exchange of life, breath, matter, and noticing how they alter my thoughts if I listen, it becomes a kind of dialogue. This reminds me of one of my favourite chapters in Braiding Sweetgrass - Learning the Grammar of Animacy in which RWK (btw how wonderful to listen to her keynote) writes: “Listening in wild places, we are audience to conversations in a language not our own.”
I would also be putting this in bold: "When we make the experience about ourselves we are no longer present, humble, nor in relationship, no longer open enough to receive what is really there." It's such a dis-ease of modernity to direct attention to 'me' rather than to the entangled beauty of interbeing.
I have found the very word 'Nature' and by extension 'nature writing' more and more difficult as I feel that it somehow implies separation from. I am trying to become less irritable with words while also trying to acknowledge what they may be part of shaping, and of the importance of relationship in contextualising.
Thank you again for this inspiring read and for introducing Kooser's poetry.
I love every bit of this comment, and relate particularly to this: "choosing intentionally and with care what I read in the first place."
Grateful to have you here, Alice. 🙏🏽
Honestly, listening to J Drew Lanham when he hosts a Birdnote episode will stop me in my tracks every time, and always get a little choked up.
I've have conversations with my colleagues recently about not driving or taking an Uber to work. I generally take the bus, and sometimes bike. The first question I generally get is "how long does that take" and I realized I know how to get there on time, but I don't think of the time cost, because of the value is gives me. When I'm on the bus, I get to just sit there and stare out the window, or read, or listen to music or a podcast, and I can truly be in the moment rather than stress about driving and drivers. When I bike, I get to meander through the neighborhood, bike through the port and down the new waterfront trail, and get a little exercise in too.
I work in an incredibly demanding industry, but on the side of the business that makes less and works less. The fact I don't have to count my minutes to the extent of those with high-pressure positions reaffirms my choices, and is a small act of rebellion.
I love small acts of rebellion. I live outside of town enough that bus/bike isn't really an option for me and I'm regularly bemoaning that fact.
I’m trying to figure out how to exit this platform as well, and perhaps ironically had just read a piece about surveillance pricing when stores change pricing digitally to charge each person a different price based on all the data they collect on us. WTF? Anyway, love RWK, Kooser, his interactions with Kooser, there’s another book of them but I forget the title. Anyway, thank you for this post!
Are you talking about the book Kooser did with Jim Harrison called "Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry"?
Yes.