◾Poetry Collection: Field Guide to the Haunted Forest by Jarod K. Anderson (available everywhere books are sold).
◾Podcast: http://CryptoNaturalist.com or your favorite podcast app.
◾Live Streams: http://Twitch.tv/CryptoNaturalist
◾Support: http://Patreon.com/CryptoNaturalist
Wonder is like a seed.
It seems small and inconsequential
until you tend it.
An acorn becomes an oak.
Wonder unfolds into love.
My son thinks he’s seeing lightning bugs
for the first time.
He’s only four and doesn’t remember last July.
“Don’t try to grab them,” I say.
“Hold your hand like this.”
We stand by the cemetery fence.
I show him how to raise his palm up beneath them,
a pink platform floating up through the dark.
“These are big dipper fireflies. They dip. They swoop.”
I draw a “J” in the air.
“So, we catch them from below.”
He lands one, too hard, and laughs.
“Gentle. Don’t grab. Just watch.”
The little beetle turns a half circle and flies off.
“Can I keep one?”
“No. We don’t keep. We only visit.”
Out across the cemetery,
they are shining green and yellow on the graves.
We are growing old.
The Earth.
The nation.
The village of ghosts I call myself.
“Do they sting or bite, Dada?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Not in the way you mean.
Not in the way you mean.
Death is particularly fearful in a culture that views nature as an outsider and an adversary.
In such a context, death becomes a hateful defeat and final insult.
Except nature is neither outsider nor adversary.
It is our author, keeper, and kin.
Returning to nature is not a loss.
It’s a homecoming.
Each flash of a lightning bug
feels like a whispered promise
of something magical.
Something impossible.
Something that kindles
your skepticism
even as you realize
the promise has already been
fulfilled.
My work, from posts and poetry collections to the podcast and forthcoming books, has been largely made possible by generous folks giving a little each month to make room in my life for creative projects.
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You need knowledge of species names to enjoy nature like a raccoon needs a dinner napkin.
Technology does not remove humans from nature any more than the hive removes bees.
Nature is not our setting.
It's our bone and blood and thought.
We are not a voice from elsewhere.
Our words are this world's words.
If you understand that any single maple, hands outstretched, kindling to Autumn color, is a vital stitch in the tapestry of nature, then you can understand that you yourself arrived here through the same natural artistry and are just as vital to the character of our living world.
The adults of most moth species don't have mouths, but you can help. Donate your mouth to a moth in need.
Remember, the difference between moth and mouth is U.
All living things, humans included, are a tiny pinprick through which we glimpse some fundamental aspect of nature.
Writers deserve to be paid.
Netflix is a major holdout in paying writers fair wages.
Take a break from Netflix and tell them why you’re leaving.
Teach meaning-making as an empowering skill rather than the search for meaning as a haunting imperative.
Often, I think we need to shift the climate and biodiversity crises discussions from facts to stories.
Why choose native trees and plants?
Well, do you remember how bugs splatted on your windshield decades ago compared to now?
Do you remember the fireflies of childhood?
After we notice, after we link these ideas to our personal stories, then it's time to cultivate questions.
Who else misses these insects?
What about plants with absent pollinators.
What about bats and birds missing their food?
Our kids missing constellations of fireflies?
We link to personal stories.
We foster the follow-up questions.
Then, we reject abstraction and hopelessness. We reject all or nothing thinking and tie our concerns to concrete things we CAN do.
We teach the immense power of doing something even when we can't do everything.
There is so much we do not control.
Yet, we do control some things.
We have agency.
Perhaps you can plant a white oak and learn/notice who benefits.
Perhaps you can reject lawn and cultivate native plants.
Perhaps you can volunteer or donate or reject damaging products. People care when the issue at hand feels like a part of their own story. People continue to care when they believe they have the power to participate in shaping the story's future.
We need to get creative and bring the facts home to people's stories, to their sense of self, but the good news is the truth is a wind at our backs.
Our environment IS a part of everyone's personal story and our individual actions can/do shape the future of our planet.
The Wooly Waffle Crab from episode #1 of The CryptoNaturalist Podcast by wildshape.illustration on Instagram.
We seldom admit the seductive comfort of hopelessness.
It saves us from ambiguity.
It has an answer for every question:
"There's just no point."
Hope, on the other hand, is messy.
If it might all work out, then we have things to do.
We must weather the possibility of happiness.
If you write out the basic facts of trees, but framed as technology, it sounds like impossible sci-fi nonsense. Self-replicating, solar-powered machines that synthesize carbon dioxide and rainwater into oxygen and sturdy building materials on a planetary scale.
If I could have superpowers based on any lifeform, I would choose moss.
Doesn't need much.
Can thrive in most ecosystems.
Quietly, softly goes about its business while enriching its community and weathering most any hardship.
