Beautifully expressed. Living with, learning, knowing, honoring and being filled to the brim with gratitude for the lives around us is essential. I cannot imagine life without the animals, both domestic and wild. Definitely an inseparable part of the Mystery.
It is my interactions with the (not human) people who live around me that keep me sane.
I love that you listed deer-snort. :) A doe was huffing at us last weekend, after giving us the stare-down from across a clear-cut valley. The last I'd seen her, she was walking towards us. I got distracted by a lone cow elk catching up to her long-past herd, then started hearing the huffing. First I thought someone was huffing at the elk, but the noise continued after she'd passed through the valley. And the noise was getting closer to me. It was pretty freaky, 1. because the deer had been staring at us so intently for many minutes, 2. because I'd lost sight of her, and 3. because that unsettling noise kept getting closer but I couldn't see who was making it.
Thanks for this! A beautiful piece! We see quite a few of those birds and such here in Screven, tho on a different scale! I’m hoping our kids learn to have this level of appreciation for the animal world. Anna June wants to be a veterinarian— one of her ambitions along with rock star and princess…
Gosh Janisse, just when I think your writing couldn’t be more powerful, more courageous, more eloquent… you surprise me again. Your writing is a gift. You are a gift. Thank you 💚
Thank you for reading these little creeks that I manage to get flowing. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my friend. Katie, when I sit down to write, I ask myself, "What is trying to come out of me?" It's usually something that has been truly haunting me, and I know that if it's haunting me, it's haunting most of us. So in many many ways I can't take credit for the writing. I can only take credit for working hard to keep my heart open and my ego out of the way. Much love to you.
An old man on a reservation near where I live told me humans learned speech from birds, which seems obvious to me.
It makes me sad that so many people's primary interactions with and ideas about animals are via technology these days instead of with the animals themselves.
Natalie, after writing that essay I started seeing how many of these interactions are in reels. Yesterday I saw a man playing a banjo for a wild fox. I saw a woman who interacts with owls in a park. I think you're onto something-- a lot of social media is about this deep desire in us.
A lovely essay on one of the best benefits of living in a rural space. After 14 years of living in a similar place, I find my sense of time has changed to seasonal rhythms and events. My conversations with others include obserservations, announcements and predictions. The Western tanagers have arrived this week, the swallows will be here soon. The pregnant does are birthing about now and the adorable spotted fawns will soon be following their mommas. It apparently was an excellent spring hatch for the carpenter ants who suddenly showed up inside the house, crawling on us at night. A neighbor reported seeing a large brown-colored black bear to our rural community FB group. The daily migrations of our turkey hen families have stopped and they aren't sleeping in the nearby trees - they must be having babies. And the spring explosion of plants! They deserve their own essay. The life around me is struggling but resilient. One of the first journal entries I wrote for the Journey in Place course was about the wildlife I share my place with and the lessons and wisdom they offered. You encouraged me to publish it on my Substack. So I did. https://suekusch.substack.com/p/dedicated-to-the-ones-i-love
Beautiful and so true. Every wild animal is a gift. One morning I looked out into our wild yard and saw a mama armadillo and four babies snuffling around in the leaves. When they trotted off in a single file, I thought I was the luckiest person on earth for that moment. This essay made me cry in my coffee.
I'm a believer in synchronicity. When I saw the title "My Mockingbird Teacher," it immediately reminded me of the passing of my 95 year-old father on Memorial Day weekend of 2017. Shortly after his journey, I wrote this poem about my experience.
“My Mockingbird Teacher”: Thoughts, so beautifully written, coming straight from your dear heart. Thoughts so generously shared. Thoughts that cut through the fat. Thoughts that rattle our consciousness. Thoughts that warm our hearts. And inspire. And teach. A genuine gift. Thank you.
Wonderful, sad, painful post. Indigenous cultures thought swallow tailed kites were the eyes through which the Great Spirit looked upon the Earth. I don't doubt that. Last summer, while watching kites feed on June bugs on a spent hay field in the midlands of SC, I had kite shadows on my shoulder as they flew closely over my head. It was transformative. I lived for 20 years, off and on, on SGI, where I witnessed, viscerally, the declining biomass of our earth. Fewer birds on the shore and in the rookies, fewer dolphins in the sea. I didn't need someone's quantitative analysis to make the point. It was obvious, and almost too much to bear.
Thanks for this, we need more words in this rudimentary language for our relations with those we can only describe clunkily as "wild" or "ghost". Every thoughtful writer helps with this, you perhaps the most.
But how, Peter, do we add words to our languages? The changes I see are "sick" used to mean "ill" and now it also means "delightful." Is it really possible to add NEW words?
New words is an interesting concept because words have to come from some source.Other languages, species, technologies all contribute possible “new “ words.I think that the overlap and integration of these sources are the raw material and the work is conversation. The barriers to conversation-deafness and fear-are what we have to overcome and then the words will rise .
Oh, goodness, I was just about to unplug from the computer and head to bed ... then this! Thank you so much. Once again, you manage to conjure joy and sadness within the same essay, the same paragraph, sometimes the same sentence. Lovely and heartbreaking, both.
Beautifully expressed. Living with, learning, knowing, honoring and being filled to the brim with gratitude for the lives around us is essential. I cannot imagine life without the animals, both domestic and wild. Definitely an inseparable part of the Mystery.
It is my interactions with the (not human) people who live around me that keep me sane.
I love that you listed deer-snort. :) A doe was huffing at us last weekend, after giving us the stare-down from across a clear-cut valley. The last I'd seen her, she was walking towards us. I got distracted by a lone cow elk catching up to her long-past herd, then started hearing the huffing. First I thought someone was huffing at the elk, but the noise continued after she'd passed through the valley. And the noise was getting closer to me. It was pretty freaky, 1. because the deer had been staring at us so intently for many minutes, 2. because I'd lost sight of her, and 3. because that unsettling noise kept getting closer but I couldn't see who was making it.
Thanks for this! A beautiful piece! We see quite a few of those birds and such here in Screven, tho on a different scale! I’m hoping our kids learn to have this level of appreciation for the animal world. Anna June wants to be a veterinarian— one of her ambitions along with rock star and princess…
Gosh Janisse, just when I think your writing couldn’t be more powerful, more courageous, more eloquent… you surprise me again. Your writing is a gift. You are a gift. Thank you 💚
Thank you for reading these little creeks that I manage to get flowing. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being my friend. Katie, when I sit down to write, I ask myself, "What is trying to come out of me?" It's usually something that has been truly haunting me, and I know that if it's haunting me, it's haunting most of us. So in many many ways I can't take credit for the writing. I can only take credit for working hard to keep my heart open and my ego out of the way. Much love to you.
An old man on a reservation near where I live told me humans learned speech from birds, which seems obvious to me.
It makes me sad that so many people's primary interactions with and ideas about animals are via technology these days instead of with the animals themselves.
Thanks for writing.
Natalie, after writing that essay I started seeing how many of these interactions are in reels. Yesterday I saw a man playing a banjo for a wild fox. I saw a woman who interacts with owls in a park. I think you're onto something-- a lot of social media is about this deep desire in us.
A lovely essay on one of the best benefits of living in a rural space. After 14 years of living in a similar place, I find my sense of time has changed to seasonal rhythms and events. My conversations with others include obserservations, announcements and predictions. The Western tanagers have arrived this week, the swallows will be here soon. The pregnant does are birthing about now and the adorable spotted fawns will soon be following their mommas. It apparently was an excellent spring hatch for the carpenter ants who suddenly showed up inside the house, crawling on us at night. A neighbor reported seeing a large brown-colored black bear to our rural community FB group. The daily migrations of our turkey hen families have stopped and they aren't sleeping in the nearby trees - they must be having babies. And the spring explosion of plants! They deserve their own essay. The life around me is struggling but resilient. One of the first journal entries I wrote for the Journey in Place course was about the wildlife I share my place with and the lessons and wisdom they offered. You encouraged me to publish it on my Substack. So I did. https://suekusch.substack.com/p/dedicated-to-the-ones-i-love
I remember that essay you wrote. I loved it then and I love it now. You're one of the lucky ones.
Your essays indeed bring hope, joy, inspiration ... and medicine (just like the swallow-tailed kite).
Thank you, M.K. I feel that way about your poems. And am amazed at how prolific you are, how they just keep coming.
Thanks for reminding me. Passages like this are why I read nature writing.
We're in this together, Ray.
Beautiful and so true. Every wild animal is a gift. One morning I looked out into our wild yard and saw a mama armadillo and four babies snuffling around in the leaves. When they trotted off in a single file, I thought I was the luckiest person on earth for that moment. This essay made me cry in my coffee.
Well, I'm kinda envious about that sighting of a mama armadillo and her babies. I'll carry that image around awhile.
I'm a believer in synchronicity. When I saw the title "My Mockingbird Teacher," it immediately reminded me of the passing of my 95 year-old father on Memorial Day weekend of 2017. Shortly after his journey, I wrote this poem about my experience.
Mockingbirds and Fireflies
Somewhere in the night
Steel wheels rumbled
Past flashing railroad crossing gates
While locomotive headlights
Cut through
The vacant lots
And glaring shards of corrugated steel
The local freight grumbled on
Offering little solace
As I tossed and turned
In fitful sleep-dreams
The radio clock read 2:38
Half awake and half asleep
I closed my eyes
Pleading for silence one more time
Sound asleep at 4:19
When the redeye from Seattle
Touched down on the tarmac
Fifteen miles away
On what might as well
Have been
A valley on the moon
The mockingbirds
Began to sing beneath the stars
Between the moon
And the empty darkened spaces
Where a jangling phone stole my dreams away
“I have sad news to deliver”
“Your father passed peacefully a short while ago”
I couldn’t speak
I only listened
To the noisy boasts of mockingbirds
Stirring in the space
Between dawn and darkness
Where fireflies still blinked
In the fragrant innocence of morning
Greg, I'm thinking of you this Memorial Day Weekend as you honor your father. This is a very beautiful poem. xoxo
A beautiful, moving poem. Thank you for sharing.
I agree. All the planes & trains leading up to that mockingbird delivering sad news.
Thank you for this wonderful piece.
Thank you for being here.
Well said Janisse, the loss of species sits like a stone in my stomach. Thought you might enjoy my latest https://thebookendsreview.com/2024/05/22/sustenance/ . Keep the faith and write on!
I was sad to read of your mom's bipolar, and so glad you've done so very well, nourishing yourself and all of us.
Thanks, my friend, and thank you for words that send us forward, rather than back.
“My Mockingbird Teacher”: Thoughts, so beautifully written, coming straight from your dear heart. Thoughts so generously shared. Thoughts that cut through the fat. Thoughts that rattle our consciousness. Thoughts that warm our hearts. And inspire. And teach. A genuine gift. Thank you.
Thank you, dear Mark. I love how you also speak straight from the heart.
Wonderful, sad, painful post. Indigenous cultures thought swallow tailed kites were the eyes through which the Great Spirit looked upon the Earth. I don't doubt that. Last summer, while watching kites feed on June bugs on a spent hay field in the midlands of SC, I had kite shadows on my shoulder as they flew closely over my head. It was transformative. I lived for 20 years, off and on, on SGI, where I witnessed, viscerally, the declining biomass of our earth. Fewer birds on the shore and in the rookies, fewer dolphins in the sea. I didn't need someone's quantitative analysis to make the point. It was obvious, and almost too much to bear.
Brooks, thank you for all your years of devotion and service to this wild, glorious world. You're right. The decline is almost too much to bear.
Thanks for this, we need more words in this rudimentary language for our relations with those we can only describe clunkily as "wild" or "ghost". Every thoughtful writer helps with this, you perhaps the most.
But how, Peter, do we add words to our languages? The changes I see are "sick" used to mean "ill" and now it also means "delightful." Is it really possible to add NEW words?
New words is an interesting concept because words have to come from some source.Other languages, species, technologies all contribute possible “new “ words.I think that the overlap and integration of these sources are the raw material and the work is conversation. The barriers to conversation-deafness and fear-are what we have to overcome and then the words will rise .
Oh, goodness, I was just about to unplug from the computer and head to bed ... then this! Thank you so much. Once again, you manage to conjure joy and sadness within the same essay, the same paragraph, sometimes the same sentence. Lovely and heartbreaking, both.
Conjure! Writing as conjuring. Thank you, dear Jeanne.