How Much Care It Takes

When learning a new language, any good teacher will stress the importance of immersing yourself in it. You can do this by surrounding yourself with fluent speakers who will aid your brain in truly taking in whatever new way of communicating you’re studying. This way, you’re not just learning it; you’re living it.

Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility

My absolute favorite source for immersing myself in the language of sustainability is The Lexicon of Sustainability. The photograph you see above was created by the Lexicon as a project to help students discover and reconnect with their local food systems called “Project Localize”. The project has been a huge success and continues to inspire students and teachers to take their knowledge into their collective community and strike a match for sustainable change in their local food production system. I urge you to sit down and take some time to browse the education that The Lexicon of Sustainability has made easily accessible through picturesque scenes translated into just-the-right-combination-of words and short documentary videos available on their website. Find the beauty here: http://www.lexiconofsustainability.com/

Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility

I’m especially excited by their work because many of the farmers, ranchers, lexicographers, artists and researchers happen to have roots near my native habitat. This means that when I gaze out on the land that holds my heart and that still holds many mysteries for my mind, I smile to imagine these caretakers making change happen right over the next hillside. And as the effect of their efforts ripples out, I’ll feel and see the change in my homeland. Their research is thorough and their practices are the product of trial and error and an earnest desire to preserve the health of this place for the next, (hopefully) more sustainable generation. Their work is multi-faceted and unique to their livelihood, and similarly compelled by the Ancient saying, we do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility

So now that you know what awaits you at your fingertips, (as there is a true abundance of information on the language of sustainability once you decide its time to immerse yourself in it!) I’m going to change the subject, unfold a layer, or even be so bold as to pull on this thread and see where it’s connected to the rest of the world. Because frankly I can’t help but connect these random tangents that excite me back to the source that wells in my heart. Now, are you ready?

Here we go!

The one thing that all of these innovators, pioneers, and educators whose stories are shared on The Lexicon have in common is that they have dedicated themselves to undergoing an immersion in what makes their hearts beat and their minds race so that they can lead by example. The immersion I undergo in learning my beloved languages of Ayurveda and Animals is for one sole purpose: to learn to live it so I too can lead by example.

Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility

It is a simple lesson, but also a constant, difficult one: Those of us who want to change the world are told that we must first change ourselves. And those of us who stumble awkwardly and fall down constantly trying to be that change we want to see in the world then ask, (something like) “how did Ghandi make this look so easy?!” And the answer we receive is more often than not, “Why are you asking me? I don’t know. He was just being Ghandi.”  However soon enough we inevitably find that Ghandi, for instance, didn’t just speak the language of change with grace, but he lived it with all of its growing pains. Finally then, the story of free and easy living and saving the world is demystified as we find it’s time to let go of wishing we could only be Ghandi, for example, and decide to learn to live this language that speaks graceful truth.

And so the fun begins!

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in her groundbreaking novel Eat, Pray, Love  as she set out to change her relationship to pleasure, devotion, and balance in Italy, India and Bali:

 Destiny, I feel is also a relationship- a play between grace and willful self-effort. Half of it you have no control over, half of it is absolutely in your hands and your actions will show measurable consequences. Man is neither entirely a puppet of the gods, nor is he entirely a captain of his own destiny; he’s a little of both.

We gallop through our lives like circus performers balancing on two speeding side-by-side horses – one foot is on the horse called “fate” the other on the horse called “free will”. And the question you have to ask everyday is, Which horse is which? Which horse do I need to stop worrying about because it’s not under my control, and which do I need to steer with concentrated effort?

Our relationship to language and the way that we speak and live it, is one of our greatest tools for healing ourselves and realizing changes we pray for.  We can pray for change, happiness and peace in our lives and in the world, but as Gilbert writes, our free will and fate is a relationship and half of the job is ours. We will see change when we immerse ourselves in the language that speaks to our hearts longing for happiness and our minds love of the greatest mystery, peace. I can’t tell you what that language is specifically for you, but I do believe that fundamentally and at it’s very core, it will embody the practice of Sustainability.

Photography and Art by The Lexicon of Sustainaibility

Sustainability is the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely. And if you’ve never cared to learn the definition of the word sustainability before now, well then I assure you could still be living a sustainable life, only you aren’t an etymology geek like myself. I cared to learn the definition and see how it’s changed throughout history, because if it isn’t embarrassingly evident by now, I am really interested in the roots of languages and how they are used to sustain relationships.

There is one frustrating, stubborn and hot-headed aspect to language that I have a problem with however, and that is it’s ability to cause a real lack of communication. Think of political jargon, empty promises and manipulating framing. The reality of language is, some people use it to show how much they care and others use it to show how much they know. Those of us who use language, whatever dialect it may be, to talk our way into the hearts of those we want to help are using it as a tool to show how much we care. This style of communicating can build a strong bridge to someone’s heart that will make words, eventually, unnecessary. And the opposite style of communication, which is not specific to any one dialect, is the use of language as a tool to show how much you know. This kind of use of language is tricky, as if you aren’t careful to spearhead communication in conjunction with the language of how much you care, you will become increasingly more reliant on words. This form is often abused by people acting selfishly or without consideration for others.

It can be hard for some people to pick up what place others are communicating from if they aren’t aware of where they are coming from themselves. However, the intelligence and intuition of animals can always detect what place people are communicating from; genuine or ingenuine. When working with animals, communicating how much you know will get you absolutely nowhere, unless they know first how much you care. This is something I’ve learned from the great Horseman and teacher, Buck Brannaman.

The Lexicon of Sustainability connects the dots and builds a beautiful language based in sustainability studies that’s easy on the eyes ~ http://www.lexiconofsustainability.com

Learning to communicate from a genuine place of caring so that we can get across how much we know is the foundation of the language of sustainability. If we can come from these places in our interactions with all things, then whatever language we speak, we will be speaking our graceful truth. My teacher of Ayurveda, DeAnna Batdorff says that if we speak equally from our hearts and our minds, our voice will come together and always communicate graceful truth. Our voice is a gift, and we are responsible for taking great care in sharing it with the world.

How much care this takes, in immersing ourselves in the language of sustainability is dependent upon what our graceful truth is. You’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be in your body and live with your heart and your mind. All I can really say knowing my body and the way it communicates and relates to the world, is that if I want to sustain my feelings of happiness in my heart and peace in my mind, I need to be working with animals to play with grace and willful self-effort and utilizing diagnostic tools of Ayurveda to help myself find that balanced place of belonging in the world where there is a hole in the shape of me, and live there.

To simply conclude, I suppose that living in a sustainable way for me, requires as much care as I truly care to sustain.

Photo Courtesy The dhyana Center

Ain’t Gonna Lose You

Just a few days ago, three new mustangs arrived from the BLM at Windhorse Ranch. Two of them were born in the wild, a ten year old Carter mare and a two year old gelding. The youngest of the horses, a stunning and curious grey one year-old filly, was born at the short-term holding set up by the BLM for horses who are en route to be adopted out. The yearling was especially curious about humans; that is, at least she wasn’t shaking and terrified anytime they come around like the ten year old mare who was born wild.

Horses who are born wild have very good reason to shake and quiver whenever humans come around. After being chased for miles by helicopters and then torn from their families in the chaos of transitioning into captivity under rough human hands, they are completely justified to fear the sound of our footsteps. This yearling, in a way, is a lucky one. She has no idea what she is missing having been born in captivity. She doesn’t have to be held captive by the maddening yearning to get back home or return to freedom, right? She should have no reason to wonder, why am I here?  En yet, I’d still understand if she did, because I find myself madly wondering, why are we rounding them up?

With some earnest research into the motives for the BLM roundups of wild horses and burros, I have come to better understand the pain and loss I see in the eyes of newly rounded up horses who arrive at our ranch. The motivation to tear native horses from their homeland and put them into captivity stems from a purely corrupted mentality and approach to tending the public lands, which of course, is money and industry driven. The consequences of this are farther reaching than can be directly seen. However, we can imagine the implications if we only look no farther than history. The settling of the West and the forced displacement of indigenous peoples onto reservations that happened in a larger sense, not so long ago, have caused so many rich and important cultural traditions and knowledge to be lost. Even as activism for indigenous peoples is raising attention to remembering and honoring these rich practices and their way of life, what was torn from them may be irretrievable.

There is no going back. We can learn from the past, but it no longer exists. We can strive for a better day tomorrow, but surely tomorrow never comes. All that we have is this moment to right injustice as we see it. But what justice can be brought when the system that oppresses that which you hold so dear, oppresses you in affect? There is surely a larger root to this problem, but understand that if we do not deal with what debris that is on the surface first, we will have no clear pathway to get to the more deeply seated imbalances.

Sometimes it seems our power has been taken from us. We may feel our freedom has been captivated for long-term holding in a place with our name reserved on it. But who has the power to take that which only we are in control of? No one. We may be subject to fate, destiny, reincarnation, karma and whatever else this crazy world has in store for us, but I believe only we have the power to free ourselves, or lock ourselves away. It makes me weary to see so many wild animals held captive from their freedom, as if they no longer have the choice to pick the road they want to walk. But the perception that we can take away this freedom is an illusion we’d better wake up from. We are fools to think we can take another being’s power. Why should we test this in the first place when it only creates trauma that might not heal in this lifetime, for humans and animals. However fortunately despite all of the trauma that has been inflicted, if wild animals have learned anything from wildlands, they have learned how to persevere.

Photo by Alexandra Valenti

It is a fight, it is vulnerable issue, and wild horses and burros are dependent on us now to reserve their freedom. But they are patient with us, and they can hold unconditional love for you if you learn to work with them with respect and patience. Humans have always been interdependent on animals and wildlife, so what has changed today when we jeopardize the livelihood of wild animals in their native lands, is we are forcing ourselves to look at a very grim reflection of ourselves. Through the history of civilization, we have worked very hard and broken our backs to tame what remains wild in us. We may think we have lost our freedom and wildness, or that we are somehow wholly civilized, but I bet any one of us can testify to knowing of some influential people held in high esteem who are not always so civilized.

I have a proposition for the people of our culture. I invite you to look in your heart to find something you care deeply about. Something you worship or hold in awe. Something you would kill for. Something that makes you passionate about your life. When you find this in your heart, I want you to imagine that somebody walks up to you says, “Tomorrow you will lose all memory of this thing that you love so deeply. However, you can remedy this. If you want to keep your memory of your heart’s dearly beloved, you must take away its freedom of will, so that it can stay in your heart. If you let it’s will remain free, then it will forever be gone from you.” What would you do?

I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying, if you love something, give it away. I can admit, I’ve been dumbfounded by this saying until I have come to understand it in this way: if you love something, you will work to preserve its freedom as if it is your own. It becomes unimportant whether the subject of your love will stay with you or not, because you would rather have it be free to live the life it intends than be tied down by your relationship together. Of course in affect, when the thing you love so much comes to find that you hold the importance of preserving their freedom over the importance of maintaining a relationship with them, they choose to stay in relationship with you. Why?

This kind of love, my friend, creates a relationship that is interdependent rather than codependent. If you study the science of life, you’ll discover the interdependence of humans on animals and animals on plants and plants on the elements and on and on. But I hold that interdependence is the action of freeing, and empowering and holding in reverence both individuals. When you have an interdependent relationship with those individuals you hold close in your heart, you don’t need to lose them to love them. All you need to do is empower them, revere them and remind them that they are wild and free to be who they choose.

Resources for more information on the plight of wild horses:

American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign – http://wildhorsepreservation.org/

Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary – http://www.returntofreedom.org/

Bureau of Land Management Release on Wild Horse Roundups – http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/whbprogram/history_and_facts/myths_and_facts.html

American Mustang the Movie – http://www.americanmustangthemovie.com/