Crows, by Charles Harvey
The mountains take their pencil to my spirit as I sleep, sketching in lines of memory and long canyons waiting to draw me in upon rising. —David Lukas
The new Pew Internet survey, Teens, Social Media, and Technology 2018, released May 31, 2018, reports that 95% of teens have access to a smartphone and 45% say they are online “almost constantly.” The REI Report, The Path Ahead, shares an astonishing result of their research: “The average American spends 95 percent of their life indoors. As a result, we are becoming an indoor species, which comes with consequences.” (I’ve written about The Path Ahead in other posts—here and here.)
I spend hours a day working indoors at my computer with my hands tethered to a keyboard and trackpad. My gaze alternates between a 20″ x 13″ LED screen and my laptop with occasional headturns to notice the talkative bluejay landing on the beam out my window. With a technocentric livelihood, my early morning walks are requisite for well-being—early morning because I’ve learned through trial and error that if I walk early morning, I walk. If I wait until later, the 10,000 things always prevail.
On an early morning walk a few days ago, I heard a loud racket coming from a nearby Eucalyptus tree. In one simultaneous burst, dozens of crows emerged in a coordinated air dance. I found myself challenged for words to describe the event as I stopped in my tracks looking skyward. As soon as I got home, I pulled a book off the shelf and dusted it off. It’s an unusual book…Language Making Nature—A Handbook for Writers, Artists, and Thinkers by David Lukas. I especially like Thinkers in the title. Back page reviews are by Pulitzer prize-winning poets Robert Hass and Gary Snyder, and David Abram, author of Becoming Animal and The Spell of the Sensuous—Perception and Language in a More-than-Human World.
Robert Hass writes:
It turns out that David Lukas who is so good at reading the natural world is also quite wonderful about walking us into and through the language in which we speak of it.
I didn’t get far in Language Making Nature when I first tried to read it. But I knew it was a book to grow into. I write a lot about growing a sense of place (#GrowingYourSenseofPlace) as a foundation for creating a mindful digital life. But seriously, how do we do that? I think David Lukas offers a few clues about the role that language and vocabulary can play in helping us.
He calls his book “a language making, vocabulary building toolkit for bold ideas and new visions.” Drawing on his investigations into the histories of words, his personal observations in the wild, and his work as a naturalist, writing and teaching, he invites us to practice our own creative language making. Lukas writes:
If the language we use to speak of the natural world is not innovative and engaging, then is it any wonder that few young people get excited about nature?
And in the introduction, he writes:
In our busy modern lives we have largely forgotten that language is meant to be inventive and playful, that beneath the veneer of modernity the English language is potent with ancient magic-making power. Throughout this book I will refer repeatedly to ‘play,’ but I’m not speaking about play as something trivial; I’m speaking about play as something profoundly creative and freeing. And underneath everything, this playful exploration of language is about dissent, about rising up and crying out in support of that which is alive and vital.
In the spirit of Lukas’s invitation to play with words, I’m calling what I witnessed a reckoning of crows.
In that brief encounter with crow-ness, I found myself reckoning with my poverty of language for the natural world. Lukas reminded me to take my wordplay seriously. ;D
How can you #growyoursenseofplace? Your young children will be excited to explore with you. Your Fornite-playing tweens and teens will probably not drop what they’re doing to join you, but they will notice as you begin to grow your own unique sense of place and uncover the stories you have to tell.
Here’s an invitation: Share how you are growing your sense of place. I welcome hearing about your struggles and successes. Write me (use the form here), and I’ll schedule a video call with you to talk.
Photo by Andy Kelly
Upcoming events (ONLINE)
Parenting Adventures in the Digital Realm—From Surviving to Thriving
June 20, 1–2 pm PDT
I’ll be facilitating an online workshop in June with Parents Place Marin. We’ll focus on the skills needed today to create Mindful Digital Life in the family. I hope you can join us. Register here.
