My Neighbor, "The Spy"

Dear Community,

It is a beautiful summer morning. There’s the familiar hum of the busy street in the background. In  the trees nearby, a bunch of Northern Cardinals have a lot to say to each other (or to me? or the ethers?).  I can hear the chickadees, too, and the Carolina Wrens. And here’s the melancholy cooing that might belong to the Mourning Dove, or to one of the three owls that populate the little forest behind our backyard. A squirrel just lost her footing and is now hanging at the end of a branch, one wrong movement away from falling to the ground. Being an accomplished acrobat comes with lots of inherent risk.

Sometimes I look at the trees and I feel like they are looking back at me, each leaf an eye, hundreds of thousands of eyes looking, when I sit in my backyard. For someone like me (whose spirit animal is a white peacock-please let me know if you have any questions about this item that I nonchalantly threw at you just now), these are all welcome witnesses. However,  there is this one tree, that has grown close to the deck- kinda just snuck up on us. I’ve always called him “The Spy”. All the other trees are growing on or close to fence line separating our plot of Earth from the neighbors. The Spy is totally not following the rules and its’ slight leaning towards the house makes it clear that its intentions are tinged with unhealthy curiosity.

The cherry tree that was once the pride of the backyard in the spring is now a a habitat for many species and a beloved haven for the woodpeckers. It is an embodiment of what the Japanese call wabi-sabi, or appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. (In traditional Japanese culture, wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete".  It occupies roughly the same position in the Japanese pantheon of aesthetic values as do the Greek ideals of beauty and the concept of perfection in the West. It derives from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印, sanbōin), which include impermanence (無常, mujō), suffering  (苦, ku), and emptiness(空, kū). I included the Japanese characters because they are so pretty and why not). The snake coming out of the gourd (see picture) is now in eternal rigor mortis and a perfect illustration of wabi-sabi. Finding beauty in the death and rebirth cycle and in impermanence. What a concept for our Western minds.

Last night, as I was sitting here in the dark, the fireflies were up from the ground, into the trees. Every tree was decorated with hundreds of these shimmery, delicate beings (btw did you know that the less pesticides you use on your land, the more numerous the fireflies? makes sense!) Christmas in July!  Tiny bats were flying back and forth, seemingly excited (or irritated, hard to know) for there was a witness to their nightly expeditions. Bunnies came out of hiding, too, taking timid steps, starting and stopping, unsure of their next move. A fox stepped out of the shadows into a clearing, interrupted her determined, purposeful night walk to look at me and evaluate my predator (or prey?) potential.

Who are your neighbors? (I’m mostly interested in the non-human living beings in your neighborhood.)

Do you have a relationship with the trees you see every day?

Do you allow your imagination to anthropomorphize (to attribute human characteristics, emotions, intentions, or behavior to non-human things) the living world around you?

Please get back to me and let me know what your favorite ways of interacting with the natural world are. Take 20 minutes, sit down with your favorite beverage, write down the name of the tree that guards your home, or maybe take a picture of your favorite sit spot, bird or snake.  I would love to hear from you and I will publish your observations/pictures/musings in the next newsletter.

With love, (a tiny sprinkle of) rage, and reverence, Your disorganized, recovering people-pleaser, community-dreamer, hope-filled activist in the making, deep-sleeper, clean compliment giver and receiver, not-a-true-exhibitionist, 21-day resetter, recovering prostitute, courageous by practice, trusting by skill, always with my head in the clouds, but loving my feet on the ground, soul worker (!), inner voice listener, pleasure list maker, Aquarium sleepover organizer, beginner-level meditator, wabi-sabi contemplator, Corina