Entangled Lives

How can you build a "therapeutic relationship" with place?

Have you ever bought the same book twice? 

I think it’s a sign of my general bewilderment - but I also believe in repetition as a form of insistence, and books as medicine. You get what you need when you need it.

Last month I was finally reading my (second) copy of Barry Lopez’s Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World. I came across this quote that gets to the heart of my monthly letters to you:

Existential loneliness and a sense that one's life is inconsequential, both of which are hallmarks of modern civilizations, seem to me to derive in part from our abandoning of belief in the therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place…

“The therapeutic dimensions of a relationship with place” - I feel this line so deeply, and I like thinking about what it might mean for each of us - not to just live in a place, but to be in relationship with it. 

“Relationship” implies a certain amount of give and take, stewardship, balance, investment, care. But also perhaps personal growth and health - hence Lopez’s idea that feeding this connection to place can actually help us with our “existential loneliness.” I honestly believe even modest acts of stewardship can make us feel “consequential” in the best of ways - even in our own backyards. 

When I was teaching in California for the month of January, I witnessed such a vibrant ecosystem - the “tidepool” concept Ed Ricketts and John Steinbeck immortalized in their work (and one under assault by a strong atmospheric river, at present). It’s easy to marvel at Monterey’s protected shoreline, populations of otters and elephant seals coming back from the brink of extinction, swirling kelp forests, blooms of phytoplankton, migrating whales - the interdependence is clear. The health of the ecosystem supports the health of the individuals. 

Elephant seal colony at Ano Nuevo State Park, January 2024

I was thrilled when our class had the opportunity to undertake a conservation service project. We spent an afternoon addressing agricultural trash - cutting PVC pipe and picking up plastic sheeting from an old strawberry farm near the Elkhorn Slough, a critical waterway and tidal salt marsh area where otters are rehabilitated and birds stop over after long migrations. 

We were filthy at the end, but it felt good to walk the talk. Increasingly, I crave sincerity on this front - I crave real action outside of the academy, the book, the think piece, the polemical tone of politics, virtue signaling, armchair activism. 

PVC pipes, Elkhorn Slough in the background, January 2024

I definitely struggle with feelings of hopelessness and inertia in this era - some byproduct of phone addiction, individual striving, ideological burnout. It’s as if we’ve forgotten we can do things - simple things, like feeding people, putting out water for birds, mowing lawns less, picking up trash from waterways. 

This inertia and disconnect from place is dangerous - to our planet, our political climate, our mental and physical health, other species and landscapes. 

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If you know me, you know I dropped everything to watch the documentary about the night We Are the World was made.One of my favorite parts of the documentary is the camera panning across a hand-scrawled sign that said: Check Your Ego at the Door. 

I think ego is a critical element of how we negotiate our relationship to place. So much of human decision making defaults to something superior and extractive - what does it mean to see ourselves not as the protagonist of our landscapes, but a humble part of the functioning system? 

Harbor seals and cormorants on the jetty, Monterey Bay, 2024

How might we behave differently - how might we write place differently? The world, the landscapes we love, the species within? 

Barry Lopez, like many nature writers, references E.O. Wilson’s concept of biophilia - a concept I discovered in my 20s. It changed my entire brain and sense of self. Wilson wrote: Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures, but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life. 

Once, on a beautiful trip along Georgia’s barrier islands, I encountered a sandhill crane named Zipper who had lost her mate. She grieved for 2 years before falling in love with a bulldozer - then befriended a deer, whom she roved the island with. 

As Wilson says, life likes other life. We are drawn to one another. We benefit physically and spiritually from engaging in this wild flow. 

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This week I’ve been reading Merlin Sheldrake’s book Entangled Life. Several times I’ve nearly dropped the book in the bath because I’m so astounded by what fungi research reveals - a web of interconnectedness so sophisticated it becomes nearly impossible to detangle.

Sheldrake gives an example of a group of plants once thought to be related due to the chemicals they produced - only to find out that it was fungi on the plant producing the chemicals. Only to find out it was the bacteria living in the fungi - this process continued until “the notion of the individual had deepened and expanded beyond recognition. To talk about individuals made no sense anymore.” (Sheldrake, 17). 

That last line, again: to talk about individuals made no sense anymore.

I feel shattered by this book in the best way. 

This sheer truth and power of interconnectedness. You can believe it spiritually, you can know it scientifically, and you can adjust your behavior accordingly. 

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If you think someone you know would enjoy my monthly letters about the natural world, writing, and the power of place, please feel free to forward this note. I’m grateful for each of my followers. Thank you for reading and engaging with me here. 

xo

MMB