Togetherness as rewilding
On 'wild mind belonging to wild earth' (After David Hinton)
This past weekend, I went on a short hike with my partner at our usual local spot: Cherhill Downs. The air was peppermint cold and felt sharp in my throat. I spotted two cherry-red chested bullfinches in the hedgerows that border the neighbouring farmer’s land. But, seeing the white, chalk horse magnificently reflecting the nascent spring sunlight is a source of comfort. The horse covers an entire hillside, flanked by a thick cluster of wiry woodland and a towering obelisk, reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. No matter the weather conditions, this walk is always grounding for me—a reminder of the supportive constancy of seasons. For me, the horse is a symbol of fortitude and liberation.
Each time I hike Cherhill Downs, I normally pick up a bit of rubbish here and there, always having the mantra of ‘leave a positive trace’ humming in the background of my mind. I’m also careful to not let these slogans keep me from being embodied and fully present in this physical space, which is already a challenge. But, on this occasion, I saw the most waste left by people on the hills than ever before. I could not believe it, but as I climbed back down towards the foot of the valley I found an incredibly sharp knife stuck deep into the mud. I carried the frozen, mud-covered knife back down to the village between the tips of my fingers. It felt symbolic—a strong metaphor for humanity’s engagement with the more-than-human world. Violence.
As I take in the feast that is this morning’s burst of spring sunlight, an unfathomable, unhinged, and brutal siege is carried out against unarmed civilians in Gaza, within the densely-populated area of Rafah, previously held out as being an area of purported safety for Gazans. More inexplicable suffering and brutality to be layered onto an existing humanitarian catastrophe. More pain to be fossilised into geologic layers of historic and present, intergenerational trauma. This is the harrowing truth of humanity.
In her essay, Finance, Circa 1980s: The Acceleration of Extraction, Karen Ho explores how the 1980s capitalist psyche of limitless accumulation drove our ecological destruction. She makes powerful connections between America’s cotton empire fueled by enslavement and dispossession, and 1980s capitalism:
‘[Sven] Beckert argues that war capitalism and racial capitalism intermeshed with settler colonialism to produce a planter elite with seemingly limitless resources. With unrivaled access to “unencumbered land,” the Southern planter had no equal in the cotton-growing world, and it was precisely the violent expropriation of land and labor that enabled their experience and expectation of “limitlessness.”’
The mass-scale violence continually urges us to create new possibilities of dwelling among and relating to each other. It desperately cries out for a more capacious sense of belonging that can encompass all human cultures and all species. This alternative vision requires an amphibious approach to identity and belonging, where we are more sensitive and vulnerable towards each other and allow perceived otherness to move between flimsy, socially constructed boundaries. It calls for a space where we can respectfully and generously inhabit the ecotones of one another. As writer Maria Popova once stated, “All violence requires an Other as its target, and the shifting boundaries of our own identity are what contours that otherness.” We already know the vastly damaging, ethical consequences of propping up belief systems that encourage this othering.
Thinking about Roots of Belonging, this past weekend my friend asked me, why must this work [of regenerative belonging] be done as a collective? Why must it be done together? In a moment of serendipity, I came across the following quote in my reading, which beautifully answered the question for me with such clarity:
“Togetherness is a primordial value, deeper and more ancient even than self-awareness, let alone philosophizing. It inheres in the body itself. We instinctively need togetherness; and togetherness requires kinship. Indeed, this goes so deep that it challenges our assumptions about individual identity—for without kinship and togetherness, what are we? We curl up together and sink into that primal mystery called sleep. We wake and talk together, cook and eat, make love, and sleep again. We inhabit a single tissue of language…We are positively interfused and adrift in it—and in family, community, culture, civilization. And why would it stop with our species?”
David Hinton, Wild Mind, Wild Earth: Our Place in the Sixth Extinction
When was the last time you made a cup of tea for a friend or made a spontaneous meal with a loved one? Or played a game with a new friend? The most basic ingredients of human togetherness are often obfuscated by this modern life and the more pernicious structures that surround it. My increasing clumsiness in social interactions post-pandemic reminds me that the mere act of togetherness—being alongside one another—can rewild mind and body, bringing me back to my primordial belonging, as explicated by Hinton.
Grassroots community organisers often speak about challenges with burnout and mental health. It takes a lot of love, energy, and fortitude to continually show up for others against what Karen Ho describes as the ‘cosmology of accumulation’ and the ‘financialisation’ of culture and social bonds (in large part accelerated by the ‘paradigm shift’ of 1980s capitalism). Through this cruel lens of commodification, the very dignity of life is rendered ‘value-less’. In this climate, it seems that the mere act of being in the mindful presence of each other is a defiant act reshaping the dominant narrative.
Below I offer some prompts that have helped me through this profoundly challenging time. I hope they provide you with some small comfort:
What are your more primordial values? Have you listened to them or given them enough space to grow?
What non-human animal species has been a source of inspiration for you? In what small way might you embody this being’s magnificence?
What was the last conversation you had where you felt the boundaries of your identity grow?
With solidarity and love,
Isabella
Loved the mention about clumsiness in social situations post pandemic. As much as I crave togetherness, it doesn’t quite flow through me as well as it used to! I’m slowly getting back to it, and your prompts helped me realize I’m already on the right path ☺️
This is a magnificent piece of writing Isabella. I love your starting point out in the hills (that knife 😳) and the path it takes you through the violence of our times and into the need for togetherness. A timely reminder to heed our primordial need. I love the prompts too.