Atonement
The early weeks of our inquiry were full of indecision. I was unwell for a while, and felt over busy, distracted by other projects. My colleagues in the inquiry group challenged me to notice my resistance. Dave suggested ‘‘There's a woundedness in the other-than-human world” and suggested my reluctance to engage might be part of “a vast cultural defence against feeling the suffering of the world’. As Ezekiel put it, “We're trying to find our way back into a worldview that allows the world to be alive… and there's a deep discomfort in trying to live into that in a larger society that seems to be pretty oblivious, even harshly critical of such an orientation and such a way of being in the world.”
We had also, in those early weeks, seen very clearly the destructive impact of contemporary society on the more-than-human world. Kathleen, driving to her first encounter with River—the French Broad in North Carolina—heard a loud crunch and, stopping the car, discovered to her horror she had run over a turtle, leaving it shattered but still alive. She wept over the broken body as she offered it back to River.[1] Surely it was not purely chance that the very same week Ezekiel came across a turtle by the side of the road in Virginia, killed in the same manner. As they reported their experience back into the group reflection, we were all reminded of occasions of violence toward the natural world. Remembering that ‘Turtle Island’ is the Native American name for the North American continent, Luisa reflected, “Symbolically, the whole Western consumerist society is crushing turtle's back. The weight of it all is just too much for the Earth”. As we shared these experiences of violence, we wondered how we might make amends.
All this coloured my own wondering about my way forward. I remembered the ceremony of prostration I had learned on Buddhist retreats. I found myself inventing a complex ceremony that included offerings to River and a full prostration of atonement. I became quite taken with this idea, but also wondered if I had I overdesigned this ceremony? How would the practice actually unfold? I needed to find out, and so it was I visited my old spot early one October Sunday morning.
I wake at 6.00, dress warmly, and make a flask of tea for myself, leaving one for Elizabeth at her bedside. The roads are dark and quiet. Arriving at my usual parking place, I take a few moments to centre myself and fully arrive before stepping out of the car. As I pull on my waterproofs, I notice the moon, just past full, high and bright in the western sky, shining through a gap in the clouds. A planet and a handful of stars glimmer through the moon’s brightness. Looking in the opposite direction, toward the river, the sky is already brightening, showing just touch with pink where the sun will soon be rising.
The world is almost silent around me as I cross the stone bridge over the Frome: just water softly bubbling through the arches, the occasional chirrup of early birds. I unlatch the kissgate into the field and walk across the grass toward River. The pink in the sky has turned into a purple bruise that stretches across the horizon; my moonshadow goes in front of me across the grass. Just being here with the soft light of the moon, the coloured sky, the palpable silence, draws me away from everyday distraction into a deeper sense of the presence of the world.
When I reach my spot, where a finger of land no more than a meter wide reaches out between the two Rivers, I drop my bag and walking pole and pause, waiting for the moment to approach. When the time seems right, I bow, imagining my sense of a separate self flowing out to join with the wider whole; I introduce myself with my everyday, Medicine and Sacred names; and I call for teaching from the four directions. These ceremonial gestures serve to further separate me from the mundane and to open myself to new encounters.
I am still rather worried about prostrating myself: the bank is steep, damp and muddy; even so early in the morning there may be dog walkers about; in conventional terms, what I intend is quite ridiculous. But the place I am standing slopes only gently down toward the water, flat and really not too wet, I decide, for my prostrations. Following instructions from Buddhist retreats, I introduce myself again, and take my next bow down into full prostration, stretched across the grass. This is what I find myself saying.
“River, this is Peter, Wolfheart, D********.[2] Thank you for being here. Thank you for always being here. Thank you for being this place that I can come back to. With my friends, my human friends, we've got more distressed at the damage that we do, this modern society does, that we are part of, complicit with [at this moment, an Owl calls]. I come this morning… [Owl calls again] I come this morning to express this sorrow and to prostrate myself to you to show so I'm open to your teachings [a bird calls]. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. We are sorry. We are sorry. I prostrate myself and ask for teaching, ask how I, how we, can make amends. If we can make amends.”
I feel my pulse beating in my solar plexus against the cool, damp ground. I stand, seeing the water just a little lighter, the purple bruise extending across the sky, the moon still bright. The tail-lights of a car going up the hill catch my attention, a reminder of the everyday. Yet the owl calling seems to recognize my prayer, drawing me further into the sentient world.
I offer myself again. I bow and prostrate. Now, I find myself worrying whether I'm getting too muddy. As I stand, I am filled with conflicting feelings: I am offering myself through the prostration and self-concerned about getting dirty and worried whether I can get up and down elegantly at my advanced age and whether I'm being self-important in thinking that the owl is responding to me, AND simply revelling in this glorious morning.
The sky is noticeably lighter. There is just a touch of green on that Willow across the Water. And there’s the owl again.
I wonder how many prostrations I should do—three in the Buddhist tradition or four for the Medicine Wheel? I decide two is quite sufficient for today, so scramble down the bank to sit nearer the water with my flask of tea and a piece of flapjack, offering a little of each to River. I settle down to watch and listen.
All the while the sky lightens; the purple fades, replaced by pink with bright orange low across the horizon.
It’s peaceful, very familiar.
Just above where I sit, the stump of an old willow juts out into River, interrupting the smooth flow and setting up a line of eddies. I watch the swirling patterns of turbulence travel downstream to where they meet another line of eddies flowing out of the Frome, creating new patterns. Even though this is in the middle of highly built-up area, it still feels there is a River-life here, a community of beings going about their business with little concern for humans around them.
After a while, I ask myself, “What might be River’s response to my prostration, to my asking how I could make amends?” Looking around, I am struck by the quality of beauty all around me; unexpectedly, I feel enveloped by beauty. For a moment a critical thought crosses my mind: am I anthropomorphising and romanticising? At that very moment a Robin flies across from the willow stump, seeming to contradict the thought. I allow myself to sink deeper. What do I experience as I sit here with my cup of tea? I experience the most astounding yet very simple beauty. Beauty in the eddies that just keep going, always different always the same; in Robin’s flight. Beauty in the little twig that drops off the Willow tree into the water.
And I find myself adding “Beauty in the sound of the Swans wings that have suddenly come from behind me…” saying this before I am consciously aware of that sound. My eyes are drawn upward to see two Swans flying from behind me east across the orange morning clouds. Necks outstretched, wings beating, they fly across River. Just as I think they will fly out of sight, they wheel around and fly back right over my head. They disappear behind me and their sound fades away.
And I'm left sitting with my mouth open, amazed, almost stunned.
After a while, I think, self-critically, “This is what happens when you sit quietly in a place for a while” and at that moment the turquoise flash of Kingfisher seems to contradict the thought. I think again, “Was I pontificating about beauty? Was this romantic bullshit?” But more deeply I know: I wasn’t pontificating, I was enraptured; and at that moment, precisely at that moment, the sound of the Swans came to my ears, and they flew is that great circle over my head. I allow that realization to sink more deeply; now, all I can say is “Oh!”.
I sit in my spot for a while more. My thoughts drift away, I find I am thinking about breakfast, the book review I am writing. I'm not present anymore. I pull myself back and wonder, should I feel guilty. Then I realize that it's over: that this moment of astounding beauty and synchronicity has passed. I was here, I saw it—I was it—and now it's time to go home. Everyday events press on my awareness: events, the cows walking across the field on the other bank, a contrail torn across the sky by a jet, the traffic noise from the road. Full daylight has arrived. It is time to go. Everyday life calls me back, a life that gives this experience a context. But as I return, I remember that resistance, that difficulty in finding time to come down to river, of getting out of bed early, fussing about getting everything ready to come out here, driving through the dark. And that extraordinary moment with the moonshadow and purple sky, which seemed like a threshold into something, some space that was quite different. When the world did seem to be responding: the owl call, the dramatically changing colours of the sky, the profound but simple beauty; and the swans overhead.
Before I go, I give thanks for all this teaching. As I walk back across the field, I meet a young family, a couple with a toddler, coming through the kissgate. I wonder what they are doing so early, then I realize the toddler woke them. We exchange greetings, and then stop and talk together about how beautiful the morning has been. Later, over coffee, I tell Elizabeth something of my experience; I am grateful for her recognition that something important has taken place for me.
[1] Kathleen is currently writing her own account of this experience.
[2] Traditionally, the Sacred Name is only used in ceremony and not shared publicly.