On Collateral Damage

 

 

It is June on the calendar of ordinary life, I go to a shelter made of broken branches. It is a roundish form, almost a half sphere, that is about three feet plus in height and perhaps eight or nine feet in diameter.  It gives me the impression of a large coarsely woven basket turned upside down.  There is a square shaped opening to enter on one side of the circumference. It has a charm about it like a fairytale hobbit house yet, architecturally sophisticated, so I think an adult must have had a hand in making it.   I have seen kids with paint guns playing around it on one occasion, there is that element of childhood fort-making about it.   Yesterday I was walking there with a friend and I had the not so subtle sense that there was also something dark and rather ominous hovering about the space energetically.   When we crawled inside indeed there was some left over evidence to support my feelings: crumpled up papers and a partially melted, used plastic hypodermic needle indicated that someone had spent time in there recently; not likely in ultra conscious clarity.  I arrived prepared today with some bags and gloves to clean it up.

Afterward, I walked a bit father west into another circle, a place where there was a fire a few years ago. It too is circular in form but with a different energy. I am struck by the subtle contrast.  This morning there were so many birds about I could not count the diversity or number as they appeared around the mandala of new growth. They fly around connecting eleven standing skeletons of mature trees surrounding the perimeter.   With their flight they create an invisible drawing, a web of energy, criss-crossing from tree to tree.  Young cottonwoods and Russian Olive’s are over my head in height now and it is getting difficult to see across the circumference.  Two weeks ago I was wading here in rubber boots and now the flood plain is dry again though still a bit spongy underfoot.  As I am contemplating it all I spot a ragged coyote twenty yards from me.  I am standing still and yet he immediately catches my scent and makes eye contact for a few moments, then looks behind him as another coyote steps into my view.  

I am humbled to see them, they are a rare sighting, a part of our ecological system that has suffered the consequences of our interference in nature. They are collateral damage from the destruction of their habitat and the invasion of our infrastructures.  I have always admired their determination to survive, somehow they live in this narrow passage between the river's edge and the city. They make note of me, the second one takes her time as if I too am a rare curiosity; we stare across the divide into one another's eyes for a long minute.  Ordinary reality dissolves away into the oneness of our contact with one another.  I wish I could go with them, accompany them for a walk like I would with a beloved dog. It's still morning, ten- fifteen, when I check my cell phone. I want to know if they have been up all night hunting or are they hungry all the time and rarely at rest?  I don't believe it is supposed to be like this for them, so restricted in terms of natural space, but at least, these two are free to roam.  I think about the words of Robin Wall Kimmerer from a chapter in her book, Braiding Sweetgrass.

Collateral damage: shielding words to keep us from naming the consequences of a missile gone astray.  The words ask us to turn our faces away, as if man made destruction were an inescapable fact of nature.  

Isolated coyotes and the person using under the dome of the fort-like nest, are part of the collateral damage in this eco-system. We live in such complexity, we consider much of city infrastructure as normal and necessary.  The result of industrialization and militarization that cannot be turned backward on the calendar of our evolution.  It is an overwhelming topic, one that is not easily simplified, words can be deceptive and collateral mortality shows up as a new term for the side effects of destruction in the environment.  I am thinking of the Gulf oil spill in 2010 as a prime example.  Yet, there is reason to remain optimistic for there are so many signs of life in this thinly wooded place and still so much beauty here in spite of its compromised, compressed states.  Even the needle evidence of a wounded soul reminds me that there is a journey to find wholeness; there are always potential possibilities for healing. Nature has her mysteries, she can recover from a fire in a few short years given the right balance of elements. I wonder how the Gulf has recovered.

There are natural consequences to our destructive behaviors, to our lack of mindfulness in nature and on personal levels as well-in the macrocosim and the microcosim of life-we are all effected by environmental destruction.  We are learning that slowly but surely, I have to hold to that belief in order to accept the reality of our existence in the 21st century.   One of my yoga teachers said so wisely, that when we are thrown off balance, there are often actions taken that we inevitably regret.  I have been thinking about this recently and have realized late in life how my actions of the past have hurt others.  Sometimes I wish I could return to certain instances and have the chance to bring balance to the event, or self-correct like in the movie Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray’s character keeps waking up to repeat the same day until he gets it right. So much collateral damage is the consequence of our seeming inability to walk on earth in equanimity.   May we adjust our ways into healthy alignments and stand in peaceful equanimity. May we not turn our faces away.