My Brain on Nature

When I get into the woods, my brain changes. The way my brain works changes.  The way I interact with other life on this planet changes.  Being in the rhythm of the woods is a magical part of the gathering. Everyone changes in the woods.

I connect with human beings under the canopy of Douglas Fir and cedar trees. My brain slowly returns to rhythms marked by sunrise and sunset, rain and sun. It is a helpless feeling at first because I am so used to the endless push to analyze texts, fix computer problems, and tame databases.  The pace is relentless not just in what I am doing but in the already identified list of things to be done.

Walking on forest duff, I deal with that which is in front of me. I slide into non-logical ways of knowing and stop thinking in words. Under the panorama of stars, I awaken all my ways of understanding. As Glen Slater writes in his article “Cyborgian Drift,” ,“the privileging of the intellect over other aspects of being—animal sensation, instinct, aesthetic response, intuition” is a form of “Blinkered vision”  (180).

Remove your blinkers family!

Turning off the computers, the phones, completely unplugging and focusing all my attention on the beautiful smiles in my presence, the tiny wildflowers in the meadow, the sound of the drums at night rolling out across the hills helps me reconnect with deep love,  with the energy that is around me now and I am present in a way that I am not present all the time.


At the gathering I deal with specifics and tangible issues.  Chop wood, haul water, cook food, dig shitters, hold the hands and hearts of my family and place my heart in their hands.  My brain away from computers and electronics changes, slows down, feels the love that it all around me.

I know quitting addictions is hard. The first few days you may feel disoriented, lost, unable to function but give it a week and feel the calm in your heart, the clarity in your mind.  Feel the love that is all around you. If you can't quit, keep your addiction to yourself. Please respect that many people who gather, do so to get away from electronics and the state of mind that goes along with them.

Some of you may disagree, may argue that your brain on computers is who you are and you would be no different away from the gadgets.  There's only one way to find out.  Take a break.  See what happens when you love and work at a human speed, not a computer's speed.  Hear the wind in the trees, see the butterflies in the sky, share a story with the person next to you  (especially if you don't know her/him) instead of the one on the other end of a gadget.  Find out who you are when nature is speaking through you.

 Gaia doesn't text.  The creek isn't on Facebook.  The tree's aren't on social media. Take a week or two out of your life to experience this other world and find out who you are On Nature.