My dad and I like to go star gazing. We drive out to central Washington in the middle of the night, he sets up his wide-angle camera lens and fine tunes his long exposure settings, and I lay on the ground in a parking lot. When I look at the stars, I like to imagine that instead of looking up, I am looking down – suspended in space, held close by the Earth. “Gravity’s Law” by Rainer Maria Rilke makes me feel the same way.
During our contemplative practices, I have pushed myself to sit quietly and think deeply about poems and my personal responses to them, both intellectually and emotionally. I’ve always wanted to be a poetry person – the idea of lyrical verses and esoteric metaphors seems romantic, and poetry is such a valuable medium used to communicate beyond simply the literal words on the page. Somehow, though, I’ve never gotten the chance to devote motivated and genuine time to its study. Through the contemplative practices, I have been able to connect the poems we read to the class material as well as to my own life. Rilke’s instructions to ground ourselves and “trust in our heaviness” – emphasizing the collective pronouns – remind me of the innate connections we have discussed between the human experience and the biosphere. I think about Avi Solomon’s piece “Working Undercover in a Slaughterhouse” and wonder how we ever became so disconnected in the first place.
And the contemplative practices could truly not have come at a better time. Going into this school year feeling confused about my future but particularly connected to the Earth after a summer spent outdoors, I wasn’t sure how contemplative practices would help me find my way. But sure enough, the moment I began thinking about the grounding feeling of the floor beneath my feet, and the constant embrace of gravity, I felt less lost. When anxious or stressed I often feel as if there are far too many things to ever control, but simply focusing on the comforting force always pulling me down makes it easier. Though our group contemplative practices only last a short ten weeks, I will take the grounding processes with me far beyond this class, into my interactions with the Earth, the sky, and other people.
One of my dad’s Milky Way photographs, and an example of the intimate relationship between Earth, stars, us, and the gravitational forces that bind us all
Hi Mahika!
I really enjoyed reading your post–you are such a gifted writer! You’ve done a gorgeous job of creating a deeply meaningful post. I loved the connection you made with stargazing especially.
I completely agree with you about the disconnection existing between humans and the rest of the biosphere. Our society so often forgets that we and other forms of life are intimately connected. I think that that is, in a way, a form of terror management. Forgetting our connection makes it easier to cope with the destruction humans have inflicted on the rest of the natural world, and how that has already led to so many deaths and tragedy for the human species. As Mark Lynas writes in “God Species”, humans are a “rebel organism” who have tapped unprecedented resources to rise in population and power, but that this may also be our downfall.
I also wanted to leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac,” about how being aware of all this can lead to living “alone in a world of wounds.” Here’s the link: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/93532-one-of-the-penalties-of-an-ecological-education-is-that
Thanks again for sharing!
Lillian