Out in the Weeds

Immersing our grieving souls in nature expands the soul

Yesterday was day two for my training as a Minnesota Master Naturalist, and our focus was on lakes and wetlands, observing and interacting with aquatic life. Our first session began on the shores of Lake Sagatagan, one of the more than 10,000 lakes left behind by melting glacial flows in centuries past.

Those who were well-bodied canoed around the lake, observing a small group of loons (if you’ve never heard their haunting cries, you’re really missing something), as well as various forms of lake vegetation. Those of us who remained ashore had a delightful instructor who told us, among many other things, about the purple marten birdhouses on the opposite side of the lake. “They are the only bird species we know of that are completely reliant upon humans for their survival.”

With my interest in human inter-dependence (that we humans need one another, in multiple webs of connection which form the weave of our lives over time), I wanted to hear more about this inter-dependence between humans and avians. It seems that over time the purple marten has “forgotten” how to nest. Our guide postulated that perhaps it’s because ancient native peoples hollowed our gourds to place around campsites because the marten was a primary predator for mosquitoes. Humans needed what martens could provide in terms of insect reduction and martens needed what humans provided in terms of nesting options.

This is one of the concepts of natural conservation: the ongoing and necessary relationship between humans and the environment we inhabit. It is a delicate relationship, and one which requires a long view of time. Long, as in generations. The Ojibway people speak of making decisions with the “seventh generation” in mind.

Later in the morning we trekked to a marshy wetland with a boardwalk intersecting the entirety of the area. Here those whose balance is better than mine knelt on the edges of the boardwalk to dip into the water and fill sample bottles with the results. To the naked eye we could see the vibrancy of the pond: very small worms, tadpoles, and other minuscule creatures zipping about the containers. We took the dipping specimens back to the classroom and looked more closely under microscopes (by the way, microscopes have improved significantly since the 1980s of my most recent microscope usage). It was remarkable to watch these small individual entities interacting with their fellow microscopic living things. There was a visible, active, lively community within just a few drops of pond water.

In the afternoon it was outside again to one of the several pollinator gardens being introduced across the campus of St. John’s University. These gardens are being reconstructed as native prairie installations, and in August they are in full bloom. Beautiful yellows, pinks, reds, whites and the varying strands of green hues pulsated with life as bees and hornets and other small insects flitted from plant to plant nourishing themselves.

It’s hard not to leave such moments without a newfound appreciation for life in its multiple manifestations. As I closed my eyes to listen and smell and hear what was happening around me, waves of peace engulfed my soul. The buzzing bees, tittering bird calls, soaring raptors above, scented flowers and gentle, undulating warm breezes of early August are balm to the soul.

Sometimes in the in-office administrative world many of us inhabit, we refer to getting lost, “out in the weeds.” Typically it’s not a good thing in realms where precision and clarity are the name of the game.

But when it comes to healing of our shy, reluctant, bruised souls, the intensity of precision is not helpful. Already dealing with something so cuttingly sharp, our souls need a broadening, an expanding. To find healing, we need to lose ourselves in the weeds, to experience something life-giving and much bigger than our grief.

I don’t know that my week in nature will resolve my grief (I suspect little ever will, in a final and complete sense), but I do know this: immersing myself in the bigger world around me, and observing the interdependencies amongst all of the natural world, I can find momentary freedom from the shadowed corners of my soul.

When I am lost in the weeds, somehow my bereavement finds its appropriate place. While grief is my constant companion, it no longer leads me. I am leading it, and it seems like this is just the way it should be.