relearn the world, the world understood anew only in doing, under- stood only as looked-up-into out of earth
Our experience of time, as told us, as felt, is a current through our experience of relation with these more than human others. Can we sit in relation with a being, for example the San Marco gambusia, knowing there is a chance these fish are not living on the planet with us at this moment in time?
i must set the precarious words. like rocks.
Or is the sense of loss, of accumulation of loss, of sheer enormity of loss—of the ticking of the clock, as we are repeatedly reminded, hundreds per day lost—too much? Is it too hard to move into relation because the wall of loss and grief prevents it?
Transmutation is not
under the will's rule.
The narrative of the extinction crisis is one that necessarily focuses on a narrow window of linear time to identify the uniquely and specifically western colonial capitalist extractive human impact on biodiversity.
But, although that framing of time identifies the danger, the pattern, and the imperiled, I’ve found value in moving towards other experiences and perceptions of time when I try to sit “with” particular members of the more than human beings at the heart of Delisted 2023.
Press your forehead to my forehead, older and older self. I'll show meaning
I still tend towards looking to western science to find alternative experiences of time, so the exercise below draws on that. It is an invitation to play, not immutable structure, or a spell where modifying it risks failure. If some other way of being in contact with these others in deep time calls to you, please feel free to move towards that.
These conceptions are by no means the creation of, or limited to, western science. But I do play with evolutionary time in the exercise so it feels important to make explicit the fact that linear progressive time is not consistent with evolutionary theory, or at least my interpretation of it.
Time is not progressive. Things are not “improving” or “getting better” and there is no final goal. There is nothing “good” or “bad” in relation to time, there is no point of “redemption” (e,g, in contrast to the christian conception of progression).
Time can be cyclical. Biologic systems often operate through cyclical time, by light (day night, summer winter), by temperature (cold earth, warm earth) even by precipitation (dry season, monsoon). The organic compounds and other chemicals of the body move through cycles of being part of a body and its effort to hold back entropy, and not being part of a body, or even part of a compound, to being back in a body. All of these cycles drive shifts at the biological community and ecosystem level.
With that, I invite you in here and/or into a future virtual or in person workshop during the summer to engage in this practice. This practice will help you come in close to these species and the extinction crisis without being annihilated and will help you build capacity. For those of you disinclined because it’s not your thing or you are too-busy, I recommend spending some time to unpack that impulse. It’s very much one I am familiar with in myself and it’s been a barrier to me.
To Prepare
Grab a piece of paper or two, and pencils, pens, crayons etc. to write/draw with. (Modification: use your phone or other device to record your response).
Grab a timer. Your phone, a kitchen timer, something.
Find something to ground and resource yourself, stones for example, or something someone you love made for you, or a memory of an experience or sensation that is strong enough you can return to it easily for resourcing. At any point, pause and reach for your grounding and resourcing object, memory etc.
Identify somatic tools/toys that you will use during this practice. I will identify moments to bring in somatics but you can use them anytime. I link here to a description of a couple of practices so you have something to play with. (I am not a somatic facilitator and recommend working with professional facilitators to develop your own somatic practice).
Whenever you step away, give yourself a moment to transition. Use somatic tools, or tea, or take a walk with a dog, or touch a cat or lift a chicken. Go to sleep, watch a stupid show, be near a tree, play with some kids. Do something that is not immediately about plugging back into the machine.
I have included timings because it helps me to do this sort of practice with a firm structure. You can modify the timings (e.g., do 1 minute for each instead of 2-3) or not use them. You can also set a timer for the response portions.
There are no deliverables, there are no answers. There is no narrative.
The Exercise:
Once We Were On Earth
Once We Were in Body
Take a moment to bring yourself into the exercise space. Pick a somatic tool (e.g. arm sweeps) and use it. Then ground yourself with whatever you brought for that purpose.
Establishing Time
A. Now
Set your timer for 1-2 minutes.
Start the timer.
Notice your breath. Allow yourself to be in this moment and with the near certainty you do not share the earth with many, if not all, of the more than human beings at the heart of Delisted 2023.
Be gentle and if you feel yourself spinning out thoughts, or being flooded, return to your breath and if needed, use a somatic tool.
When the timer goes off, stop and write, draw, record.
B. 1000 Years Ago—We Were Together On Earth
Set the timer for 1.5-3 minutes.
Start the timer.
Imagine 1000 years ago. Where is your body? (You might be on ancestral lands, you might be on the lands you find yourself currently, and if you are currently on ancestral lands both might be true).
Hold that sense of being on earth 1000 years ago. Breathe in and out for three cycles and feel all of the beings in Delisted 2023 also present on the planet, in what is called North America, Hawai’i and Guam/Guåhan. The bat in Guåhan, the mussel in Tennessee, the monk seal in Caribbean waters, the plant growing out of Hawai’ian soil
When the timer goes off, stop and write, draw, record.
C. 800 Million Years Ago—We Were Together in Animal Body
Set the timer for 1.5-3 minutes.
Start the timer.
Imagine 800 Million Years Ago. You are in the ocean in the body of the common ancestor of all animal species. The land is a collection of small contents possibly clustered around the South Pole.
There is quite possible an extraordinarily intense meteor shower hitting earth and impacting life in the seas. The global mean temperature is extremely high. But because living beings have been using photosynthesis for over a billion years the ocean and atmosphere now have much higher concentrations of oxygen than they did at earth’s earliest formation.
Life is unicellular for the most part, although these unicellular beings may operate colonially, but you are not in a body with specialized organs or necessarily even specialized cells. This body is crowded with all of the animals that will be, from you to the tuberculed blossom pearly mussel, to the tiny San Marcos gambusia.
What does it feel like in this aquatic body?
When the timer goes off, stop and write, draw, record.
D. 1.6 Billion Years Ago—We Were Together in Body
Set the timer for 1.5-3 minutes.
Start the timer.
Imagine 1.6 Billion Years Ago. You are in the ocean in the body of the single-celled common ancestor of both plants and animals. Soon, the ancestor of all plants will emerge out through your descendants. Oxygen in the ocean and the atmosphere is higher than at earth’s origin but lower than it will be in the future. The ocean may be sulfidic (or it may pass in and out of this state) because of the heavy reliance on photosynthesis using hydrogen sulfide rather than water. The sea is possibly turquoise and black.
You are a microbe and as such your relationship to other bodies may be permeable. Your descendants may, at some point, contact other microbes and come together to create the engines that drive plant photosynthesis and oxygen-reliant cellular respiration. These descendants are the ancestors of plants and animals and fungi.
You are in this body with all of the beings who are part of Delisted 2023. All of the humans, the other animals, and the plant.
What do you experience in this aquatic body? What does it feel like to be in our very many great grandparent’s body together?
When the timer goes off, stop and write, draw, record.
E. 3.5 Billion Years Ago—We Were LUCA or the Progenote
Set the timer for 1.5-3 minutes.
Start the timer.
Imagine 3.5 billion years ago. You are in the ocean in the body of the last common ancestor of all present life on earth. Though life has been around for a bit, you are the container for all life to come. Life is so very young on Earth. And the earth herself is just a baby.
Can you feel that newness?
Earth’s hardened crust is new, and the tectonic plates are emerging.
You contain in your microbial body or you community of microbial bodies all of what will be life.
What do you experience as you imagine yourself as LUCA?
When the timer goes off, stop and write, draw, record.
Pause
Set the timer for 1-3 minutes
Start the timer.
Use a somatic tool to come back into your body.
Attend to your breath. Notice your body.
Come back into body.
Time Travel
Set the timer for 5 minutes.
Start the timer.
Imagine time moving into the future as a pathway or a line.
First it moves slowly and you capture moments of experience
But then it starts to move faster, and you travel first 1000 years into the future, then 800 million years into the future, then 1.6 billion years into the future, and then 3.5 billion years into the future.
The earth is not what it is now—it is as different as was when you moved back in time—but it is still a planet and continues to rotate around the sun, at least in the moment you’ve traveled to.
Imagine in travelling you’ve moved in an arc rather than a flat line. Your pathway has curved around to meet the beginning of the earth, 4.5 or so billion years ago.
The arc is now part of a circle that carries you back to LUCA, to the moment, 1.6 million years ago, when all of Delisted 2023 shared a body, and then 1000 years ago when we all shared a planet, to this moment and then into the future.
When the timer goes off, stop and remind yourself that all of these moments are now and always. Perhaps you write this, perhaps you say it.
Now. Write, draw, record.
Moving Out
Transition gently. Use somatic tools, or tea, or take a walk with a dog, or touch a cat or lift a chicken. Go to sleep, watch s stupid show, be near a tree, play with some kids. Do something that is not immediately about plugging back into the machine.
As always, let me know about your experience.
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1 Quoted Text
“relearn the world, the world…” and “Transmutation is not…” -Denise Levertov, Relearning the Alphabet
“I must set the precarious …” -Ed Robeson, “be careful”
“Press your forehead to my forehead,…” -Anne-Marie Turza, Fugue with Bedbug