no wrong paths

Which body of water taught you how to swim? A pool, a lake, a river? Does your mother tongue hold specific words for specific water places? Maybe you mind goes to the absence of water, the scarcity of it in the place you call home. Have you ever followed a river all the way back to its birth place? Thrown a message in a bottle into a stream and hoped for an answer? Held a microphone into the brook close to your house? Have you swum in winter water? Traced the toxins that run through your fluids? Who bathed you into being? Do you transfuse blood to strangers? Kiss other wet mouths? Were you nursed as an infant? My tab spills meltwater and old tsunamis - how about yours? Ever followed a glass of water through the whole of your hydrologic system? Did you know currents can paint? Try and take a pictures of a watershed every day at the exact same time. Can your moth make the sound of rain, of wind waves and rapids? Do you notice when your plants are longing? Which underground reservoir feeds you? How many tears do you lose in a month? How much blood do you spill? Where do the rain clouds in your region come from? Thirst is a clenched fist. Have you felt it?

"I disappeared into books when I was very young, disappeared into them like someone running into the woods."

“In the Western tradition there is a recognized hierarchy of beings, with, of course, the human being on top—the pinnacle of evolution, the darling of Creation—and the plants at the bottom. But in Native ways of knowing, human people are often referred to as “the younger brothers of Creation.” We say that humans have the least experience with how to live and thus the most to learn—we must look to our teachers among the other species for guidance. Their wisdom is apparent in the way that they live. They teach us by example. They’ve been on the earth far longer than we have been, and have had time to figure things out.”

“I think too deeply about everything. I still don’t know if that allows me to see more of the world, or less of it.”