This summer I read Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh. As someone for whom nature has always been a refuge, I was curious, and of course like the Master Zen Teacher that he is, Thay turns the whole issue on it’s head. Leaning into the “concept” of interbeing, a state of non-duality between humans and the natural world, this book invites us to take courage, that we are not-powerless and offers in simple words a change of perspective. it is counter-intuitive. It is about sitting mindfully to remember how to listen, to really listen to the Earth. Nature flows seamlessly inside and outside of we know as, myself.
So, I asked myself how does interbeing show up in my life. My answer is horses, body to body. As I was reading, a distant memory, surfaced. The moment still alive and fresh of my body turning into a wave. I am sitting on the back of a horse or rather I am moving with. My feet are firmly anchored as if to the banks of a river. Our bodies mysteriously dissolving as waves into a common stream of movement.
Where did this shared imagination come from?
Where did it recede to?
Does it matter?
My cultural world would say it is only a childhood fantasy.
Opening up to Thay’s world helped me believe in my experience.
Years later a horse who would not go forward, took me on a journey.
What was in her no?
We sat together.
I sat on her. I sat with her. I sat on the Earth. I sat with the fields picking up my paint brushes.
I let go of training her.
I painted what I felt.
In “with-ness” following the inner river, a painting complete when I found silence inside as images as dialogues emerged. For the longest time I doubted these interactions as dialogues, as inter-species dialogues. Delving into the nature of interbeing, possible communication into the reality of One Self, opened the door of connection, friendship and partnership.
Sitting with it all, this horse and I developed a relationship based on respect and love as we healed together the wounds of separation. Yes, we both needed healing.
It is clear to me, horses give feedback in a time frame a human can grasp in order to witness the impact of embodying care, breath, attention as the gift of love and clarity that holds the conditions for non-violence in a way the Earth herself may not… but then again she is in my horse, she is in the river, she is in me…
I am grateful for Thay’s teachings that opened the deeply woven fabric of the culture I grew up in allowing we to re-membering.
If you need to restore your heart to the beauty of the earth and give back to her, I recommend this read!
