The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We explored our relational being through the experience of rescuing and nurturing a wild baby screech owl. We humans can receive the gifts of learning and wonder from our more than human relations. We can teach our children loving awareness. We can help them bond with Nature. Over time we can foster appreciation, bonding and deep caring for the more than human world.
We drew inspiration from ecologist and writer Carl Safina’s experience of rescuing an injured baby owl. In his book, What Owls Know and What Humans Believe, Carl describes how he spent five hours a day caring for Alfie, the baby screech owl in his care.
In Carl’s TEDx Talk – Boston, What Can Owls Teach Us About Humanity?, he shared a short video showing the way Alfie said “I love you.”
In To Wonder and Awe, Carl’s interview with Last Born in the Wilderness journalist Patrick Farnsworth he shares his feelings of awe and wonder. Alfie became his teacher from whom he learned that owls are relational beings.
We heard from eco-philosopher David Abram’s book, Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World, David’s writings remind us that our very development depends on our relations with human and more than human life. He urges us to reflect on the impact we have on the world and to care for all that we can. David is Creative Director of the Alliance for Wild Ethics. His work “engages the ecological depths of the imagination, exploring the ways in which sensory perception, poetics, and wonder inform the relation between the human body and the breathing earth.”
We ended with Mary Oliver’s poem, Messenger from her 2007 collection, Thirst. Mary’s words of wonder, gratitude and joy remind me of qualities that are sometimes overshadowed by our challenging times. They give me the wanting to stay alive and engaged in the world.