Wild

I doubt the universe is conscious, but it's sure communicating this weekend through encounters with complete strangers. It's like in the movie The Mothman Prophecies where some dreadful supernatural thing keeps phoning, however this force is benevolently dreadful if not benign.

"Hello dear, it's Mother Nature, now listen here!"

Today I went hawk watching with my friend, Jaye, and his friend, Carolyn, who I had never met before. We drove to Hawk Cliff, south of London. We didn't see much activity, only a couple of resident red-tailed hawks, one migrating sharp-shinned hawk, a few interesting songbirds (bluebird, juvenile red-headed woodpecker, red-bellied woodpeckers and some cedar waxwings), and zillions of starlings, a few of which got startled to silence and chased by a sleek American kestrel.

But it was a beautiful, remarkable day. Pouring rain at dawn quickly gave way to hazy sunshine. There were plenty of butterflies along the cliff: sulphurs and cabbage whites, a monarch, and some lovely buckeyes. We wandered for a couple of hours, then sat to eat lunch atop a high sandy bluff overlooking the pearly waters of Lake Erie. A balmy southwest breeze blew off the water, not humid but gentle with moisture, rustling faded goldenrod and grasses.

Carolyn is an educator who recently worked at Royal Botanical Gardens attempting to set up a province-wide program aimed at reintroducing children to the outdoors. The thesis is that kids have a nature deficit (well, adults too, but let's start with kids) leading to a number of ailments ranging from obesity to attention deficit to depression.

The program didn't go anywhere, Carolyn said. Which isn't surprising. The idea has some formidable forces opposing it, technology and materialism to name two.

On the way home in the car, when she started talking about naturalist Tom Brown and coyote mentoring, the hairs on my neck stood up. Carolyn also mentioned establishing a "sit spot" in her backyard. These were the same unfamiliar concepts introduced to me on Friday night by that young man, James, who approached me at the anti-colonial Thanksgiving.

Back home I read James' zine about his experience with a sit spot and looked up the online resources he recommends. Several are related to Brown's teachings. I was intrigued by the Kamana home study naturalist training program offered by Wilderness Survival School.

The atheist skeptic is still vibrantly alive. I have misgivings about some of the things I've read today, questions about cultural appropriation and exploitation, doubts about the oxymoron of acquiring wilderness skills online, but where does this lead me? What is the probability of two unfamiliar people from completely different walks of life telling me about the same teachings within 48 hours? Especially considering it is so closely aligned with current concerns and notions about the course of my life?

Obviously the probability increases as my thoughts and conversation move in that direction. Maybe it's no coincidence, but it means something.