A Prayer for Poison Oak

Food to countless animals, poisonous to only one: man, Rhus diversiloba (Poison Oak) is the gatekeeper and guardian of the sacred wild lands of the North American West. In my region, the Central Coast, Rhus reigns supreme – climbing trees and fences, crawling low like a vine, filling drainage ditches, and rising up proudly at the borderland of every highway, road, and trail. Rhus the Cartographer draws deep lines in the sand, making property rights plain. He seems to say “this land is our land: plant land, bird and beast land, spirit land; and this land is your land: people land… for now.” Indeed Rhus is ready to take back what we leave.

First to arrive when the soil is turned over and plants are uprooted – populating old clear-cut grazing land, reclaiming it and holding fast. Rhus appears, nearly overnight, in the scarred landscape as if to say: “never again”. Poison Oak grows on the fringes of nearly every trail, and makes his presence known at the trailhead too, fair warning right from the start – the wild land is fiercely protected, it would be unwise to stray from the trail.

In the past I have suffered greatly from Poison Oak. Twice a rash has consumed my face, swelling my eyes shut. Once the tenacious oil even managed to enter my blood stream, and the rash spread over my entire body (save the palms of my hands and bottoms of my feet), my skin was so dry that it cracked and bled. Two shots of amphetamine and a month long course of steroids were needed to overcome The Oak. It is safe to say I am intimately familiar with the power of this plant. It is said that a pin-head of Rhus oil could cover the entire surface of a swimming pool, and effect everyone in it. Anthropologists have actually acquired rashes from handling Native American artifacts that sat in the ground for several hundred years – the oil can wait, Rhus is a patient sentinel.

One can hardly blame Poison Oak for taking a hard line, some of us are kind stewards of the land, but for the most part a weaponized plant community seems like a really reasonable reaction to our trampling and greedy species. Rhus keeps people out, he holds space for other beings, and he is powerful enough to do so. I honor him for his vigilance, and for his checks and balances. I have looked many times beyond a sea of red and green leaves to find, with an ache in my heart, a pristine beach, a deep swimming hole, or an unspoiled grove beyond my reach – blocked by Poison Oak. I honor Rhus still, acknowledging that it is okay, even good, that some places are out-of-bounds. By keeping people at an arms length from certain wild spaces Rhus teaches us that we don’t need to conquer, colonize, or even physically touch a beautiful place to appreciate it, commune with it, or inhabit it. In this way the Poison is very effective medicine.

So despite my own longing for untrammeled places, and painful physical history with this plant, I offer the following prayer for Poison Oak, this grace for Rhus, a veneration of his power, his medicine, and tireless work…

I venerate you Shapeshifter, in all your forms: red, golden, green, and dormant stick manifestations. I honor you Sentry at the trail mouth, Shrewd Witness from the fringes. I honor you Foot Soldier in the field – you Warrior in the high and low lands, in the wood, in the valley, on the mountain, by the river, the lake, the ocean – you Guardian, Gatekeeper, Watchman – you Squatter, Undeveloper, Restorationist, Preservationist. I honor you Offering, giving to many what was given first to you by the sun, you Merchant of Energy. I honor you Freedom Fighter, you Activist, defending the equal right of all beings to sacred lands. I give thanks to you Poison Oak, Rhus diversiloba, for the places I will never tread, for the blank spaces on the map that remain blank, for the mystery you maintain. May your magic garden be forever beautiful, and may the Leaves of Three always be. Amen, or (if you prefer) Aplants.

World Literature

A muddy hoof print, coyote scat filled with bones, a blood tinged feather. The world speaks with signs.

Crooked calligraphy in a mossy branch, a Stonehenge ring of toadstools, tall thistles bending into an archway. The world speaks in symbols.

A bumblebee rolling in a flower, bull sea lions slapping fat necks in combat, a rattlesnake shedding its first skin. The world speaks in moments.

New growth on a charcoaly redwood; the full swing of the seasons; evaporation, clouds, rain, rivers, creeks, and oceans: the complete water-table. The world speaks in circles.

A wave rolling in, hail on gravel, a boulder rumbling down stream, a rockslide, thunder. Wind: through dry grass, among eucalyptus branches, whistling past a cliff face. Ice cracking, brush under foot, wingbeats. The world speaks.

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This World Literature is the subject of much writing and contemplation, by myself and countless others, stretching back long before a crude wall divided the world of man and the world of nature. Indeed many of us write and think about the wild because its presence in our lives is like a phantom limb, long gone, but still felt – and, of course, the stump is obvious.

The Wild is a vast physical place, and it is a habitat for mind as much as body. I see Wilderness as a knowledge system, not to be deconstructed, rather to be experienced in its completeness. Each being, thing, or event in the wild, is the wild. Every anything is a sentence in a chapter in a story, and each sentence stands alone, a complete tale told perhaps with a single syllable. In this wild library books are nested within books within words within letters. The headwaters of creation flow infinitely in all directions. The present moment is experienced in all places simultaneously. The axis of the Universe turns on every point in the Universe. Aha!

It goes without saying, the library is full of adventure and wisdom – cost of admission is careful attention, a peaceful mind, respect, and playfulness. And you have to leave human chatter at the threshold, like all libraries, it’s best to be quiet.

"Down to Earth – Reflections on Humanity in the Esalen Farm and Garden" by Noël Vietor

Recently a President of an enormous corporation based in South Korea joined the Esalen Farm and Garden morning harvest as a volunteer. As I set him up to harvest kale, he said, “I know this is simple work but I imagine there must be more to it. How do you do this? How do you connect with this land and these plants?”

I picked up a handful of the garden soil and encouraged him to do the same. I gave him my rap: “After winter rain, our soil appears in high contrast between black humus resulting from forty years of tender stewardship, and glimmering shards of abalone, remnants of the native Essalen people who dwelled here up to 5,000 years ago. The Esalen land has a powerful ancestry, and farming is appropriately ancient work. We Farmers and Gardeners feel a deep sense of honor continuing this sacred practice of cultivating soil, plants and spirit.”

As a businessman in Seoul with a 4-hour daily commute, he could not remember having touched soil in decades. “This is very special for me,” he said, eyes twinkling.

I love facilitating a visitor’s reconnection of body, mind and spirit to the earth through this work. In our modern societies and cultures, we are “richer” and longer living than ever before — yet a feeling of emptiness or disconnection persists en masse. We meet our basic needs through the purchase of goods or services, curating rather than creating the material of our existence. Is it possible that the self-sufficient acts of our ancestors — growing food; weaving clothes; concocting soap; building houses — were fundamentally creative, expressive aspects of humanity, which we unknowingly ache and long for now?

As Brother David Steindl-Rast reminded me recently, “humus”, the dark decomposed material in soil, reveals its sacred power through its etymologic connection to “human”, “humor” and “humility”. This supports my belief that growing beautiful food humbly expresses my creativity, connects me to my body, the universe and the present moment, and reforms my conditioned conception of “richness”. My mentor and Farm and Garden Manager Shirley Ward regularly rejoices “We’re rich!” as hearty beets or neon pink chard emerge gloriously in the morning hours.

We plant the seeds of our wild ideas now, and as former Farm and Garden Manager Steve Beck once wrote, “look forward with the hope that arrives every spring” to see what germinates in the coming years.

Noël Vietor serves as Coordinator of the Esalen Farm and Garden – Esalen is an educational retreat center in Big Sur California

On the Long Trail with Raven & Crow

I was riding my bike along 16^th Street, scowling as I passed my least favorite yoga studio in the universe. Upon turning onto Dolores I heard two ravens calling in alternating rhythm from the tall steeple of a church. Dark clouds loomed in the distance and rain began to fall. I thought to myself, a bit sadly, this is the most metal moment of my life.

Setting aside my longing for a more metal-mythic experience, I actually wish to discuss our cousins the crows and ravens, and their whole stately named family: Animalia Chordata Aves Passerformes Corvidae. Our relationship stretches back into time immemorial; in fact, the Corvidae tribe enters the fossil record about 17 million years back, we appear in our earliest form just 4 million years ago.

Crows and ravens are primarily scavengers, although I have seen a crow snatch a still squeaking mouse out of the tall grass. There is an assumption among many people (lay and scientifically minded alike) that predators possess the greatest intelligence among animals. We marvel, and rightly so, at the way a lion pride mounts its attack on a zebra herd – they carefully control and study the herd’s movement, identify the weakest member, and then isolate and overpower them.

The need to track prey, interpret signs, remain inconspicuous, and (in some species) organize hunting parties, surely requires a thinking brain. Some scavengers, however, seem to posses a cunning that far outstrips that of a predator, able, as they are, to thrive in the world with considerably less effort. “Work smarter, not harder” said Scrooge McDuck, world’s richest duck, and coincidentally a distant relative of this essay’s subjects.

Ravens will sometimes lead a wolf pack to prey, knowing that they can pick at the carcass when the dogs are done. Indeed Raven would do the same for our ancestors, leading indigenous hunters to herbivores unawares. This action may seem simple, so permit me to break it down for you: the raven finds a still living, large animal that he would like to eat, he knows he is incapable of killing it, so he sets off to locate a suitably intelligent and strong predator, or group of predators, somehow he communicates his intention and leads the way to the prey, the predators kill it for him, and he waits his turn to eat.

This behavior denotes a level of awareness present in the animal kingdom that I seldom hear dialog about, and even less so in regards to birds specifically. Raven seems to know the animals and their roles. He knows who eats whom, and where to find both. He can dream of an outcome and bring it into being, devise a plan and act upon it. He not only participates in the (eco) system, but also observes it, spectates from above, and arranges the players to his best advantage.

Crow and Raven loom quite large in the mythos of many primary cultures, often taking on the archetype of Guide, or Watchman; their ontological role reflecting their keen awareness and “real world” habits. Additionally many members of the Corvidae family possess an ability to mimic. Certain African and European raven species can repeat human words. A Norwegian acquaintance of mine had a pet raven that called him Pappa in a croaky voice (making him the most metal dude I’ve ever met, by a wide margin). The stellar jays (also Corvidae) of my watershed do pitch perfect imitations of redtailed hawks. It follows that in many majik traditions Crow is given to shape shifting. Some sorcerers are allied with these birds and can transform into crows themselves. Don Juan, Carlos Castaneda’s mentor, was a famous Crow Magician.

So, do the roles, behaviors, and abilities of beings in this world shape our myths? Or does the Subtle World of Spirit inform this Solid Place? I prefer to sit on the fence here. Not because I am afraid to commit to an opinion, but because I think it is entirely possible, even likely, that both are true. The World, spirit or otherwise, is created and discovered in the same moment. Which is to say an act of discovery is an act of creation, which is to say an act of creation is an act of discovery… now that’s a long and winding path! May Raven lead the way.

(paintings by John James Audubon)

"Mushroom Haiku" & "At the Middle" – John Cage

Listen, if you will, to the gentle voice of John Cage – Rinpoche of the west, Lllama to the avante guard.

Necromancy & Fossil Fuels

Long have I dwelt on the cosmic irony of our Fossil Fuel Culture. Our plant ancestors once lay at peace in their immeasurably old burial grounds, the most sacred grounds of our greatest grandparents; the ancient sustainers of the atmosphere, prodigium of consciousness.

We drag them up, wake them from their long deserved rest, and drive them like an endless zombie army. Enslave the plants of old, drink greedily of their untold power, and make them do great and menial things for our “advancement”.

We borrow from the dead, awaken our fossil family, but in our arrogance and drive, we did not take the time to learn the art of Necromancy. We disturb the spirits, but do not speak to them, and cannot listen either. It seems they may have offered some warning, perhaps a few choice words to throw our hubris into relief. The old mystics knew that you cannot live with the dead, and go on living; eventually the world of the dead becomes your world.

You were not honored Plant People, Great Ancestors, and this hard-handed lesson, is no less than we deserve. But I do ask for forgiveness, so that the Council of Beings might not all pay for our single species foolishness, and so we might have a chance to open a new age of reverence and love beyond “progress”.