Learning the Language of our Land

We are meant to know the land intimately.

To cultivate plants and cook with nature’s bounty.

We are meant to be in relation with the earth, the sun, and moon,

And with one another.

We are meant to be wild.

We are nature.

Every piece of land holds innumerable stories. We can see them in the smooth grooves of stone where water has trickled unrelentingly for millennia. We can see it in the shape that trees take, asymmetrical and leaning from enduring season after season of harsh winter storms. We can see the story of the landscape by reading it’s physical shape the way we’d read the curves and scars of a lover. Some lands hold stories of coalescing forces, or violent change. Some lands hold stories of abuse, and others, stories of healing. Some lands hold stories of productivity and generous offerings, while others hold stories of freedom and hope.

We can also read the stories of our land that’s hidden from our eyes by slowing down and listening with our instincts in the moment. In solitude, the wild whispers it’s deeply buried secrets. When we breathe deep and quiet our minds, the language traverses into our bodies like gently moving mist. It’s delivered in a language only our souls speak.

If we were to outline the stories of our land on a topographical map it’d be impossible to tell where one story ends and another begins. For just like our own stories, they intersect and converge in immeasurable ways. It’s impossible to dissect one without simultaneously unearthing the roots of another. This is the beauty of relationships: between us and each other, between two landscapes, and between our own wild selves and the land we inhabit. No single story can exist without sharing roots with another.

The stories of each landscape are unending, for it’s a creature that has existed for billions of years. No matter how much time we spend in the wild we’ll likely never know the breadth of which it has to say. But that doesn’t stop me from venturing nor listening. It is my desire for the knowing of such stories that leads me back into these misty mountains time and time again to the land that has cradled me since I was a babe.

This alpine terrain has raised me just as much as my parents, there’s no question about that. It babysat me as a child through countless ski days after school and on weekends. I learned to love the thrill of it’s curves, and through that grew into my own. That’s where learning the language of the land began for me, with experiencing this mountain’s stories and discovering our kindred ties. As a young adult these rugged slopes and gentle meadows of wildflowers told me stories about the constancy of change. For no storm lasts forever and new blooming life is sure to return. High upon the summits and in the depths of the valleys I learned stories about fierceness and gentility in equal measure.

In my adulthood, this land remains my unwavering companion throughout all the seasons of my life. It’s my womb when I’m weary, my foundation when I’m shaky, my muse when I’m ready. For it’s here I venture when my chest tightens, or when my brain fogs, or when I need to stand on solid ground. It’s here I venture when I need to rediscover the wisdom and wildness of my body that too often gets forgotten in our hustling world. It’s here I venture to listen, to learn, to remember, to feel, to see and be seen, and to know.