The closest I came to losing myself to the beauty and majesty of the natural world when a child were the pre-teen years in Fayetteville, New York when I spent fantastical moments alone in the woods near my house. I knew that if I walked quietly and carefully, I might come upon a sole, surviving member of the Onondaga tribe, a lone, deerskin-clad brave who, for reasons only understood by my pubescent self, had somehow survived when everyone else from his tribe had either died or had been relocated to an unspecified somewhere. Out West, maybe. At ten, I was fuzzy on the details. And for reasons only understood by him, this sole survivor had chosen to live, resilient and independent, near me! Sensing that brave’s presence, I reverently walked on my tiptoes through the silent woods, carefully avoiding branches or twigs; anything that might snap. I didn’t want to frighten him. I didn’t want him to flee. I’d wanted to come upon him unexpectedly. Like I would do many times in my life, I lost myself in make-believe I half-believed, an early-on form of magical thinking I’d succumb to many times—like in high school, the night before a test, placing my chemistry textbook under my pillow so that valence numbers would, presto chango, transfer to my adolescent brain.
Years later, I’d read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass to discover that, indeed, the Onondaga people were still very much alive, and were, in fact actively praying for their precious land—the very land, in Onondaga County, I’d explored at ten. And later yet I was to come across the phrase, “a conscious stillness,” coined by Thoreau, which certainly comes much closer to describing what I’d sensed at ten.
For, indeed, I had not been alone. A conscious stillness surrounded me. Something deep, silent, alive, emergent accompanied me. The same Force which causes mushrooms to spring up overnight was there. Creatures who’d ceased their rustlings and their songs when I walked in their midst quietly waited for me to pass by.
And, perhaps most important of all, now I understand that the prayers of the Onondaga people filled the air.