mallard duck feather
Put away your books and electronics to be with what is real. Let me explain: books and words are real and so are our phones and computers and everything that is online. But they are all made up by us and all about us, not the wider world that we live in. They can describe the wider world but they are not the wider world in which we are intertwined and depend on.
Plants and animals and even the rocks, clouds, rivers, and mountains all move in time as do we. While we are quite aware that we relate to and learn from other people, we can also relate to and learn from other animate beings. If you think about it, most of our time on earth we had to pay closer attention to other creatures and our environment just as they continue to pay attention to us. We still have that ability hard-wired into us, it is just dampened for most of us as we live in cities and in our books and phones and computers.
For instance, a bird you are watching is certainly aware of and relating to you in some way. There is a back and forth. It isn’t merely a product of your imagination as popular culture often pooh poohs. It is a real thing.
I often sit still with a feather in my hand, letting the busyness drain away. The feather speaks, not in words, but in a different kind of perception often akin to a kinesthetic feeling. Or it may be a knowing that doesn’t seem to just be a product of my thoughts or imagination but somehow also involves the feather.