The rivers move through my veins

The full moon appeared in the distance behind a sea of old maples and pines, bright, bold, and beautiful. I watched it float behind a wispy cloud’s thin veil and create a work of art for all of us who were lucky enough to witness it on the wild land.

I just spent 4 days in the woods at the Jamhouse community’s inaugural festival. It was a co-created weave of friendship, music, and connection to things larger than ourselves. It was an offering and a remembering—a reminder of the weave that binds us with all things.

After a long wave of movement, travel, and responsibilities, it felt deeply refreshing to immerse myself in nature with a group of lovely humans for a few days. Packing for a family camping trip is stressful, but once we got there, something tangible lifted off my shoulders. It’s a joy to be able to step offline for a few days and embrace the refreshing simplicity of flowing spring water, dirt, mud, and a biting dawn cold.

I’ve been sitting with a word: interbeing.

It was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh:

“About thirty years ago I was looking for an English word to describe our deep interconnection with everything else. I liked the word “togetherness,” but I finally came up with the word “interbeing.” The verb “to be” can be misleading, because we cannot be by ourselves, alone. “To be” is always to “inter-be.” If we combine the prefix “inter” with the verb “to be,” we have a new verb, “inter-be.” To inter-be and the action of interbeing reflects reality more accurately. We inter-are with one another and with all life.

There is a biologist named Lewis Thomas, whose work I appreciate very much. He describes how our human bodies are “shared, rented, and occupied” by countless other tiny organisms, without whom we couldn’t “move a muscle, drum a finger, or think a thought.” Our body is a community, and the trillions of non-human cells in our body are even more numerous than the human cells. Without them, we could not be here in this moment. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to think, to feel, or to speak. There are, he says, no solitary beings. The whole planet is one giant, living, breathing cell, with all its working parts linked in symbiosis.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Being in the forest, I’m constantly reminded that nothing in this world exists in isolation. Air infused with fresh pine and cedar fills my lungs, feeds my cells with oxygen, and moves through me without a conscious thought. Every step in the mud leaves a footprint behind; every thought, belief, and action that we take ripples through our bodies and out into the world.

All of the water in my body once moved in the Earth’s rivers, streams, and oceans. A quick calculation tells me that my body is made up of ~46 liters of water. Whatever the number is, it’s going up because I’m drinking chamomile tea (from flowers we grew in our garden) as I write this. I watered those flowers with tap water that’s pulled and processed from the St. Lawrence River, water that flows 250 kilometers from Lake Ontario and picked up God-knows-what along the way.

All of the minerals in my body came from the Earth’s rock, stone, and soil. The human microbiome comprises trillions of other organisms that live in and on my body.

What I think of as “my body” is actually a shapeshifting entity—a dynamic, ever-changing ecosystem that listens and responds to the wider ecosystem around me, the wider body of the Earth.

This weekend was a welcome reminder to slow down and breathe; to open my senses to the world around me instead of getting stuck in tunnel vision and inflating my personal circumstances. I’m reminded that I can pause and remember my place in the dance at any moment, even in the craziest of times. It’s easy to forget when I feel bogged down by the throes of life.

I’m back in the city now, but the taste of the forest lingers in my lungs and leaves me feeling humbled. Humbled by the richness of nature’s hum. Humbled by the living vessel I call my body. Humbled by the mystery that binds us all.