In the short number of years I have experienced life, I have been very fortunate to learn from and alongside brilliant teachers. Ranging across the nexus of movement and embodiment, yoga and Buddhism, peace and justice, trauma and healing, the wisdom and guidance these teachers have offered has been formative in what and how I think, and how I seek to move through this world.
With some teachers, these learnings have been indirect, reading, listening, and watching from afar. I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to study with some teachers directly in person. In a few cherished relationships, I’ve had the opportunity to call some teachers colleagues and friends.
Many of these teachers are human. Many are not.
Through my haiku practice, I am learning to notice the wisdom of plants and stones, of water and wind, of sky and stars.
I walk a lot. Mostly in natural environments (if I can help it).
As my legs settle into a rhythm, footsteps echoing through my body, my gaze wanders across the landscape. Such different paces inhabit these moments – the swift step of my feet, the legato lingering of my gaze, the unhurried unfolding of the seasons. Amidst this movement, if I am quiet and curious enough in heart and in mind, I find I can hear haikus hidden around me.1 In listening to the plants and stones, water and wind, sky and stars, teachings shaped in sets of seventeen syllables inhabit my mind.
One of the most consistent sources of these teachings are ferns.
My fascination and adoration of ferns began when I first read adrienne maree brown’s book Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. brown orients toward social movement practice through biomimicry, drawing lessons from ferns, ants, mycelium, and dandelions, among others, to guide sustainable change toward more just and equitable worlds.
Ferns grow as fractals, repeated patterns that are “self-similar across different scales.”2 Applying a fractal perspective to the realm of human relationships, this suggests that what we enact at the micro scales (intra- and interpersonally) is mirrored at the macro scales (culturally and societally), and vice versa. This can be seen through the pervasiveness of violence and injustice that are perpetuated on the macro level through, for example, legislation and cultural narratives, as well as on the micro level interpersonally through verbal and physical aggression and intrapersonally through internalized oppression.
A fractal perspective also offers opportunity to effect change. As brown offers, “what we practice at the small scale sets the pattern for the whole system.” Thus, in making intentional shifts on a small scale to live in a way that is aligned with and nurturing of a world that is more peaceful and more just, we can co-create new patterning for the whole system to reflect this transformation.
This learning resonated profoundly within me, somewhere soul deep. Humbled, inspired, and nourished by this possibility, I began to turn toward ferns with greater intention and attention. Ferns, and particularly bracken ferns, have become a source of joy, solace, and endless learning. Thus, on my walks, when ferns are in a season of emergence and unfolding, I am particularly attentive to what wisdom they might offer, always with such generosity.
gift of noticing
ferns grow in unfurling hearts
reminder of love
sunlight dappled paths
trace through trees’ growing embrace
nourishment soul deep
spiraling tendrils
unfold as fractal beings
reflecting wholeness
ferns unfolding joy
scaffolding for web makers
to weave a new home
notice this earth breath
of spring’s tender emergence
beauty grown delight
practice noticing
the spaces around the space
where new forms emerge
wounds break us open
so we may recognize our
interdependence
the shards we carry
catch reflections of shared pain
refracting wholeness
unfurling through stuckness
asks for patience with process,
faith in knowing heart
joy contains sorrow
subtle seeds of connection
from which big love grows
1 With gratitude to John Paul Lederach who has been an immense influence in my haiku practice and from whom I learned this orientation to practicing haiku.
2 Quotes are sourced from brown, adrienne maree (2017). Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, California: AK Press.
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