The beauty of trusting the not-knowing
Happy Sunday, Soothers. I got a lot of lovely responses to my recent essay, The Different Kinds of Knowing. I think there's a lot of relief in understanding that our stress to "prove" everything, to know the unknowable in one particular approved method, is just another form of control and domination; in short, of the patriarchy. And if we want to move into more ease, receiving, and trust of our life, it doesn't mean we abandon discernment, evidence, or scientific proof, but that we just rest a little bit into the understanding that there is something bigger in the flow here, something we can trust, and rest into.
Today, I wanted to follow up with a few examples of how things OTHER than us, aka humans, often "know" better than we do, and that can give us some peace and release.
What I'm really talking about here is the concept that most of us unconsciously believe, that humans are the only ones who can "know" something.
But what I believe is that other things know, and even moreso, they often know better than us.
This is what I mean: I’m an animist, which simply means I believe that all beings, humans, animals, plants, lands, and waters, and even inanimate structures and objects, are alive and live within an interconnected web. They have their own consciousness, their own way of knowing, and their own agency. Yes, the creek behind my house. Yes, the church up the road. Yes, the plants in the ground. Yes, the earth herself. Heck, even my dishwasher. Those things KNOW.
I've written more about animism in these following essays, and I invite you to read them today too, if you haven't yet:
So today, let's talk about the concept of knowing as related to animism, and trusting, resting in the fact, that we humans are not the only ones who "know" what "should" happen, or what is "best" for things to move forward.
Plants have knowings that we humans cannot access: I'm reading the excellent book, Energetic Herbalism, by Kat Maier, for my year-long herbalism apprenticeship I'm doing this year. (At Wild Roots Apothecary in Virginia, highly recommend it and the store!). Maier writes, "Herbalist Phyllis Light taught that it is an herbalist's task to observe which plants are in greater profusion than usual each season and to gather those medicines, because they will be especially needed for that year. In the summer of 2001, I was amazed by all the mullein—it seemed to be growing everywhere. I dutifully increased the amount I harvested because I had seen Phyllis's teaching prove true in the past. After the shocking and tragic losses of September 11, 2001, an outbreak of prolonged cases of bronchitis such as I had never seen occurred in my area. I was living in rural Virginia, far from the dust resulting from any of the explosions, so physical irritants were not the cause. In energetic terms, though, the lungs are a place where the body processes grief, so the intense cases of bronchitis weren't such a mystery. Mullein is a gentle yet profound healer for the respiratory system. I was glad to have a plentiful supply to address the healing needs of that deeply sad time."
This other herbalist talks about getting a bumper crop of lungwort, right as COVID hit us in 2020.
What gorgeousness is there in resting into the trust that the plants can know what we might need before it arrives, and they grow in excess so they can help us?
The Gaia Theory: Maier also writes of this theory, developed by chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. They proposed the Gaia Theory, which essentially states that the earth is endowed with the ability to communicate across species to provide homeostasis and balance across the globe. "Margulis and Lovelock describe planet Earth as a self-regulating being who automatically adjusts the temperature, salinity of the ocean, and atmospheric content in response to changes in the ecosystem." The Gaia Theory came immediately to my mind when a group of my friends were discussing Ezra Klein's recent podcasts on why the birth rate is dropping across the world. Families even in wealthy nations with great family policies, are having fewer children. Why? I mean, there are definitely a lot of obvious causes that humans are considering when making this choice — climate change for one, or being able to find fulfillment and purpose outside of having children, or plenty of other reasons. As somebody who has chosen to not have children, I absolutely understand the human whys. But the Gaia Theory also immediately flew to my mind. Isn't it possible that in some ways the earth is self-regulating our population levels through a global desire to have fewer children, because its innate intelligence understands that this is what it might need to have any hope of balance? (Also it will never stop being hilarious to me that humans seem to think we can know or understand better than the billions-year-old organism that literally created us. Earth DEFINITELY knows more than all of us.)
The church up the road: A month after we moved into our small town, a historic church up the road, that a local older couple had turned into a residence, caught fire in the roof. A contractor was doing some repairs, apparently a spark caught in the roof's insulation, and before anybody knew it, the entire roof was up in flames. The town watched the roof burn the rest of the day before the fire was put out. The couple got out safely, thank god, and were able to find new housing, but because of personal issues the couple was dealing with, and insurance challenges, the church stayed with that roof burned open, exposed to the elements, for over a year. Every time I would walk past the church I felt extreme grief, to see a historic structure like that crumbling. But one day I was walking past and I got a sense from the church, as if it wanted me to know this: That I didn't know what it needed. It did. That structure might have had a lot of pain and darkness associated with it; it had been created when there was a split in the Methodist church over slavery in the 1840s. That church up the road? It was the church of the Methodists who desired to keep slaves. Maybe the burning and the year-long exposure to the elements, to the rain and wind and snow, was what the church had decided it needed to purge or cleanse its energy, to heal its space.
Last month, the church was sold by the couple who had lived there to a new couple who live in town and have a lot of financial resources and are rebuilding the roof and upgrading everything. And now a new era for this building will start. And who's to say it didn't need to go through what it did?
Finally, this quote from Pema Chödrön is so important to me: "When we think that something is going to bring us pleasure, we don’t know what’s really going to happen. When we think something is going to give us misery, we don’t know. Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. We try to do what we think is going to help. But we don’t know. We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may be just the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know."
So how can we begin resting into, relaxing into, trusting into the idea, that we alone, don't have to know it all? Can you soften into trust? That things know how to take care of themselves, that there may be a wiser way that us humans can't always see, know, or prove?
Rest into that trust, like leaning back into a soft pillow that wants to provide comfort for you, and see if you can simply, exhale.