"ANCESTORS/förfäder" – an essay from the “Unlit Trail” liner notes

As a Pagan Buddhist, animism – the belief that all living beings and aspects of nature possess agency and consciousness – is central to my worldview and way of life. I cast the widest possible animistic net, believing not only that plants and animals are awake and alive, but also that stones, mountains, and creeks participate in the phenomena of mind. Likewise, I believe that our cherished belongings, tools, and – in particular – musical instruments awaken through use; they become imbued with life as they are woven into our lives.

It feels quite true to me that the instruments played on “Unlit Trail” are animate. Though the quality of their awareness is quite unlike my own, our relationship to one another is deep and flows through the long story of my own migrant heritage. Each instrument that appears on this record originates from either my current homeplace, or a land inhabited by my ancestors. The only exception to this affiliation is Mariam’s piano, which resounds briefly on “Beyond My Camp”. I had no previous fellowship with this instrument, but felt it appropriate to invite the piano into the recordings, as an emissary of that particular household and landscape.

The melodeon (pump organ) on “Unlit Trail” was made in Great Britain out of Finnish birch over one hundred years ago. I am also wrought from Finnish and British stock. The guitar is a 1960’s Crafton built on the west coast of Sweden, homeland to many of my förfäder. The bells played are of mixed origin, but call to mind the Bronze Age sounds of Scandinavian ancestors. The dulcimer was crafted fifty years ago in the mountains of California, the home of my family now for four generations. I play the dulcimer primarily with a bow, evoking the ringing, buzzing tones of Swedish nyckelharpas,

and the even more ancient sound of the Nordic jouhikko. I carved the reeded flute myself from a bamboo-like grass native to California. The rattle (depicted on the back cover) is simply a bundle of thin branches harvested in Big Sur from wild Bay Laurel trees. Laurel leaves have been used for millennia in numerous parts of California and Europe for purification, rite, and ritual.

"To My Fellow West Coast Inhabitants" – in response to Wildfires

To my fellow West Coast inhabitants, and in fact to all peoples and beings,

I’d just like to say, that I believe grief to be a healthy and righteous response to the ongoing reality of living with catastrophic wildfires. I grieve for the loss of human and non-human life, for loss of homes and habitat, for loss of security and confidence in the future. I grieve for our collective ecological ignorance, exploitation and self-created exile.

Joanna Macy, whom I regard as one of the great teachers of our time, has said: “Our grief for the state of the world is only the other side of our love for the world.” I will try and try again to let that sink in and be embodied.

I hope to let my grief be what it is, without expectation for it to be transformational or useful. I think it is ok to “just” feel sad, lost, angry, and everything in between. This land is our body, and we burn with it. These beings are our kin and we die with them. Our sense of separateness is the delusion that created this mess. Turning away from difficult feelings is turning away from the true state of things – it is how and why this shit keeps escalating. So I let my heart break now, as it has broken many times, as it will break many times again. And I give thanks that I continue to live, and that there is still time to change our ways.

"Kincentrism" – a few thoughts

Who is this? Not “what”, but “who”… Our language shapes our perception and contributes to patterns of behavior. The way we regard the living world is inseparable from our treatment of the living world. This plant we call Coyote Brush (Baccharis pilularis) is a living being, with agency, integrity, and consciousness… potentially quite different from our own, but no less valid or real.

Taking my cues from my teachers and Indigenous and Earth-Reverent Peoples around the globe I attempt to honor and acknowledge the being-hood of, and our kinship with, plants, animals, fungi, (and beyond) with carefully chosen words. You will hear us refer to our more-than-human relatives as “she”, “he”, or “they”, avoiding wherever possible the objectifying “it”.

Objectification is, after all, a necessary aspect of exploitation, and it is our dominant culture’s view of nature as “stuff” which allows for the extraction, abuse, and defilement that has defined the last 500-2,000 years. Reanimating the living world, shifting our collective world-view, and restoring our bonds of kinship and reverence, will not be as simple as the pronouns we choose. But we believe it has value, and is an important piece of a larger shift the Earth is crying out for.

"Mountain Mind"

Many Sutras mention mountains
Countless poems recount their nature
But all of the wisdom
Regarding the Dharma
Would fit easily
In any mountain’s shadow
Blacking out our pages
With their teaching

"Earth-Based Skills" – a few thoughts

Why take the time to learn Earth-Based Skills (wildcrafting, ancestral skills, bushcraft, etc.)? Truly there are so many reasons, but here is the core Wildtender take on the matter...

By learning and practicing Earth-based Skills we create pathways for meaningful engagement with the land and our wild kin. As our knowledge and abilities develop, we also establish new perceptual lenses through which we can view the living world with greater clarity, complexity and subtlety.

Consider also that by cultivating ancient crafts and skills, we participate in a continuum of experience that stretches back for centuries or perhaps millennia. Our “learning” is more accurately a process of remembering what it means to be a human being living in rich relationship with wild nature – as all peoples once lived. In this way, we not only experience place (landscape, plants and animals) with greater depth, but also self.

"Trailing a Lion"

One of the many wonderful things about following a wild river for days on end is the opportunity to track and trail our wild kin along the sandy shores and mud flats. While scouting the route for a backcountry trek in the Sespe wilderness, I followed the trail of a Mountain Lion for an entire afternoon. The “official trail” had washed away, so we humbly followed the lion’s lead.

This was the lion’s place. They knew it better than we ever could. They gracefully threaded through the challenging riverside terrain, slipping between boulders and behind thickets of trees to keep out of sight. While walking in the footsteps of this powerful, illusive and complex being, I found the illusion of anthropocentrism impossible to cling to.

I felt my own limitations and deep humility in the presence of a being that knows this land with total intimacy and can make a living so fully here. I encountered my fragility in the company of a mighty hunter who - fortunately - does not want me on the menu, but certainly could have me if they were so disposed.