Hold Still

Here's a strange little confession – or more of a quirky observation, really: Many of my most intimate encounters with nature happen when I'm tucked behind some shrub, drawers down, having a (for lack of a more elegant word) pee. And it's not that there are grasses brushing or bugs biting my bum. It's that, for however brief a time (thirty seconds, maybe?), I am still. I am still and I see what is right in front of me: minuscule lichen and fungi colonizing a log in apricot and pastel green, ants carrying spruce needles like so much lumber, the arc scribed in the snow by a wind-bent shaft of grass.

It's embarrassing that it takes a pee break to enable this noticing. In theory, I'm all about slowing down and being observant; in practice, my body tends toward perpetual movement, my mind toward perpetual thought. But, captive in a crouched position, a plein-air pee becomes an enforced stillness for me. At that height, under partial concealment, a particular perspective emerges.

I once found an incredible mushroom this way just off our bike path in New Zealand, its electric blue only coming into focus when I paused for a half-minute with nothing to do but stare at the mossy slope before me. On other occasions, when I've "hit the trees" so to speak and silenced my skis, my ears have picked up on that most gladdening sound of a winter creek burbling beneath its skim of ice. Just yesterday, on one of my standard walks, I locked eyes with a squirrel, cone in its mouth – just two creatures regarding one another, as though I might actually belong as a natural inhabitant of that forest as much as him. Small, but significant encounters – and all because my bladder demanded I stop.

This all sounds like an exhortation to get out there and really savour those wilderness pees – and, sure, I do recommend it! But what it has me thinking is how profound a shift we might see if we held still more often. What might we learn about our non-human planet-mates just by doing a bit of humble looking, listening, feeling...and what might we learn about ourselves?

There can be an almost frenetic compulsion to be doing more in our lives – we should be learning new skills, buying new furniture, exploring new places (and posting about them), sleeping more, earning more, signing our kids up for more. Even those "good deeds" we ought to be doing: planting more trees, attending rallies, keeping up on all the issues, making more ethical purchases, donating to more causes...might they sometimes be better substituted with stillness, attention? I wonder if what the world could use is a whole lot of us doing less – less purchasing, less worrying, less knee-jerk solving, less driving and flying, less judging. Imagine if every human did absolutely nothing for a minute, nothing except absorbing what other life is right there around them. I think the earth would feel a profound sense of relief. And for our part, we might remember what we're actually a part of here, reclaim some membership by simply being present to the myriad other lives and processes just the other side of any tree, bush, or rock. Then, we might better know how to act in their service...once we stand, pull our pants back up, and strike out on the trail again.