A Language Older Than Words - Derrick Jensen [177]
Several years ago, a few days after speaking with Thomas Berry and a few days before my first encounter with the coyotes, I walked into a cold January afternoon to take care of the chickens. My breath hung white in the air. Dogs danced at my feet.
I heard in the distance the clamor of geese, then stood speechless to watch a huge v fly low overhead. I opened my mouth to say something—I didn't know what it would be—and heard my voice say three times, "Godspeed." Suddenly, and for no reason I could understand, I burst into tears. Then I ran into the house. Walking back outside later, and staring into the now empty sky, I realized that in speaking not only had I been wishing them well for their journey south but that they, too, had been using my voice and my breath to wish me just-as-well on my own just-as-difficult journey. The tears, it became clear to me, had been neither from sorrow nor joy, but from homecoming, like a sailor who has been too long at sea, and who spontaneously bursts into sobs on smelling land, and feeling those tentative first steps on solid ground, at home.
It is not possible to recover from atrocity in isolation. It is, in fact, precisely this isolation that induces the atrocities. If we wish to stop the atrocities, we need merely step away from the isolation. There is a whole world waiting for us, ready to welcome us home. It has missed us as sorely as we have missed it. And it is time to return.
Godspeed.
Acknowledgments
MEISTER ECKHART SAID THAT if the only prayer you say in your life is Thank you, that would suffice. This book is, among many other things, a prayer of thanksgiving.
Long before the first word found the page, many people helped me disentangle my thinking from civilization's sticky web. Without their support and assistance, I do not know whether I would have had the courage to start making sense of what I was experiencing, and later, to follow my experience wherever it led. This book would not have existed without countless long and loving conversations with these friends. Many of them read significant portions of the book, often through multiple drafts. Their suggestions shaped the form and content, and their enthusiasm revitalized me when my energy flagged. These people include Melanie Adcock, Jeannette Armstrong, Paul Bond, Brian Brothers, George Draffan, Molly Eichar, Bruce Hutton, Mary Jensen, Claire and John Keeble, Vicki Lopez, Laiman Mai, Julie Mayeda, Melissa McCann, John Osborn, Laurel Pederson, Carolyn Raffensperger, Royann Richardson, Lee Running, and Bethanie Walder.
My friend Julie Mayeda line-edited most of the book for me. Her ear never failed, even when mine did.
George Draffan helped me write a couple sections of the book, as part of our End Game project.
I am grateful to Sy Safransky and others at The Sun for giving me the opportunity to interview Jim Nollman, Cleve Backster, and Judith Herman.
Julie Burke did a better job of designing the book than I could ever have hoped.
I need to thank the members of my family who did their best to protect me from my father's violence: my mother, my brothers, and my sisters. I could not have survived without you.
The support of my mother has been instrumental in my recovery from the trauma of my childhood. Crucial also have been the many conversations with many of my friends listed above.
Nor could I have survived without the nonhuman others who have nurtured me all along, even when I did not know it. Stars, bees, the ponderosa pine outside my window, the coyote tree, coyotes, dogs, cats, poultry, the duck who gave me his life, the Dreamgiver, the muse, even Crohn's disease