On being with nature..

Or is it in nature? A self talk on how to be an observer of the natural world, without imposing myself on it.. somewhat fear driven..!

Welcome if this is your first, or your last time seeing this..

Dear reader and friend. I hope your spring is springing,

There’s nothing more interesting than being in the middle of nature. Being part of it, or being a witness on it.

I spent a couple of days in the middle of Virginia, not so close to the Virginia Tech campus, attending a delayed graduation for one of my close friends. He finished his PhD, and asked us to join him. This whole trip has been a mess from its planning all the way to the way it ended. It was crises everywhere.

It started with a graduation that was delayed for 3 semesters, delayed planning, after delayed planning, and when it finally came to flying day, it was even more delays. My best friend is a horrible planner. Very smart indeed. But horrible at being a travel friend. I’ve known him for 20 years, so I don’t think I can escape this relationship anymore. Anyhowwwww….

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The highlight of the trip was not the fact that I saw a best friend graduate, or the fact that university advisors, alongside their graduated students wearing kufeyyahs above their robes and on top of their PhD hoods. There is a rising consensus and conscience on native rights, and the land rights of the natives globally has only reinforced the Palestinian cause in a nation that has been built on stolen land. The only difference is that the US was able to effectively wipe-out populations in the millions, while they were not able to do so in historical Palestine, and it keeps getting harder.

This was my first time spending more than a day in nature for some time now. I used the little time of a 2-day trip to go for somewhat of a trail run, half of it based on the fact that the airbnb our friend rented (and in some ways failed miserably, given the fact we had to work remote with no wifi, but also succeeded significantly in giving us seclusion and nature), the airbnb was on a dirt road up a hill..

So, recognizing the fact that I’m in a completely foreign nature, I took off my headphone even though I had them on awareness mode, and ran.. Nothing serious was going on but sounds like these:

And sightings of beautiful meadows and rolling hills..

Recognizing I’m completely foreign, in a land I was stereotyping as non-welcoming to people like myself, I was making sure I was waving to every passer by on their car, and making sure to acknowledge people on their porches. Maybe 3-4 miles into my run, I hear this pack of massive dogs trying to jump a fence to attack me basically, luckily these dogs were leashed and I still had the wits about me to stop running for a bit and just walk slowly just in case one of the dogs was able to jump the fence, then, I wouldn’t be able to escape dogs that size…

So, I keep my calm knowing that I’ve never had a threatening encounter with dogs before since I didn’t grow up around dogs or even having to learn how to respond to an attacking dog.. What surprised me that their owner never cared to show up to check on them or anything, just let the dogs bark until I wasn’t in the near vicinity of the dogs.

I keep running for another half a mile, and I hear this barking getting closer and closer, and then I realize there’s this massive doberman running full speed in my direction unleashed, and the moment I see it I turn towards it and charge for a second. Realizing the invisible leash/fence on its neck, I decided not to trust it given the size of the animal and decided to stay still for a minute or two, looking at the dog until it started barking less.. In my head, I was thinking: “ok, two attempts now, let me just turn around..”

So, I turn around, and head back to our staying place, passing again by the pack of dogs on alert for me passing by and wanting to jump at me outside their leashes and fences. Going back to the secluded part of the dirt road, I stop for a second.. Recognizing the sounds around me..

And it was just a beautiful sound that I needed to record, and return to.

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Continuing my run, wanting to get the 6 miles I intended to reach, because I was just in so much fun being alone, doing one of the favorite things I love doing. Passing the top of the dirt road, and going downhill, I hear some bustling in the valley below, and I thought: it should be the deer I saw earlier, it just reached here. So I continue.

10 seconds later, I hear a barking dog, and I immediately start thinking I really don’t want to be chased again, so I stop to turn around.. I hear the busting in the valley below again, and I try to get closer to look from the edge, and I see two cubs, and the moment I did I ran to the other side of the road, away from the ridge in order not to be noticed by their mom.. So I move to other side of the ridge, and stand for a couple of seconds, waiting something to charge at me or anything.. Luckily, nothing did.. Recognizing I haven’t been smelled or heard, I gave it all to escape from the periphery of the mama bear and its cubs..

But yeah, it was fun.. 🙃

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We have invaded so much of the natural world, to the extent that we have infringed on so many forms of life beyond repair.

Our human but inhumane inclination to dominate the world has led us to endanger much of each other’s ways of life.. Humanity’s obsession with conquering land never stops to this day. This obsession translated in so many ways to obliteration of many indenginous ways of living that was in harmony with its natural surroundings.

I’m reminded by the Iñupiaq whale hunting as being with nature, but not in it. The significance of the act of whale hunting doesn’t render itself to recreation and ‘fun’ rather something a lot more meaningful.

“To hunt whales, we believe, was gifted to us by the Creator. And with that comes a responsibility to honor that life in everything that we do; from preparation to hunting to what we do with a whale after a successful hunt and making sure that every part is utilized and has its place in spiritual activities.” - Timothy Greene, Makah Tribe chairman.¹

This encounter reminded me that there is a distinction between being within nature, but not an intruder on the natural world, and being ‘an active’ part of it. It has been obvious that most of our impact on the natural isn’t positive, neither to us nor to the world we seek to dominate and change all the time. Even when we try to positively influence the natural world, we generally do not succeeded.

This divorce between the natural & the human world comes to us as a result of industrialization and ‘technological advancement’. It’s absurd and ironic how we coin the term ‘progress’ for objective destruction of ways of life that has kept us alive for as long as we can remember. We have completely lost the plot of what it means to progress. This divorce has been so absurd that right now we are returning to the ‘ancient ways’ of agriculture because it has worked for us for thousands of years. We just call it ‘regenerative agriculture’ because we’re too prideful to recognize defeat.

For that reason, I recognize that I was running with nature, not in it, because I do not want to interfere with it..

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Defeat on so many levels.

Recognizing defeat is what the Empire is doing through its actions.

Protest after protest, authorities get more violent. And when violence is a perceived solution for authorities, it is a declaration of loss in the realm of ideas. This is what Western Imperialism is facing: an absolute defeat in the realm of ideas against the cause of Palestine, and against the justification of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

When you cannot knock an idea down, you knock its people down. This is the last solution of the losing powers. Nowhere in the world this tactic was able to sustain itself, however how long it took. The fact that the Empire is retorting to violence, is its own admission that it has no other solution against the rising consciousness of hundreds of millions of people, in understanding and supporting the right of the indigenous people in their own lands.

But there’s no escape, India was under occupation for more than 300 years. Algeria was under occupation for 130 years, and so on.. It all fell.. Similar to Palestine, this occupation will fall too.. With the support of millions of people, bound by nothing but the moral obligation against demolition, death, and negation of the rights of people, on behalf of an empire that recognizes that sees its sunset in the horizon..

We just want to tell those who came after us that we didn’t sit still, and we chose the side of the oppressed..

Till the next one..

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Other things:

📚: Malcolm X Speaks, collected by George Breitman. A collection of his speeches in the last year of his life. It’s like hearing him speak.

🎵: I was asked this question: “What’s the one album that you’ll listen to for the rest of your life if you only had one album to listen to?” and my thoughts came to “The Source” by Ali Farka Toure. Thinking about it, maybe I could’ve chosen something else by him still.

Here’s something I want to listen to for a long time.

If you want to hear yours truly talk about what running is to me, or just laugh about how excited I get when I talk about things I care about, and realize the fine line between ‘hilarity/idiocy/obsessions/joy’, give it a listen.

1. For more on whale hunting, and its ancestral/aboriginal connection to traditions: https://civileats.com/2022/02/08/revival-indigenous-subsistence-whaling-inupiaq-makah-wampanoag/