I am excited to announce the publication of Dark Matter: Women Witnessing-Dreams Before Extinction.
Comprised of works selected from the first 10 years of publication of the online journal Dark Matter: Women Witnessing (www.darkmatterwomenwitnessing.com), it contains essays, poems, and artwork by 67 women—all of it responding to the many forms of devastation we face in these times. Both the writing and artwork draw on dreams, visions, activism, and communications with the nonhuman world.
The collection is edited by Lise Weil, Gillian Goslinga, Kristin Flyntz and Anne Bergeron, and is grouped into nine sections with titles inspired by pieces in the anthology: To Witness, Fired Anew:What it Takes to Heal, The Grammar of Animacy, What We Know in Our Bones, Songs of Undoing, I Am Nothing without My Dead, Healing with Land and Ancestors, The Music of Grief, and What it Takes to Breach. The book has been a long time coming, and alas, has never been more timely.
I have two pieces of writing included in this anthology: Aspen Ways of Knowing, about my relationship and communication with the aspen forest near my home, and Lac Café Medley, written along with some of my fellow Dark Matter writers, which is a collection of communications with many species on the question of responding to extinction and the idea of “extinction illness.”
Here is an excerpt from Aspen Ways of Knowing:
I am in the mountains on a solo hike, on a trail that I know best as a cross country ski trail. As I walk among the aspen, opening all of my internal and external senses in a kind of walking meditation, I sense a pulsing, low, humming…a vibration that I “hear” and feel with my entire body, though it is not audible to my ears.
It is similar to the vibration that I sometimes feel in the ocean when I am with the whales…or like the low-frequency sounds that elephants use to communicate with each other across vast distances. The pulsing energy moves in my cells, through the boundaries of my skin, and my whole body feels as though it is expanding in every direction into the space around me in the forest.
I pause, feeling the waves of energy, consciousness, and the intelligence of the Aspen People. I understand that I am being given an invitation to breathe with them, to feel their respiration, to sense their energy exchange with sun, wind, and sky (aspen photosynthesize through their bark as well as their leaves) and to glimpse their vast awareness of time, space, distance.
I realize that if I try to allow my body to match their rhythm, slowing my breath down as much as possible, I’ll be here for several hours, pulsing in and out with each wave. I also realize that I can’t do that…or I’ll be spending the night unprepared on the mountain.
The moment this thought moves through me, I feel the aspen respond…their rhythm speeds up–shifts–just for a short time–just enough so that I can feel it in my human body. They communicate this directly to me–working with my energy field–so that I can more deeply understand and resonate with their frequency.
I stop, open, and allow my energy body to continue to expand. My legs grow long, extending into the earth, until they meet the aspen root, a long, horizontal root from which the shoots of the clone arise. I allow my body to plug in, to join with the energy of this root system, to connect with its life force, its intelligence. I feel the aspens’ vast understanding of long stretches of time…and my limited human perspective in my small body, individual awareness, and short life span.
I become aware that I am in contact with…literally, standing in/above/below/among, one of the greatest, wisest, oldest consciousnesses of the planet. Whether old clones or young in our human conception of time, these exquisitely sensitive and aware beings are ancient elders who carry immense wisdom, vision, and perspective. I am filled with an overwhelming understanding that my human viewpoint is so small, so limited. I can barely touch what the aspen know and hold. I bow my head in humility and in gratitude for the presence of these great beings.
As I open to this awareness, I feel again the low hum…the vibration…so similar to what I feel with the whales. I look up, and in the fissure of the bark of an older stem/tree, there is the image of a breaching whale.
No wonder I feel the whales here, I realize. The aspen and the whales know each other…land and sea…and they swim in the same rivers of vast cosmic wisdom.
Bark…skin…breath…life…joy…wisdom…grace…
There are so many wonderful essays, poems, photography, and art in this collection, by so many deeply insightful, visionary and talented writers, including Deena Metzger, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Michaela Harrison, and so many more. I’m honored to have my writing be included in this anthology, and to be in conversation with others of all species about our walk together in these times.
Order Dark Matter: Women Witnessing–Dreams Before Extinction:
Or ask your library or local bookseller to carry it!
If you order and read this anthology, I’d love to hear your responses.
