i have started to consider this past summer as my season of hammock therapy. i spent a fair amount of time in my hammock reading…lots and lots of reading, but mostly i listened.

i heard the early morning birds, the late night birds, the coyotes, i listened for the lobos that are returning. i heard animals walking through the dry grass. the wind through the trees and the ropes holding me aloft. i heard rivers and streams, and the ground soaking in the rain.

and i heard my breath.

i heard my heart pumping.

i got quiet and still

i searched inward.

i’ve never really gone to formal therapy, for various reasons. and it is only recently that i have thought of hammock time as therapy time, and since i have, it makes me wonder how do people go to therapy for an hour once a week or once a month and heal what they are working on? no judgement, just wonder. for me, spending a coupe hours out hiking or biking or running for my “therapy” i feel great for the rest of the day, maybe two or three. then i can see myself sliding back into the behaviors and habits.

i guess some professions call this extended time away from work as a sabbatical. i saved up money so i wouldn’t have to “work” for a period of time, and this time i had a project to work on, and that project was me. i knew i couldn’t keep doing what i’ve been doing, but didn’t know what other options i had.

spending this time out of social bounds, i felt more connected to place than i have in maybe ever. unlike the other adventures i’ve gone on, this one had no itinerary no agenda or theme, so if i fell into the silver city vortex, no one was waiting for me to come up and out. i opened and allowed specific places to totally captured my heart. places i will return to again and again in some way. places i want to build relationships with.

what broke apart in me in my hammock sessions are the walls i’ve spent decades building as a buffer to a world that i do not understand. it seemed easier and easier to put up another brick then realize that the systems in place will never address the issues of violence and injustice i have spent a lifetime fighting.

swinging, suspended in the air, i no longer felt separate from but a belonging to. my identity larger then the labels i claimed or the ones slapped on me. i was beginning to get a glimpse of what liberation could feel like. out here i always feel safer. nature never bullied or beat me for being queer.

what i feel and believe is that i thought i wanted to decolonize myself: my mind, my automatic thoughts and ideas about the world and the beings in it. and i guess that is part of it. but i don’t want to de-anything. i want to re. i want to reconnect. relearn. release the unnecessary…re-member and the only way i can do that is by paying attention to what is out there that truly matters like the birds that greet me at times of day. the sun and moon and planets as they move in their cycles. how my cycles and moods and energy levels switch in rhythm with them. these are the things they didn’t teach me in school. i am learning them from beautiful beings that have been on this journey for along time and are sharing their knowledge. i am learning that these are now the keys for me to unlock something that got lost and hidden in me before i was even born.

in the opening of the essay“no spiritual surrender”, klee benally writes “For Diné there is no dichotomy between spirit and nature, we are of this Earth, and so where there is an environmental crisis there is also a social crisis.” he goes on to explain that there can be no justice on stolen land. where the land/water/air is being violated via resource extraction, there is also exploitation of humans and other lives. it is no wonder we have an epidemic of disconnection. we see it in the numbers addicted to so many substances and behaviors, as well as extensive levels of depression, anxiety, isolation, suicide…

so back to the hammock mind. back to the places i feel whole. my feet on dry land or river beds and ocean shorelines. back to my breath. back to knowing where the sun, moon, and planets are in their cyclical dances. back to my heart. how do i take this feeling into everyday life and language? how do i keep from sliding back into contributing to a capitalist mindset? how do i live in this culture engaged in an abusive relationship. how do we keep this revolution from being commodified like che t-shirts sold at the GAP and rainbow capitalism? can we use this connection to subvert capitalism and the separation and violence it brings with it?

i want to explore how we can break down language and words to get to the stories that got us so fucked up and hating, justified though “science” and language, nationalism, pride, glorified violence. can we tell a different story thank reconnects us?

what is your hammock moment?