“When society has lost it’s virtue, the sage goes back into the forest to find it again.” Some wisdom from the Zen tradition came to a distinct crossroads for me when I realized there was a theme that had been building in the background. It was time to take note.
Talking about books the other day, someone mentioned that they had inadvertently spent the whole summer in the woods. “I read North Woods, then God of the Woods, and then – what was the other one? Oh, yeah, The Overstory.”
In the creativity classes I teach, I ask my students to notice the synchronicities; those intriguing little intersections that pop up, offering unexpected insight. I do try to follow my own advice.
My younger daughter, the actor, is rehearsing for a production of Into The Woods.
Are we there yet?
I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed by the loss of Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, and Annie Dillard, I’ve not been able to reflect about it all. These women who shaped my life so deeply; if they had not lived their lives the way they did, my life certainly would not be what it is.
I could say ‘I owe them a debt,’ but instantly I hear how patriarchal, how capitalist, how limiting that phrase is. I am drenched in gratitude for their courage.
Many people are not as familiar with Morgan as they are with Steinem, but she was shoulder-to-shoulder with her in the movement for rights. She edited an anthology titled Sisterhood is Powerful that offered a look at the inside narrative in the 1970’s; she coined the term ‘herstory.’ She was the editor of Ms. Magazine from 1989 to 1994. Founder of the Women’s Media Center, she was a lifelong voice, crying out in the wilderness of pundits and politics, with a podcast.
Dillard wrote about nature, most famously in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, staying at a cabin (in the woods, of course) to observe how she inhabited herself in the absence of others, only to question the relationship. “Is human culture with it’s values my only real home, after all? Either this world, my mother, is a monster, or I myself am a freak.” Searching for society’s virtue is not a simple task.
I can’t even bring myself to call Steinem’s end a death; she haunts my thoughts daily. Every time I see an old interview or keynote speech pop up in the algorithm, I’m drawn to listen. Her presence continues.
The interaction I keep noticing is that when she is asked a question, framed in the values of the overculture, she gently reframes the question before answering it. When an interviewer calls her “the mother of the feminist movement,” she corrects them saying, “I’m not a mother; I’m a sister.” Not an authority, a participant.
Rhea Seehorn, in her Emmy acceptance speech on Monday, thanked nominee Keri Russell for sending a gift with a quote from Steinem, “We are linked, not ranked.” Five words, complete change of frame.
This is the philosophy; seeing the trees in the forest. Each tree as it’s own, and part of a greater entity. Confabulating human culture with monoculture is what happens when we see the woods as being just one thing. As hard as the American media has pushed lately to erase diversity, it only exists because of diversity. Don’t throw away the scaffolding that supports you.
In a recent interview about aging and death, Steinem was asked who she was “passing the torch” on to; her response was “I’m not giving up my torch… I’m using it to light other torches.”
I even have two trips to the woods already planned in the next few weeks; my favorite spot up in the mountains, the trees dying from bark beetles and scarred with charcoal from the fires. It’s still forest, and I’m going to savor it.
Nature is an ideal setting for mourning. Seasons will come and go, if we notice, people do that too.
So, taking my torch, into the woods (carefully, gently) trying to find what virtue I can.
Judith Martin-Straw
