When We Listen to the Plants & Animals, Or Why Spending Time With Other Species Is Essential to Human Life (Life)

Not long ago I went fishing at a lake in a local state park. I parked my truck in the parking lot near the covered picnic building, removed my rod and reel and tackle from the truck bed, and walked to a small cove's bridge above the spillway. The bridge crosses a shallowish narrow of the lake. I walked to the center of the bridge, sat my gear down, baited my hook, and made my first cast. I had very little expectation of catching anything. The time of day was wrong. My bait was not ideal. My rod and reel setup would have most likely been laughed at by professional anglers. Zebco 33. 10 pound test line. Nightcrawlers. A bobber. I did not have a boat of any sort, so bank fishing would be the extent of my efforts.

But... But...

In truth I wasn't there to catch a mess of blue gill, sun perch, red eye, small mouth, large mouth, or any other fish. I was there, using fishing as an excuse, to stand in that one spot on that one bridge and look out toward the center of the lake and down toward the spillway...

(No one doesn't always need an excuse like fishing to stand and look at nature; it can be done without the pageantry of fishing. However, if one wants to stand for any length of time in that one particular spot on that one particular bridge, one needs to be fishing. Or look like a fisherperson. Otherwise, the actual fisherpersons will scowl at the non-fisherperson until they get the hint and leave. It is after all a fishing spot, near the best fishing hole, in the best fishing lake in this particular park.)

... and commune with Mother Earth and all her little creatures (plant, animal, or otherwise). In truth, if I'm being truthful, I was there to talk to my truest self through them, the plants and the animals. I find this is the best therapy (though that's a bad word to call it, since therapy has been stigmatized somehow in our society it seems) a person can participate in. Free, open, long conversations with the animals... this is what we all need.

But they don't teach this. Anywhere. I know of no school, or youth group, or adult group, or any group that teaches a human how to talk to themselves using this technique. But it works. And it creates a lovely and useful bi-product besides the obvious self therapy: a deeper appreciation and knowledge of nature, local or otherwise. And it cures (can help cure) the deepest troubles of the human soul. Depression. Self-loathing. Alienation. Malaise. Hatred (of self and others). Indifference. These symptoms of human life can be cured by a simple fishing trip or walk through the park, if one knows how to do it properly.

...

So there I was four hours into my epic fishing trip to the bridge over Lake Woodhaven. A man from Japan walks down with a long lens camera. Kyoto I believe he said. He was driving through Tennessee from Virginia. I didn't ask to where. His name was Jerry. On first assessment I took him for a birdwatcher. He did not have a rod and reel in hand. He had his camera bag, a second smaller bag, and a backpack. Birdwatchers are a curious breed. They hate to bothered by humans when they're out spotting or listening. Whether he was a watcher or not, I'm going to say he was for the sake of this story.

Not five minutes passed of his looking around the area of the bridge and my pretend fishing when a non-native water fowl landed on a piece of drift wood about twenty feet off the bank to my right. The bird was dark brown, the size of a mature male mallard duck (but with a more slender body and neck, and more athletic build, if that's the proper word), and busy-bodied in its demeanor. Not a minute more passed when the bird began spreading his wings, shaking the water off, tucking them back into his body, and repeating the process several times before diving into the lake.

"Did you see that, Jerry?"

"..."

"You got your camera ready, Jerry?"

He snapped a shot. Put his camera up, his bags down, and his hand out. We shook hands and he said he was going to get his rod and reel from the car. The bird (rare to the area I assure you) took a long dive under the lake again. Jerry returned. Another hour passed. No fish were caught. The bird returned, almost as if he had been under the water the whole time.

Jerry and I knew that each was pretending, but neither let on. We watched the bird, casted a bit, said little. We knew (silently) that there was only one true fisher of fish present. And when that bird came up and spread its wings for the last time in front of us, we knew that he really wanted to say, "watch this boys, I'll show ya how its done."

...

I turned to look and the bird was gone, Jerry too. I was alone again; all grew silent. That's when I realize I had been talking to myself for the better part of six hours... the bird, Jerry, the little blue gill I couldn't and wouldn't catch... all of them. I talked to them all. I talked to myself through them, and didn't. The lake, the trees, the animals... I knew it would take a long story with a lot of words for me to tell it all, Jerry from Japan three lines of a haiku, the rare bird a long dive, and the lake... and the lake... just listens. Always will.