Guidance on the Grand Mesa

For my “summer vacation” this year, I spent about a week on the traditional lands of the Ute communities now known as Grand Mesa National Forest in Colorado.

The pull to meet the Mesa was strong. Many of us traveled from afar (some as far as Southern England). We were pulled because we had an insatiable curiosity about land relationships on top of the world's largest Mesa.

Having a bit of fear of being an animal on a mountain is healthy.

I had this fear and then some. Going to a new gathering was an edge for me. I was nervous and filled with doubts about my capacity, my ability to belong, and my fear of performing rather than allowing myself to be immersed.

I cannot at this time describe in detail all of the moments of awe, desire, and change I experienced while living on the Grand Mesa. But some key takeaways feel clear enough to share. I am grateful that my learning with the land is emergent, I trust that the downloads will come as they are meant to.

If you had told me even a few years ago my passion for somatic studies would lead me to crave as many moments of mentorship from the land as I could get, I would have been speechless.

I am still speechless, but more so at the enormity of guidance + wisdom that these lands and the native people who wild-tended this soil for so many generations contain.

I am speechless at how far we have removed ourselves from this innate intelligence, only to try and desperately find our way back to homeostasis through modern science and medicine. I am speechless that so many inspirations for creativity and vitality exist on this Mesa - that it also exists in so many other lands around world.

Much of what I learned from this experience was facilitated by my teacher Kelly Moody Host of Groundshots Podcast and curator with Of Sedge & Salt. Kelly is a person from the southeast, similar to me. Growing up primarily in the Piedmont area, raised in a culture that is both wildly specific and also an extension of more general capitalist norms. I was taken aback at the overlapping connections + experiences I share with her - both eery and comforting, she felt like instant kin.

Kelly taught us how to make cordage for weaving from a fibrous material of a plant called Dogbane. Kelly spoke of how everything is interwoven, how the beavers intuitively tend the water ways, using willow as a trusted resource. Willow can essentially plant roots within the moving water and dams. I am still turning over reflections of how these beings co-create with the rest of their eco-system in mind.

Kelly modeled how to walk with the forest, not just how to hike on a trail. Frequently pausing to point out the what remains of a petite Glacier Lily Erythronium grandiflorum as she turns to seed. We collected these teeny seeds, in return - we offered the winged seeds of Biscuitroot Lomatium dissectum. There was so much to feel into on our walks.

Kelly encouraged us to stay curious, to not jump to what we thought we knew. I leaned into not always needing to grasp for the Latin name, the parts used, or the scientific explanations for a plant. I am reminded that when I sit down with one of these relatives, they will often tell me all I need to know. Being someone who feels right at home in the nuance, the grey area of life - what a relief, not having to know it all. The practice of reciprocity, being in dialogue with these beings - they will tell me so much more than I could gather from any field guide.

I am very grateful for the seeds that have been planted in me with the help of Kelly Moody.

There were other teachers. Younger, older, musicians, artists, craftspersons, quantum physicists, former traditional conservationists turned radical ethonobotonists.

A family visiting from Thailand who spend their summers at the Groundworks Farm in Paionia, CO. The mother cooked delicious Thai meals, shared her grief, and allowed us to honor her through fire and water ritual. The father told sacred stories around the campfire, stories that he could share only with the permission of a wise elder who passed it down to him over the course of a 10 day journey.

The daughter, at only 3 years old offered potent medicine: our very nature to be childlike - silly, friendly, playful, and cranky. I saw her take midday naps on a blanket next to where we would circle up, in her dreams overhearing the grownups share ideas of ethnobotany and reciprocity. I can only imagine how the fruits of our gathering may seep into her psyche and shape a little part of the person she will grow to be. I feel honored to have been a piece of her life.

With these people, through our conversations - I was viscerally reminded that I, too, carry wisdom worth sharing. I reflected on my relationship with somatics as a modality for trauma care and repair. I spoke out loud when lessons from ethnobotany touched the frameworks of somatic human bodies. Individuals approached me after our plant talks - sharing that they felt a connection to me, to what I shared, and that they wanted to learn more. Sometimes I forget that I too am growing into a wise elder and that the wisdom I am accumulating has value right now. Getting to learn more is a luxury and I feel grateful for what rests inside of me today.

Lessons from the Land.

Mesas are unique. Mesas are islands that live in the sky. Mesas are made of mind-bending ecotones. Mesas tell a story of change, adaptation, and reckoning with our edges. The Mesa I spent time on has a rich ecological history of glacial activity and volcano eruptions. The Mesa, she showed me the evidence of such history in her rocks with very ancient looking holes and endless alpine lakes.

She showed me her diversity: abundant and varying plants - medicinal, food + poison. Eagles soaring above us, beavers tending the water ways, bears letting us know of their presence, dragon and butterflies busy at work, mosquitos providing nourishment to the other little beings with hunger. Hot sun during the day, 40-degree nights. Adobes sitting at the base of the mesa, highlighting the contrast + overlap between different seemingly different worlds. All of these observations inspire a sense of awe, a sense of solidarity, and a cue that ‘senselessness’ is a cultural construct. Our senses are always here for us.

The mutuality seen among so many different living beings is a reality that overwhelms my senses. I will be forever curious about how to embody the vastness of possibility and ways to be in a community that this Mesa showed me is possible.

Lessons from the Land Tenders

One of the more profound realizations I’ve gathered from un-learning what I’ve historically been taught about Indigenous people is just how profoundly Westernized our cultural filter is when it comes to understanding the intelligence of those who’ve always lived on this land. I am still unpacking, still wading through the depth of what it means and how often it shows up in our daily lives.

Some of the coolest conversations I had at the campfire, the river, and on the trail involves discussing the anthropogenic relationship between Ute people and plants (anthropogenic meaning - the plants that humans interacted with and influenced over time).

Utes closely understood the diet of a bear as being not so different from our own. What was nutritious for the bear was largely nutritious for the humans. Bears are known to love a plant called Oshá (Ligusticum porteri) bear root or chuchupate and is found in the parsley family (Apiaceae). When Bears come out of their deep slumber in the spring, they use their claws to dig up its root - eating it, rolling around in it, basking in the gifts of this plant. Observations pointed to Oshá’s ability to provide bears with aphrodisiac, laxative and energy increasing medicine. Indigenous peoples learned to use this plant for the health of lungs, heart and other ailments in the body.

Indigenous people have carried in their bones the very truths that we are still trying to unravel with a ‘scientific method.’ Ute land tenders knew Oshá is a potent ally to carry.

Not only did Indigenous people move and follow where the medicine + food was growing, but they also took the food/bulbs/seeds along with them. There is heavy debate in ecological and preservation circles regarding the impact of humans moving ‘invasive’ plants from place to place. We operate from a Western lens that is deeply influenced by Christian hegemony and purity culture. Our idea of keeping nature 'pristine’ and ‘protected’ from human disturbance is a young practice in an old history of land-based living.

Bears tear up roots with abandon, digest the plants and leave their seeds wherever they may land. Bears are not stationary creatures and neither are we.

The keen ability to notice, embody and respond to the relational rhythms among soil, plants, animals, weather, and astronomical occurrences is a talent that drops me to my knees. I am so grateful to know that there are humans who have this epigenetic knowledge in their being. I am so sad that cultures of domination have attempted to stomp it out. This knowing is not lost, it’s buried. I am so inspired to be one of the intentional excavators that help to dig up these roots.

I am on fire with the awakenings that ethnobotany has led me to.

Taken at the base of our camp, where we would gather to eat and tell stories.

Lessons Within Myself

I want to share a specific moment next to a river. In the company of my new village, we sat by a moving water near our camp. We were invited to connect with the previously mentioned plant ally called Oshá. Osha is medicine, Osha is food - every part of this plant is available to us to connect with, to take in. Kelly sensed that after a neuroimmunology conversation with our favorite rocket scientist turned nature nerd, we needed a little help with settling ourselves. We turned to Oshá herself.

We sat next to this river, together but in silence, connected with this plant. I stroked her leaves, feeling the softness - parsley-like, carrot kin. A felt experience of playing with the hair of a grandmother as she tells stories about her life seeped into my awareness. I felt into my body, asking my somatic self to show me where the essence of this plant lives within.

My solar plexus lit up, a common place for me to feel the bubbling up of emotions I often want to suppress. Hello grief, hello gratitude, hello tears.

An overwhelm of questions: “Where do I belong? Who am I beneath all of my conditioning? How do I balance this experience with the life I’ve created for myself back home?”

I think more often than not, our ‘answers’ are more like embodied feelings rather than ‘aha!’ moments.

I think that looking to nature for guidance looks like more room, more expansion, and more space for deeper questioning.

Oshá reminds me of my nature, she reminds me to trust that when I drive back to Salt Lake - there is nothing for me to lose because of the wisdom I met in her lives inside of me. She guided me to the truth that when my diaphragm speaks up, tugs at me, and asks for my attention - it is but a mere remembering that this is where my animistic wisdom resides.

After spending time with this writing - you may choose to engage with a little practice called ‘plant sit.’ You could commune with the houseplants, trees, or yard ‘weeds’ around you. You can take several moments to visually trace the intricate shorelines of creeks, rivers, or lakes nearby. Observe plants as they burst through a bustling sidewalk along a busy street. Sway to the sounds of birds, insects, or rustling leaves. Whichever you choose, remember to listen.

Remember to feel into your somatic body as you are led by the greater somatic bodies around you.

Lastly, I will leave you with a poem I wrote. Inspired by the guidance I tapped into - my hope is that some part of my words leave you feeling led, too.

I arrive at the trailhead and learn her name is Grand Mesa. When I say Grand Mesa, I mean the kind of present moment awareness that the English language has yet to define.

When I call her Grand Mesa, I call her a place where plants whisper blessings and rememberings from the ancestors.

When I speak of Grand Mesa, I am reminded that I am not alive because I was born. I am not alive because my heart is beating. I am alive because I exist in the context her animacy. Grand Mesa holds the key to vitality in her womb. Trees, rocks, beavers, petals, water and space - this is how she brings me to life.

The Grand Mesa has arms so sturdy and warm, only the kind you’ve experienced from Granny’s embrace when she meets you at the screen door. 

Grand Mesa is everyone’s Granny.

Grand Mesa - she is a wise elder, a wild woman. She is the embodiment of how to move in even the most complicated moments. She is the guest who exclaims at the dinner table, “there is a lesson to be learned in the presence of a flower! Chaos is as much our medicine as nettle tea!”

She is the perfect teacher of how to be human at this and every moment in time.

The beautiful community that guided this shared experience.

Some kin bidding me a sweet ‘so-long!’ as I made my way towards home.