Two Trekking.

"The only way to have a friend is to be one."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

how to bring a friend.

I have been rehabilitating a local set of swamps and false vernal pools using found materials and holistic land remediation methods for the better part of this spring. This has been an incredibly rewarding and fruitful experience, from which I have drawn a great deal of personal worth. I have encountered inspiring eagles; wise, old owls; chatty crows; intrepid mink; and even a couple clever chickadees.

Today, I was lucky to bring a (human) friend along on my trek - a first. It went well, and once he came to understand the scope of both the damage and the triage at play, his enthusiasm grew to rival my own.

This is a crow. This is not my (human) friend.

Each of these encounters has enriched and rewarded me in ways I struggle to describe. Whether in a religious sense, or in a personal, mythological, spiritual one, I have been blessed. For that, I am grateful.

how to scale gratitude.

Gratitude scales in a compounding way. As we share its seeds with those around us, they germinate and they bloom. We become pollinators of decency. I love the bees and the butterflies, but if you ask me, the world can always use more pollinators.

Have you ever seen a person come to life after life had given up on them?

Pollinating decency can do exactly that for the world, as well as for the unseen around us. After each of those seeds of gratitude blooms into a sapling, it sprouts into a tree - a spring of new life, and a peaceful place into which the old may fade.

how to bear witness.

If you have ever witnessed a forgotten soul spring to light from a dark space, then you have experienced the sort of gratitude that I have experienced on this journey.

Wherever it is that we each spring from, we are all part of the same system. Consciousness is vast and interconnected. Everything which surrounds us - from the birds, to the trees, and the mycelia and spores which flow between - represents and records a facet of reality. Each of us represents an expression of that vast network.

To witness the expression of another is to give them power. Whether that power comes through confidence, or through the knowledge of one's ability to get under the skin of another is not always certain. Consider the strength you felt the last time you showed one of your pursuits to a friend or mentor, and received praise - or something as simple as an awestruck smile. Also consider interactions where you have felt that someone was taking an action with the intent of getting a rise out of you.

In my mind, the best way to combat the latter is to embody the former. This world needs more witnesses to good deeds, and more good witnesses to all deeds. It can be nerve-wracking to begin a movement, certainly. Often just as difficult is to be the first to sign onto the vision of another.

how to echo sovereign.

Did you know that you can just do things? We don't have to wait for circumstances to get "too bad." We can make a temporally-echoing difference now.

Every single action one takes toward healing - whether that be the healing of oneself, of one's world, or of some unnatural swamp - creates a ripple; an echo. This is true with or without witnesses. I am fortunate enough to have had a friend join me out of curiosity, but it took over a month of solo trekking (and talking about it) for that to come to bear.

Be your own witness. If you see an angle to improving the world around you, go out and live that. If your truth is true, witnesses will find their way to you.