I said yesterday that I disagreed with Grandma Tanaka in Hoppers saying that being in nature made her feel like she was “part of something bigger.” That stuck out to me because its exactly the opposite of what it makes me feel and what I felt when I started watching our own beavers lo this many years ago.
When I watched our beavers I started from very far away, knowing so little, standing at the bridge and never moving close to the dam or the other side of the creek, I didn’t want to startle them or interfere with them. I didn’t know anything about beavers and was not even certain of the difference between a beaver and the visiting otter, I felt WONDERFULLY IRRELEVANT. As if wonderful and important things were going on right near me that took place beyond my influence or control and where I didn’t matter at all.
Lives are being lived and vital dramas are happening and you don’t matter at all.
Maybe for some people that would not be a wonderful feeling, but for me it was wonderful. Being reminded that an entire world existed beyond me and outside of my awareness was full of wonder. . I loved the sense of exclusion I felt, as if the things that mattered to them I couldn’t hope to know about, and the things that mattered to me were, to them, immaterial.
They had complicated lives and I was just an observer.
I think that sometimes people say something similar about looking up at the stars. They feel insignificant and it it is like a giant cosmic reset where your little problems suddenly don’t seem so big. Maybe.
When I was a child at thanksgiving or family gatherings I would sometimes creep under the table and happily watch everything taking place from foot height. I could recognize my mother’s shoes or my grandfather’s socks without being greeted or chided and I felt so comfortable and safe. As if all my family were right there beside me, doing the right things and keeping everything together, and they didn’t need me. Everything could go on without me,. Would go on without me. .
And that’s the magic feeling the beavers gave me. And why I ended up giving them so much of myself back. I wanted to make sure they could go on without me. Would go on without me.
How does watching beavers make you feel?
