The Delight of Being Alive

A Walking Prayer Meditation for Healing

I am an Indigenous Quaker. I need both my faith communities for me to connect deeply with God, whom I also call Creator and Lord. I am a member of the Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe of Plymouth (Patuxet), Massachusetts, the tribe who met the Mayflower Pilgrims. My father, who has passed over to the spirit world, raised me with traditional Indigenous practices and cultural values. We are descendants of Massasoit (Great Sachem), whose given name was Ousamequin. My mother’s people were from England, came over on the Mayflower, and included William Bradford, who became the governor of Plymouth Colony. They were Puritans before becoming convinced Friends of the Truth, the original name for Quakers. Generations later, when someone in the family decided to marry someone who was not a Quaker, membership in the Religious Society of Friends was ended. I am the first in my family to return to the Quaker faith. I became a member of Sandwich (Mass.) Meeting; Sandwich was the ancestral homeland of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. I have been attending meetings for worship on Cape Cod since the 1980s.

In April of 2020, during the pandemic, suddenly and with no warning, the U.S. Department of the Interior disestablished the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation, taking their 320 acres of land out of trust, affecting the tribe’s sovereignty, and creating a great suffering for the Mashpee Wampanoag people. This action was a direct attack on sovereignty, culture, and the ability to self-govern and provide vital programs and services such as food security, housing, education, healthcare, language reclamation, and judicial services. For the next two years, I focused my attention on Indigenous rights, decolonization, right relationship, and environmental concerns, working with other Indigenous and Quakers. (A U.S. district court later reversed the ruling and the federal government dropped the legal battle against the Mashpee lands in December 2021.)

In 2022, burnt out from the slow pace of social justice, I realized that I was beyond my measure: doing far too much and some of it not in the right spirit. From worship, I discerned (individually and with others) that I needed to take a break from half of what I was doing. I prayed for Creator’s guidance to give me what was mine to do. I sought advice and counsel from Indigenous elders. I added a woodland walk to my daily schedule. I went into the woods to heal, and this has made all the difference. What follows is my story about healing in and with the natural world.

A mallard duck in Santuit River; the fish ladder that allow river herring to reach spawning grounds in Santuit Pond. Photos by the author.

I’m walking the same path every day: two miles following the Santuit River, headed in the same direction as the herring swimming upstream, full of roe and purpose. When they reach Santuit Pond, they lay their eggs, and another generation is spawned. Every day I feel more alive. My thinking feels different; it’s not so much about the lists and chores, more about attention to whatever the moment calls for. Mindfulness. There’s a reawakening of my inner child, that wonder and delight of experiencing the natural world. I did not surrender the curiosity and joy of childhood. The delight of being alive in this way is still a part of me. There’s a sense that something is being made right in my world that has created a wider path to my heart. The longer I do this daily walk the easier it becomes to maintain a peacefulness throughout the day.

During the first week of my walking prayer meditation, I relaxed into the increasing familiarity of my surroundings, noting that I had favorite trees along the path and anticipated the sight of them before seeing them. When I place my hands on a tree, I feel an exchange of energy: a back and forth greeting and response. There is a sense that we are comforting one another. Even as a child, I had trouble keeping my hands off my favorite trees, and why should I? Is it a surprise that we should have favorite trees, the same way that we are drawn to a closeness and fondness for certain aunts, uncles, and grandparents?

I climb a tree, different trees, every day. One day, I was in the arms of a white pine: silent, holding completely still. A blue heron lit on a branch, two trees down, about a yard from me. I waited and watched wondering when he would notice me. He did. We locked eyes for a good two minutes, before he hopped off the branch with a six-foot wingspan and flew, maneuvered—I don’t know how—through that dense thicket of pine branches, and with such Grace. I wanted to shout: Yes. Yes. Teach me that. Teach me that form of grace! Sometimes our hearts are made to be full to bursting with longing.

I do know that if I sit long enough in stillness day after day, there will come a time when I transform into a feeling of oneness with all life; my separateness disappears. I am a part of the pulse of life, just one being in the web, no more or less important than other life. No hierarchy. 

When I hold completely still and quiet, hidden in a tree, all life around me loses the tension that exists when I am visibly present. The birds and the two- and four-leggeds come back out into the sun and air once again. I sometimes wonder if we become invisible when we are so still. I’ve had songbirds light on me as if I’m a limb on the tree. I do know that if I sit long enough in stillness day after day, there will come a time when I transform into a feeling of oneness with all life; my separateness disappears. I am a part of the pulse of life, just one being in the web, no more or less important than other life. No hierarchy. I am fortunate to have this knowledge, received from my F/father, my ancestors, and from Nature’s teachings. One day while looking up into the tops of several very tall white pines that the sun was streaming through, I became aware of how very small I am. I am not the center of the world. Giving up ego for the reward of greater potential becomes a gift. At the same time, I was given to understand that the face of Creator can be seen everywhere in the beauty of creation.

I leave the path to explore and touch and smell things: turn over dead wood to see what bugs are underneath, rub pitch pine sap between my fingers and inhale, sometimes rubbing that scent under my nose. I like to run white pine and cedar sprigs through my fingers when I’m walking the path. The myth that moss only grows on the north side of trees is not necessarily so. It grows wherever it is shady and damp and wants to. My favorite moss is light green moss that’s so soft to the touch that it’s irresistible to bare feet. It grows best near the base of trees and dead stumps. One day, I pulled a dead herring out of two criss-cross logs where it got stuck in the river. I checked because I wanted to know, and yes, it was a female loaded with eggs. Too bad. I left it on the bank for an animal to eat. I spotted pollywogs in a ditch of an abandoned bog and took in the heavy scent of mayflowers nearby. Dad taught us to always pick out a good stick at the beginning of a walk: for protection. He was fixated on rabies. I only ever saw one rabid animal in my whole life, but I sure considered it plenty in my imagination because of Dad’s concern.

I acknowledge and honor the relationship that I have with water during my walk by squatting on the bank of the Santuit River and submerging both hands in the water long enough to leave my scent in the river. I anoint my forehead with river water from one hand and the nape of my neck with the other hand, so as to carry her scent. I am in the river, and the river is in me. After all, we are about 60 percent water. Of course we are related: kinfolk. Some days I am given to singing or humming to the river. A soft singsong that has words or not, maybe hummed, is pleasing to do and appreciated by the river. If the songs have words, they always express gratitude and may be the words repeated over and over. Wampanoags have appointed water keepers, always women, whose service it is to sing to the water. It is the same way that the men are the firekeepers. We are all capable of interacting with Nature and protecting life but for the desire and commitment.

Everything, every life form has a presence. I am grateful for the presence of the blue heron whom I often see during my walk. I found that it’s possible to bring the presence of other beings, like the heron, into the silence of expectant waiting with me during worship—just for the asking. The same way the Creator is always available just for the invitation, for the longing. We are not completely self-sustaining. We depend on other life forms for existence. Understanding the interrelated, interdependent web of life is the beginning of right relationship with Nature.

What we love we protect. If we bear witness to the beauty and the suffering of all our relations on earth, we might be led to action: to be a voice for those who have no voice. The survival of life on earth as we know it depends on the relationship that humans have with Mother Earth. 

As the weeks go by, I come to the path with a greater ability for deep listening, reverence, and joy. Peace is easier to come by. Nature has taught me these things. What we love we protect. If we bear witness to the beauty and the suffering of all our relations on earth, we might be led to action: to be a voice for those who have no voice. The survival of life on earth as we know it depends on the relationship that humans have with Mother Earth.

I come to the path every day with this question: What will I fall in love with today?