Nature’s design is clear
It’s in our nature to seek community.
The natural world itself demonstrates the principles and laws by which community flourishes.
I live in Vancouver, BC, Canada, half a block from one of the semi-temperate rainforests that flank the city. The amount of plant life here is ridiculous at any time of year, but a walk in the woods during spring is like having time-lapse photography vision—you’d swear things are growing before your eyes.
Nature’s design is clear.
Overwhelm the landscape with an insane diversity of organic life — throw all shapes, sizes, variety, and color into the mix — and out of that accelerated chaos evolution will be served.
Nature is the ultimate content creator — bushes, trees, leaves, mosses, ferns, fungi, and flowers — and its primary message is being broadcast by every leafy, petaled, climbing, creeping, growing and blossoming thing.
Why hold back?
It’s not a complicated recipe for success.
Just give it all you’ve got.
The result in nature’s case is a completely arresting labyrinth of botanical brilliance and an infinite variety of biological forces thriving within it.
From thorns that could stop a lumberjack; to fragrances that could turn a hardened criminal into a devotee; and enough flowers to detour a Macy’s Day Parade.
A forest is a collection of unique and diverse natural expressions that thrive in community, precisely because of their differences.
We write the way we live
I think many of us who long to write are actually longing to fully live.
For some unknown reason these urges seem to be sister impulses — twins separated at birth — the desire for fullness of experience as well as fullness of expression.
If we’re holding back in our writing we’re probably holding back in our lives. But what motivates us to withhold ourselves in our lives or in our writing?
Is it a fear of being ignored and getting too little attention?
Or is it a fear of criticism, getting too much of the wrong kind of attention?
Ram Dass was an American spiritual teacher and author who died in 2019, but to say he passed away wouldn’t be resonant to his life and message. We could say perhaps he passed forward rather than away — such was the demonstration of his life and teaching, conveyed in such books as Be Here Now, and Walking Each Other Home.
Writing for some of us seems to have a nearly spiritual purpose — a way we can walk ourselves and each other home.
When we can create a trail of words that leads us deeper into the abundance of our own nature, we experience the same sense of peace, fullness, and aliveness that we align with in a forest.
So what causes us as writers to veer from nature’s instruction and code?
By whose orders do we hide, shrink, mask our scent, suppress our flowering, and stunt the display of our own nature?
Being nobody and becoming somebody
I think the prospect of being nobody, and ironically becoming somebody, are the two primal fears that silence writers.
On one hand, we’re afraid that we’ll go unacknowledged, and on the other, we’re equally scared of getting all the attention — being raised up, and put on a pedestal.
We fear these two fates, because both are a kind of banishment from community. Each position isolates us from others.
What we really want is to be an integral, celebrated, unique—yet expendable— part of the whole.
Nature shows us how this is possible.
All types take refuge in the forest
On my visit to the woods I stepped to the side of a trail to sit on a wooden bench.
I wanted to linger inside this massive, oxygen-infused air filter — the celebrated birthplace of the color “forest green.”
Sitting on the bench turned out to be an interesting spot for people watching as well, and speaking of diversity, all types of characters strolled by.
A retired couple holding hands for whom talk had long ago ceased to be necessary. Now they communed in silence, perhaps with a daily walk in this sanctuary.
A runner clad only in shorts and running shoes, sweat glistening from muscles that had already carried him far, focused on the trail just in front of him and the effort he needed to maintain his pace.
Two kids on hand-me-down bikes, playfully cutting each other off, far from any adult who might tell them to tone it down, burning off energy on the nonjudgmental surface of the forest floor.
A woman walking a young golden retriever who couldn’t travel more than a few feet without the pup straining at her leash to investigate yet another novel odor of some decaying or fecund thing.
A middle-aged man in jeans, strolling without a phone, and nothing but a soft smile on his face.
This grand harmonious backdrop of life called forest unconditionally supported every form of human life that passed through it—neither artificially elevating or purposely suppressing any of them.
The same support system that simultaneously celebrates a million inimitable facets of blooming, blossoming, color-shocked, creeping and crawling life forms leaves us with a sense of being softly acknowledged and properly ignored at the same time.
Writers are the forest of the human heart
You are a writer. A unique, delicate, perhaps even dangerous character in the forest of human consciousness. You have a part to play. If the jungle of humanity that you are rooted in is to thrive, we all must contribute.
That means sharing our words.
We can overcome the two reasons we silence ourselves by being fully alive and expressive, all at once, en masse. There could be safety in our numbers.
We then become like a forest, where no living thing, or writer, is entirely ignored or unnaturally elevated. We can rest in full glory, enjoying a kind of anonymity in our full exposure, a sense of connection as we individually shine forth.
We are part of an ancient community of storytellers, wordsmiths, language carvers, fulfilling a primal need for the rest of the human realm. We just have to unfold as the unique form of life we were meant to represent.
At times, some travelers may stop and place their attention fully on our personal expression. At other times, they may simply pass through — held, nourished, and sustained by the glorious and interdependent tangle of life that is our collective words, our expressed experience, our conversation, and our celebration of what it means to be human.
Writers are the forest of the human heart.
When each of us takes our rightful place—in the canopy or in the undergrowth—and commits to sharing our full-throated song in a unified chorus of spirit, we become a sanctuary where humanity can unfold.
Together, we can confidently give it all we’ve got.
Welcome to the community.
Wow, Rick, so much of this resonated. Your beautiful metaphor of the forest though is what really inspired me. “Nature is the ultimate content creator — bushes, trees, leaves, mosses, ferns, fungi, and flowers — and its primary message is being broadcast by every leafy, petaled, climbing, creeping, growing and blossoming thing.” This idea that nature doesn’t hold back, it struck a chord. It’s true, I feel like I always oscillate between the fearing of no one seeing my work and the fear of someone seeing it. Especially when I want to branch out and try new things. This is inspiring me to be more daring in creating and to do it just for the sake of adding to the beautiful things in the world. Great piece!
Man, the forest metaphor is beautiful. This piece put words to so many things I hadn't consciously realized.
"I think many of us who long to write are actually longing to fully live." This never occurred to me but it underscores a lot of my 20s. I had a latent desire to write that, as you perceptively point out, was directly related to my desire to fully live and self-actualize. Wow.
"We are part of an ancient community of storytellers, wordsmiths, language carvers, fulfilling a primal need for the rest of the human realm. We just have to unfold as the unique form of life we were meant to represent.
At times, some travelers may stop and place their attention fully on our personal expression. At other times, they may simply pass through — held, nourished, and sustained by the glorious and interdependent tangle of life that is our collective words, our expressed experience, our conversation, and our celebration of what it means to be human." Again, wow. Not sure what to say about this other than that it's absolutely beautiful writing and made me feel deeply connected to the craft in a unique way. You've got the gift, man.
Amazing work Rick. Thank you.