nature Archives - Passage To Joy

January 20, 2025February 6, 2025

The Grammar of Animacy

Can a simple pronoun help change the world? Is it possible that, by learning from Indigenous peoples the grammar of animacy, we might fundamentally change the way in which we relate to the world around us?

The words we use shape how we understand ourselves, how we interpret the world, how we treat others. . . Words make worlds. ¹

Beings not things

Three years ago, in The Language of Animacy, I wrote how in her wonderful book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer ‘gifted me with one of those precious moments of illumination that shift the world on its axis.’

She speaks of the way in which Indigenous languages depend less on static nouns and more on verbs in relation to what is perceived as ‘animate’. In Potawatomi, as well as plants and animals, the animate includes rocks, mountains, water, fire, places. These become ‘beings’ instead of ‘things’ (objects).

Those beings imbued with spirit deserve their own grammar – including our sacred medicines, our songs, drums and even stories are animate. ³

‘It’ as objectification

When we call an animal, a flower, a tree, a river or lake ‘it’, we objectify those things. This is not the grammar of respect. It reduces any sense of moral responsibility that we might have. Would you refer to a person as ‘it’? To do so would be insulting, robbing that person of selfhood and kinship. And yet we speak of Mother Earth and the beings with whom we share the Earth as ‘it’.

Speaking with the grammar of animacy requires that we relate from moral consideration. We have to have ecological compassion for the ‘beings’ around us.

When we connect to the world from beingness, kinship, story, spiritual tradition, it is a joy to be in the world that way!

Robin Wall Kimmerer takes this further to suggest that Indigenous languages were seen as a threat to colonization:

The language we speak is an affront to the ears of the colonist in every way, because it is a language that challenges the fundamental tenets of Western thinking—that humans alone are possessed of rights and all the rest of the living world exists for human use. Those whom my ancestors called relatives were renamed natural resources . . . Replacing the aboriginal idea of land as a revered living being with the colonial understanding of land as a warehouse of natural resources was essential to Manifest Destiny, so languages that told a different story were an enemy.⁴

The impact of objectification is summed up beautifully in a poem by Cherokee writer Marilou Awiakata ⁵:

When Earth Becomes an “It”

When the people call the Earth “Mother,”
They take with love
And with love give back
So that all may live.

When the people call Earth “it,”
They use her
Consume her strength. Then the people die.

Already the sun is hot
Out of season.
Our Mother’s breast
Is going dry.
She is taking all green
Into her heart
And will not turn back
Until we call her
By her name.

‘Ki’ – an alternative pronoun in the grammar of animacy

In consultation with her elder and language guide, Stewart King, Robin Wall Kimmerer began to explore the possibility of an alternative pronoun that might be used within the English language to help reconnect us.

She began from Aakibmaadiziiwin, which means ‘a being of the earth’, bmaadiziaki – ‘an earth being’. Looking for something simpler that fits more easily as an English pronoun, she arrived with some delight at ki.

Ki to signify a being of the living earth. Not he or she, but ki. So that when the robin warbles on a summer morning, we can say, “Ki is singing up the sun.” Ki runs through the branches on squirrel feet, ki howls at the moon, ki’s branches sway in the pine-scented breeze, all alive in our language as in our world. ⁴

Others have commented that the sound ‘kee’ has resonance with ‘qui’ (who) in the Latinate languages. Ki is also a parallel spelling of qi or chi, the Chinese word for the life-force energy that flows through all things. It is used similarly in Japanese (spirit, mind, nature, air or energy). It already carries some weight of meaning within common usage.

There is, too, an obvious plural form, kin. What could be more perfect? Kin brings us into the community of all that lives, a state of belonging. For a long time, I have referred to my dearest friends as ‘heart-kin’. Now all those beings who surround us in the beautiful place we call home, including the trees, the rocks, the lake, are also embraced in the word kin. And I recognize them as my greatest teachers.

Dr. Wall Kimmerer, a biologist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, leads her students to explore nature from both Western and Indigenous perspectives. When she introduces them to the idea of ki, for many it profoundly shifts their relationship with the world around them. It is easy to pick up a saw to cut down an ‘it’, even if you name it Maple or Birch. But when that tree is perceived as ki, a living being, there is connection, moral responsibility and gratitude that requires a much greater consciousness of that act.

If pronouns can kindle empathy, I want to shower the world with their sound. ⁴

Making ‘ki’ personal

During the wonderful speaker session⁶ that prompted this post, there was some commentary in the chat about choosing to adopt ki as an alternative personal pronoun. I am drawn to this, though as an additional rather than alternative pronoun. I identify comfortably as ‘she/her’. But it strikes me that it specifies what I am not as much as what I am. There is an implicit ‘othering’ in this. It certainly doesn’t define me.

I am, though, absolutely, an ‘earth-being’, seeking to live in kinship with all that is. So my pronouns should be ki/she/her. This represents me much more fully and inclusively. It also speaks of my commitment to living consciously with gratitude and to my openness to learning from all beings.

Words as activism

I stand with Robin Wall Kimmerer in her view that the words we choose can be transformative and a force of creative resistance. And I loved that she encouraged us to ‘do it with joy!’

Language can be a tool for cultural transformation. Make no mistake: “Ki” and “kin” are revolutionary pronouns. Words have power to shape our thoughts and our actions. On behalf of the living world, let us learn the grammar of animacy. We can keep “it” to speak of bulldozers and paperclips, but every time we say “ki” let our words reaffirm our respect and kinship with the more-than-human world. Let us speak of the beings of the earth as the “kin” they are. ⁵

References

¹Becoming Wise, Krista Tippett – Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett | Goodreads

² Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer | Goodreads

³Robin Wall Kimmererin Learning the Grammar of Animacy (The Leopold Outlook Winter 2012) https://xenoflesh.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/robin-wall-kimmerer.pdf

⁴ Robin Wall Kimmerer, Speaking of Nature – finding language that affirms our kinship with the natural world Speaking of Nature – Orion Magazine

⁵When Earth Becomes an “It” Keynote address, Geography of Hope conference, March 2015 When Earth Becomes an “It” – Dark Matter Women Witnessing (The poem When Earth Becomes an “It” is quoted in the article.)

⁶ With much gratitude for the wonderful speaker session with Robin Wall Kimmerer entitled Land, Love, Language – Healing our relationship with the natural world on January 18, 2024, part of the 4 Seasons of Indigenous Learning 2024-2025 Course

I thoroughly recommend the reading of any or all of the above articles – I’ve barely scratched the surface in my post and they are full of riches.

I have not yet read Krista Tippett’s book but look forward to doing so.

March 30, 2019March 30, 2019

Poetry in Nature – the book

I have just launched a small book, Poetry in Nature, which includes musings, poetry and images on the themes of transformation, connection and more in both inner and outer worlds.

In the first half of 2018, it was a delight to explore the rich territory of nature and poetry with Mary Lou van Schaik and my fellow wanderers during the course Nature’s Poetry

This was a lovely opportunity to connect with nature in a very focussed way. It also reconnected me with reading poetry and with my own poetic impulse. This in turn became something of a deep meditation on the transition between winter and spring.

After the course, a dear friend who had enjoyed some of my writing that emerged from it, asked ‘where’s the book?’

So I honoured what had felt to be a truly special experience for me by drawing together and slightly re-editing many of the posts and poems that I have already added to my Passage to Joy blog. These now form a slim volume, available from Blurb.

The book brings together poetry, musings and images around the themes of nature, connection, transformation, stewardship and more.

Image of book 'Poetry in Nature' on Blurb

February 20, 2019May 1, 2020

The interconnectedness of all

Murphy’s Point; an overcast, eerily still autumn day. Our woodland walk, unbidden, becomes a meditation on the interconnectedness of all things.

Living rock, underpinning, defining, evolving so slowly that we perceive only inertia and stasis. Each metamorphic striation has a distinctive character, encourages colonization by different trees and plants. These, in turn, support specific populations of insects, birds, reptiles and mammals.

To walk through these micro-zones mindfully is to experience the web of life, woven in wonder!

Flakes of mica dust glitter along the path to the old mine . . .

Human habitation was defined first and foremost by the bounty of the earth. Whether in the fecundity of fertile loam in which to harvest wild plants or cultivate crops or in veins rich with mineral wealth, our lives too are shaped by rock; by what lies within and by that to which it gives life.

I am awed by this deep knowing of my own rootedness in the very fabric of the earth!

In our increasingly urbanized world, we set great store by ‘independence’. Surely it is no coincidence that depression and anxiety are so pervasive when so many of us live so distanced from the pulse of life; our disconnection leaches colour from our internal worlds, rendering us so very alone.

Trees at Thanksgiving

Here stand beech and maple
arms outstretched 
to cradle the embers of summer
that fall to the forest floor,
blanketing it in red and gold
against the winter cold.

Here groves of hemlock,
limbs hung low
to cherish the memories of darkness
that cling to swampen ground,
sheltering it from light and chill,
comforting, peaceful, still.

               ~ October 8, 2018 - Thanksgiving Day

A typical Ontario view at Murphy's Point; Shield Rock, trees and water

May 14, 2018May 1, 2020

Connection and responsibility

A powerful circular experience of a breath meditation sitting on the ground on a glorious day blessed by a gentle breeze; the moments when the boundaries between my being and that of water, rock or tree blur into an acknowledgement of oneness, of connection – these are true moments of grace. They are only possible when the boundaries of ‘I’, of ego-self loosen, moments of ‘awareness’, of being truly awake; the inner experience carries such certainty, sounds a resounding ‘yes’. It all seems so obvious at that moment of awareness!

Such experiences shape the core of my being, make it imperative to live from a place rooted in mindfulness, integrity, wonder and joy.

‘all breath in this world
is roped together’
~ Hannah Stephenson

As we moved to this beautiful place, where nature gently loosens those boundaries on a regular basis, I was startled by the unexpected strength of a sense not of ownership but of stewardship of the land; of a deep love and great desire to do right by it and by all the beings with which we share it. This sense of responsibility underpins my life here.

Sharon Blackie writes of ‘the enchanted life’, which for me speaks to that sense of connection and responsibility:

“Enchantment. By my definition, a vivid sense of belongingness to a rich and many-layered world, a profound and whole-hearted participation in the adventure of life. Enchantment is a natural, spontaneous human tendency – one we possess as children, but lose, through social and cultural pressures, as we grow older. I believe that it is an attitude of mind which can be cultivated: the enchanted life is possible for anyone. The enchanted life is intuitive, embraces wonder, and fully engages the mythic imagination – but it is also deeply embodied, ecological, grounded in place and community. To live an enchanted life is to be challenged, to be awakened, to be gripped and shaken to the core by the extraordinary which lies at the heart of the ordinary.”

When we wake

All breath in this world is roped together!

Each breath has the capacity to shift
a stray lock of hair
and a universe.

Everything is bound
in an eternal dance
of particulate and elemental commonality.

It is always so,
but our experience of living
is not always so.

This is something we know
only in the moments
when we wake to enchantment.

May 2018

So what is the challenge of stewardship?

In terms of both outer and inner worlds, I guess for me stewardship is about doing that which supports and maintains healthy states of growth and being, all the while maintaining an awareness of succession.

Practicalities

When we first arrived here, we had a visit from Watersheds Canada looking to participate in their Natural Edge program); in the event, our shoreline was so healthy there was nothing they felt we needed to do! But it helped our understanding; we are careful to cut back rather than in any way ‘clear’ the steep bank down to the water, we do not use phosphates that may run off into the lake.

In our wetland, we try to encourage the cattails but not the phragmites; monitor where turtles are laying their eggs, again avoiding chemicals that may damage this habitat.

We have bat and bird boxes and feed the birds all year, but especially at times of particular hardship.

We retain dead trees and brush-piles for their importance as habitats.

We welcome the beings who share this beautiful place respectfully but without the desire in any way to tame them. With time, there is a growing sense of relationship, understanding, even intimacy (into me you see).

Most of our planting is of native species, particularly those supportive to pollinators, humming-birds and butterflies – we seek to supplement what is naturally here rather than unduly to shape or tame it.

We monitor our trees, making decisions as to which saplings to encourage and which to potentially protect from our resident beaver (whose presence in our bay most evenings currently delights us).

Inner stewardship

As to the inner world, hitting my head blessed me with the impetus to develop a much more regular meditation practice than previously (part of my prescription from a neurologist!), which I try to maintain. There is also, I think, a certain discipline required in truly noting and engaging with the world around you in a mindful and joyous way that is a part of nurturing the inner world.

I am trying to learn to say ‘no’ to being the person whose job it is to make things right for others all the time. I am also trying to learn that I don’t always have to say ‘yes’ to heading into every challenge full-tilt.

Sometimes it is enough simply to observe
and let the universe unfold as it should.

Coltsfoot

All is not reaching, striving,
choosing to force growth
and embrace pain
to fertilize the soul.

It is not always so!

The coltsfoot
opens a yellow face
to the sun

but closes itself
to the dark shadows of evening
and the grey of a rainy day.

As the sun shines,
it transforms effortlessly
into radiance.

Soon, soon
its leaves will form
a carpet of green hearts.

I do not have to keep myself
resolutely open to dark
and storm.

I too can close up
when shadows fall,
ready for the sun’s return.

May 2018

March 26, 2018

Transitions in the seasons of the soul

I think there are multiple layers to the manifestation of inner seasons.

The internal season

On occasion in the past I have been very conscious of a specific internal season, particularly of winters of the soul as times of dormancy, retreat, grieving even. This is one layer and, from this perspective, I see myself now as in a transition from a winter that has been a time of mystery, of deep and subtle transformation, of stillness and silence, of hidden growth requiring patience and faith.

What has been interesting is that, in paying attention to the shift in nature these last weeks, I sense that it is not some human failing that we rarely transition smoothly; if this is the path nature takes then it seems to me that the two-steps forward one-step back dance is an inherent aspect of the character of change.

I see the land, still frozen, steeping in the thaw water that it is not yet ready to absorb, grungy, muddy, yet with hints of the possibility of spring. And I realize that I am content to live this within my own transition, to steep in a flood of insights that I am not yet fully able to soak up. I see the lake existing as thick white ice, clear glass and sparkling open water simultaneously and something inside me whispers ‘yes!’ in affirmation and recognition. In focusing on the subtleties and nuances of this time between winter and spring, I am newly comfortable in my own space of between.

Carrying all the seasons within

At another level, I am aware that I carry all the seasons within me, and can draw on the riches of each as I need or choose at any given time.

The turning of the year

Finally, there is the part of me that responds to the turning of the year, increasingly delighting in the changing rhythms that inform my living in both the exterior and interior worlds.

Now, in this time of increasing intimacy with both the natural and the inner world, each season, each new manifestation, each day of brilliant sunshine or unrelenting rain, each moment, is becoming equally precious. This is becoming almost as true for the seasons of the soul as those of the year’s turning. I try to sit with each, knowing that all things pass.