Connecting to land, to aki, to the immense sentience of this third planet orbiting the sun

Our bodies are approximately 60% water, though some of our organs, like the lungs, contain as much as 83% water. This means that almost two-thirds of your living vessel is not solid but fluid. Plants, flowers, leaves, and trees are almost 90% water. Air, that transparent wing, is mostly gas, but it too contains water. Water’s ability to flow in adaptation is both a metaphor for the fluidity of life and a literal reflection of how we affect each other, how all sentience is interconnected.

We know, too, from Indigenous knowledge systems, as well as from quantum physics, that nothing is truly solid. We are, instead, energy fields that interact and change.

We are a collective sentience: rock, tree, river, primate.

When we connect with nature, we can experience this immense interconnectedness and interdependence. We can also learn from the non-human world.

The following practices can help strengthen your experience of this connection and attune to the wisdom of nature. (Note: all relationships benefit from appreciation and gratitude. Ask permission. Express thanks.)

🌲Spend 10 minutes (or more) walking without speaking. Listen to the sounds of the land, the trees, the rocks, the birds. Reflect on:

1. What is the quality of that sound?
2. How does listening provide access to a deeper connection to all of sentience?
3. What are the relationships between the living systems? What are you noticing in terms of connections, patterns, and relationships?
4. How might these noticings inform your sense of leadership: its connections and patterns?

🌲Sit somewhere and consciously breathe. After several moments, reflect on:

1. How does your breathing shift when done consciously and in direct contact with Mother Earth?
2. What arises when your mind is quiet?
3. What knowing exists beyond the human mind?
4. What is one observation arising from this practice that you could embody for the rest of the day, and see what learning emerges?

🌲 Alternate your vision between sky and ground. Look up at the sky for one full minute, and then look down at the ground. Repeat. After 5 minutes, reflect on:

1. How does holding the full expanse of sky impact your sense-making of life?
2. How does focusing on the ground affect your focus and sense of scale?
3. How might you use this alternating vision practice to inform your leadership and overall sense-making around problems and solutions?

🌲Find a stone with some angular variation (e.g., not a smooth river stone). Hold it quietly in your hand and breathe with it. After a few minutes:

1. Ask the stone a question that you have been wrestling with. Turn the stone onto every side.
2. Look and listen deeply to what the different fractals of mineral surface have to share with you. What perspectives or insights do they give?
3. How might these differing perspectives help you hold complexity and differing points of view?

🌲Pick a tree or plant. Touch the limbs, roots, stems, and seeds. Breathe in its scents. After a few minutes:

1. Ask it what its medicine is.
2. Ask it if it has a particular message or medicine for you.
3. Reflect on the plant’s medicine and how that medicine might inform your leadership or sense–making around a particular problem/solution.

🌲Nature communicates all the time; the tree roots interlock, spreading their communication network wide and far. Listen to the land, plants, and animals around you. What might they be communicating? Before phones, indigenous villages/communities communicated with each other using leaves or reeds to play songs that could be echoed across hilltops and mountains. These could be songs of warnings, love, or just a reassurance that someone on their journey was safe. Birds and squirrels do this as well; they mimic each other’s cries of danger despite being different species. Spend some time in deep listening and slow, deep breathing. After several moments, reflect on:

1. What is it that is most needing to be communicated in your particular context?
2. How are you currently facilitating this communication/message?
3. How might you be potentially limiting the potency of the message(s)?
4. How might you draw on the lessons in communication from the non-human, natural world to strengthen your message and/or the practice of communication overall?

An offering created by Aja Couchois Duncan (Anishinaabe) based on an activity designed for the Network Weaver Learning Lab by Paul Bancroft​​, María Dominguez, Lyia Ong Jalao, and Aja Couchois Duncan. Image credit: Aja Couchois Duncan

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