5 Steps for Listening to the Land

The land speaks. Are you listening?

Vine maple in a protected (for now) wilderness forest. Photo by the author.

Welcome to Biocentric, a newsletter about sustainability, greenwashing, and resistance. It’s written by auther and organizer Max Wilbert. If you want to follow, you can subscribe for free. Paid subscribers, in return for supporting this publication and the activism you see here, receive access to private posts which contain behind-the-scenes reports and unreleased drafts.

This piece was inspired by Donella Meadows’ “Dancing With Systems.”

---

The land speaks. If you know how to listen, interpreting what it says isn’t particularly difficult.

I still remember the first time I attempted this. I was sitting next to a small stream, a tributary of Squalicum Creek in Bellingham, Washington, on traditional Lummi territory, which today runs through the parking lot of a shopping mall. The stream was surrounded by concrete and full of discarded oil cans, plastic bags, and old tires. A few scraggly, shrubby trees grew from the banks where old bricks and crumbling cement poked through moss.

It was far from pristine. But in my mind, this made it even more important than I listen. So while my friends went into the mall to buy something or other, I sat down on the bank of the creek.

The first step

Have you ever made a concerted effort to communicate with the land? Have you ever asked a question, or even just sat quietly and listened? Not many of us have. I hadn’t, until that day. Oh, we might feel connection to the land, but rarely do we actually take the time to listen. It’s even more rare, in this era of secular rationality, for us to consciously believe that we might hear something in return.

But what if the western scientific perspective that says stones and creeks are dead, inanimate objects, that humans are the most intelligent life forms, and communicating with non-humans is a fruitless exercise in fraud, is actually objectively false?

What if consciousness is a universal reality?

The frontiers of science are beginning — finally — to catch up with what many traditional, folk, and indigenous cultures have known for millennia: that we are not alone; that the world is filled with intelligences, creatures and perhaps even “objects” with volition and minds of their own.

Getting started with listening to the land is very simple. You must be open, and you must listen.

What is it like to be you?

I sat, and I asked — in my mind and by speaking the word — what it was like to be you, creek? What is your history? Are you well? What have you seen? What changes have you experienced over time? And how do these changes feel?

And I got an answer.

I was told that the creek used to flow free, meandering and winding through looping meadows and forests. In those days, beaver dams slowed the flow of water, and sliver flashed when runs of salmon and cutthroat trout returned. Old, tall trees stood above the banks.

The creek had inhabitants, too – tiny caddisflies, each in their unique Goldsworthy-esque (or perhaps his work is caddisfly-larvae-esque; they’ve been here far longer than him, of course) casings, crawdads, pink, chum, and coho salon, sea-run and resident cutthroat trout, tiny snails and all the rest of the water dwellers, water ouzels, Roosevelt elk, black-tailed deer, grizzly bears, gray wolves, red foxes, bobcats, skunks, pumas, lynx, and even human beings.

Then, something changed. First, the beavers were taken. Trapped and skinned, their disappearance changed the creek forever. Their dams decayed and spring floods washed them away, and everyone suffered; worse habitat for the fish and insects and birds, poorer hunting for the carnivores, and less water for the creek itself.

Then the tree-cutters came. They took the big old trees first, the straight and tall ones. Many of the rest they cut and left to lie where they fell. Within just a few short decades — the blink of an eye to the creek — the whole forest was gone. Before long, a field replaced the forest, and in another eyeblink the soil was entombed in concrete.

No longer did people visit to fish and laugh and kiss secret lovers on the shore of the creek; now, they parked their cars around it, mostly ignoring it except as a place to toss a candy bar wrapper or fast food bag.

I breathed and sat in silence as the history of this place sunk into me.

“Mere argument is entirely worthless”

The influential Canadian environmentalist John Livingston wrote in his book The Fallacy of Wildlife Conservation:

“On the basis of some experience in conservation affairs, I am at last persuaded that mere argument as such is entirely worthless...Argument, it seems to me, is never going to help wildlife. It rarely has, and there is little to persuade me that it ever will, appreciably...I believe that wildlife preservation is entirely dependent on individual human experience.”

As I’ve written previously, I am convinced that this is true; it is one reason why I have spent a great many years guiding people into the woods and mountains.

I cannot convince you that the land speaks. All I can do is encourage you to listen and see what happens. Don’t take my word for it. Go outside. Sit in silence, without distraction. Ask a question, and listen.

Then see what happens.

Make no mistake, this is work. It requires focus and dedication. The land will not do it for you. You must do your homework. When you study a foreign language, you certainly don’t just show up and listen. You don’t even just learn words and grammar; you study culture, history, food, customs, religion. This provides vital context that helps you understand what you hear in conversation with native speakers.

Listening to the land is no different. You can do it with no background knowledge, sure. But your experience will be richer and more complete if you study the ecological history, evolution, species composition, threats, and trajectories of that land. Learn the terminology of place.

Observation can take you very far, but if you want deeper truths, you need to consult with experts — whether they be basketweavers or conservation biologists, elder knowledge keepers or riparian scientists, historical sources or entomologists.

That stream was on the frontline of industrial civilization’s war against the planet

People won’t defend what they don’t love, and can’t love what they don’t even know.

This is why much of my activism has focused on front-line, on-the-ground resistance. Getting people off their screens and out of stuffy meeting rooms in places which are under threat is, to me, key to saving our planet. Working from afar to protect land may be effective in some cases, but it will not be as transformational as direct relationship.

This lesson was instilled in me over a decade ago, when I began my journey as a frontline land defender with a series of half a dozen actions over less than a year’s time. In Utah, I spent many nights camped out at a place called “PR Springs,” in the midst of vast proposed tar sands oil extraction projects. Elk herds crested hills and disappeared into the forest, new bird parents peered curiously from nesting cavities in aspen groves, and bats flitted overhead as the stars pinwheeled through the vast darkness.

Suddenly, defending that place was not theoretical. These beings were my friends, my family.

My involvement in the land-defense campaign at Thacker Pass was sparked by a profound dream, a waking vision, and an inexplicable experience which I documented in this article. Where did these experiences come from? Did I invent them out of thin air? Do they come purely from my experiences, education, and acculturation? Or was it a message from the land?

I know what I believe.

I believe in the wisdom of people like Jack D. Forbes (Powhatan-Renapé and Delaware-Lenápe), a writer and activist who argued that:

“Sanity or healthy normality among humans and other living creatures involves a respect for other forms of life and other individuals, as I have described earlier. I believe that is the way people have lived (and should live).”

How do I know that what I’m receiving is real?

Although I have experimented with certain natural medicines and ceremonies involving mind-altering practices and substances, that is not what I’m talking about here, and I don’t engage in that often. I live in what some call “consensus reality,” just like most people do.

So how can we know if what we are receiving is real?

Not knowing you in particular, dear reader, I can’t answer that for you. I’m no expert in mental illness, but even I know that psychosis, schizophrenia, mind-altering substances, and various other illnesses and experiences can result in visual and auditory hallucinations. If you are susceptible to mental health issues, proceed with caution.

On top of this, “white shamans and plastic medicine men” have turned centuries old spiritual practices into commodities to be bought and sold, bringing the values of the dominant culture into sacred spaces. If you are susceptible to new age spiritual manipulation, you should also proceed with caution.

For my part, I check my experiences against the hegemonic ideology of the dominant culture. If they align, I am suspicious. I’ve seen too many “spiritual teachers” whose inward-looking messages reinforce an anti-political state of learned helplessness claim that the land is telling them that “everything is fine, just love everyone and it will be ok” to believe this is anything more than self-serving projection to justify their own inaction.

Which is wiser?

What are the consequences of a given belief system?

Traditional “animistic” perspectives which see not just animals but also plants, mountains, rivers, and weather as alive emerged from and nurtured human cultures which lasted for tens of thousands of years in relative ecological balance. Meanwhile, a society which sees these things as either subhuman or as dead resources has all but destroyed our planet in just a few hundred.

Tell me then: which is wiser?

Summary: How to listen to the land

1. Be humble. This is the foundation.

2. Learn about the land. Pursue historical knowledge, oral histories, and detailed science extensively so you can contextualize what you observe and receive.

3. Sit in silence, alone, without distractions. Observe and listen.

4. Ask questions and open yourself to receiving answers.

5. Messages may not come right away. They may not come in forms you can easily understand. The land may not want to speak with you; you may have to earn trust through demonstrating certain behaviors and attitudes. Or, the time may simply not be right. Be patient.

Do you listen to the land? What does it tell you?

---

I’ve left all social media to focus my attention on organizing and writing. That means I rely entirely on readers like you to share this content online. If you appreciate what you read here, please share on social media, discussion forums, and in direct messages to friends. Thank you!

Biocentric is a liberated zone with zero AI-generated content.

Misty forest. Photo by the author.