A Story of Conscious Participation
Here is a story of conscious participation with the living earth, through working with matter in a sacred ritualistic way. I gained this learning as I tanned a deer hide for the first time up on a permaculture farm in Oregon.
Biophila is defined as the “innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms.”
Wilson from his essay “The Biophilia Hypothesis”
In these pages, may she come alive again…
I started hide-tanning today- I already feel connected with the deer, with the fat and stench, this being, now whose hide is before me. I will know her so well by the end of this week. Like when creating an art project, this handmade work, it is collaboration, a relationship, an intimate encounter with what is around us, bringing us present- ideally. I need to remember to bless the skin and be aware of its livingness, and bless my hands and be grateful for their hard work and abilities. (Author’s personal journal, August 24, 2010)
Then today, as I was shifting from scraping to braining- where we soak and wring into the scraped hide- the fat of brain or egg yokes- to return the elastin to the hide- I realized that I was this skin. I had been feeling so disconnected from this skin- from this beautiful being- this deer. I was not able to be present with her and sing her praises, for I was in such discomfort. I realized that my body was echoing her body. Her skin was being scraped, being torn apart and worked. Similarly, I was being worked and remade- torn apart in the process, with only my body to work with. I was dying; I was dead. I suddenly could see my skin as this hide, my death so close. I had been not seeing my life or my death, but now it became clear- a relief coming up from the undercurrent pool, I felt the drying hide- my hide- returning to the earth- my personality gone, stripped away- I let go. And in that moment my discomfort shifted, my depression, did not lift but rather lightened and formed resolved, strength, and created a foundation for this work; a frame with which to see and experience this process. And now I could feel the life of this skin, and encourage her to jump up and live again, in a new form that I was midwifing. As I was wringing and braining, and adding the fluidity back to this skin, she was finding her running living spirit again. As this happened, I was finding my running spirit again, my jumping body, my agile body. I was working my muscles fluidly, now that the scraping was passed and as I was wringing and getting to use more of my body. We were preparing to jump and run again.
I prayed for the sun as it set to ignite her, as I hung her hide to dry, neck towards the setting sun, out in the warm winds, in the fields she once ran in fast, hooves deep in the ground, light to the skin, agile in heart and gaze alert. (August 28, 2010)
I am in the wringing and pre-stretching stage of my hide.
We soak, we stink, rotting flesh, rotting egg, slimy skin wringing blue and white and pink-
It takes all of my strength and acrobatics to twist the skin and wring out all the fat mixture- infusing the skin with fat for elastin, and drying it out for the next soaking so it can absorb all the fat for the next soak.
It is being with death, and the bees fly into the bucket and struggle and drown,
It is like working your own skin, seeing your inevitable decay.
And some how in this being with death, one’s own death is close and does not seem so foreign but intimate and close to your heart, the heart that will beat no more, we are merely and amazingly just flesh and bone, almost passed and rotting and returning to the soil.
I started to cable and stretch my hide. I was down in the field facing the mountain. The sun shone on my back. Strengthened by the sun, muscles no longer sore, I start to see the soft movement of the hide. The life is returning. I stretch and work with her over my body. This once dead-skin, my own skin, being stretched back to life, to form, to purpose, to dance once more in this world in another form. I feel her life, I sing as I work, my voice an offering to her beauty and to the earth. My voice is what I can offer as a human, the tones food for the gods. I feel the skin start to lighten, dry and flush, she must be continually be stretched and moved to dry soft and pliable, rehydrate to life to be worn and danced. I feel the deer spirit in her flesh, she asks to be facing the sun, neck towards the light, as we move and bend together, my full body involved.
Later I soak and wring her again, this time I pause to stick up the holes in her hide that I created when scraping, as well as the hole created by the bullet that killed her in the back. As I stitch the skin, it is wet and life like; it feels like doing stitches on very pliable flesh, such a strange sensation. Then I get to the bullet hole. I feel a pause, an intimacy, and held breath- in the space between us- my body and this opening in the flesh. This is the place that first felt the inevitability of death, as it first entered this deer’s body. It knew the end before the rest was swooping in and could not be stopped. It reminded me of the feeling of the goat, that I helped kill, the sensation I felt, when the knife silt his throat, and the death could no longer be stopped, but must be surrendered to. I remembered the overwhelm and panic I felt, as I held the goat down, and was his body, and knew I would bleed to death in the next few minutes, but it was such a slow five minutes, those last breaths as the body’s organs slowly shut down.
The space of this hole, this place of knowing, the death that was coming- I began to stitch it back to life, to run again, in a new form, to fill with spirit, no longer blood.
In the stretching and the sewing I fully fell in love with her, the hide. She is now part of my flesh, and I will wear her, for we are bound. I also fill in this skin all the energy I gave to her, all the effort, and the muscle and power and focus. Because of this the value of the hide is great. It is full of life, of offer, of care and energy. I feel its vitality as I hold it. It is a new way of looking at worth. It is not of money, but of authentic energy and care put in by a human. No machines were enslaved to produce this new form; all was with human touch, except for the occasional knife use. (August 29, 2010)
I finally got to soften my deer hide on Thursday. The weather was finally warm enough. But the weather turned, and the sun returned, and with her the warm seducing my body to relax and breath in the clear mountainous air. I love the sun. She is such a dear friend of mine. I softened my hide for eight hours straight that day, no breaks, no food. It was intense and fun, and beautiful, as I stretched her on the sun platform in the fields with the mountain looking over my shoulder, racing the wind, as it tried to dry my hide to quick, for I had to constantly be stretching and moving it so it would dry pliable and soft. And she did; now she is so soft and fuzzy; a beautiful hide, with so much of my sweat bleed onto her; a powerful material, full of worth.
I have a bee sting that has swollen up my whole left hand into a Pillsbury Dough Boy look alike, and a scratched and bloody right arm and hand from black berry picking. I sit on the platform at sunset, after tanning my hide, exhausted, the sun setting, stillness washing in, and the reeds rustling in golden warm glowing. It is so peaceful and perfect. Each cell in a deep exhale, laced with a quiet whirling skirt of smiles buried deep. (September 9, 2010)
I then that night smoked my hide with Adam. It was powerful to smoke the hide, and make a fire. It is a season where fires are not allowed, so it was really special to have a small punk wood fire in a hole in the ground. Fire has such a powerful presence and it smelt so good and rich. The sun was setting, and smoke was full and aromatic, and we smoked ourselves and gifted to the fire, I sang strong songs I learned in Bolad’s Kitchen and offered the sweet sound to the fire and the hides, as they went through their final process. Then Mike came and played guitar while we smoked. It was magic. I was amazed with the entire process of transforming skin to buckskin. A buckskin that is flexible and soft and so strong. That can create clothing that will last forty years, and protect sensitive skin from black berry thorns and poison oak. (October 6, 2010)
The process of tanning the deer hide was intense and powerful. The process became more meaningful and connective for me by consciously participating with the living sacredness of the material of the earth. Matter was spirit; it was alive, yet also dead. I was the deer, and the deer was I. In this intimate way of engaging with the material, I found a deeper doorway into myself and into the vibrancy of life.