Unfurlings everywhere
Finding the patterns (we just have to look)
Nature repeats and repeats, shapes found over and over again throughout our world, our bodies, our cells, the movements around and within us. Spirals, waves, fractals, branches and branching - they’re everywhere. Even ferns can be found in the waters of life.
In a recent Forest Bathing session, a lovely labor and delivery nurse shared that when viewed under a microscope, amniotic fluid shows fern-like patterns. Under magnification, the branching, fractal shapes reach, growing toward one another.
Ferns are one of our most ancient plant ancestors1, yet they’re born anew every day - in forests around the world, and in human wombs. We echo each other, chiming across species lines. When nature finds a shape that works, we can find it all the way down.
Ferns, branches, and spirals: these emergent shapes and patterns help me make some sense of life. An experience or relationship happens and then life continues, but rarely in a straight line. Conceiving of time as linear, we imagine that one moment can be so far from another, in a distant past or unknown future. We believe sometimes that these far away times have little influence or presence in our present.
Approaching life as a spiral rings more true for me: people, experiences, relationships - they return and return. A moment, a season, a cycle that reshaped or cracked open life years ago can be as close by as yesterday, as close as the next turn of the wheel.
I recently visited my former foster daughter, who lives about 6 hours away. She lived with me for just over a year when she was young, and we became family in that short time, our lives entwining in ways I could never have imagined. She lives now with wonderful adoptive parents who surround her with love and support. We see each other once or twice a year.
She’s a teen now and grows by leaps and bounds between every visit. She stretches forward as her life unfolds, yet the wheel turns and always brings us back together again. These times together offer a little space for our roots to find each other once more.
My hope and prayer is always that I can be a stillpoint, some steady ground for her - a reminder that the little girl she was deserved bountiful love and care. My prayer is that I can pass nourishment and protection through my roots to hers, as her branches grow up, seeking all she needs to live and thrive. I pray that my tears, tears of love and longing, can also be the waters of life for her.
If we looked at them under the microscope, what shapes would they hold?
The more-than-human world shows us: some shapes are essential to life. These elemental patterns shape everything within and around us. They are the shapes that form the very basis of us all: spirals in our cells, mapping out who we’ll be; spiralling leaves spaced just so around a stem; the curve of a shell; the circling of community together in celebration and mourning. Branches in our veins; branches as rivers and trees. And the ancient ferns, like hands outstretched one to the other, unfurling in fluid and forest.
When we see ourselves in our more-than-human kin, and they in us, it is one more reminder that we’re woven fully into this web. We’re not alone, not separate from it all. Instead we live within deep (if too often forgotten) intimacy with all things.
The spirals, branches, and ferns remember us. Let us remember them too.
Antidotes and seeds
For those in Portland (or not - anyone is welcome to contribute!): mealsonuspdx is making and delivering meals to families who are afraid to leave home due to ICE intimidation and violence. Help them buy food on their wishlist here.
Donate to pal.humanity, an organization led by two Palestinian doctors who are offering care and support to the people of Gaza.
Amnesty International has put together a 7-day challenge to help stop starvation in Gaza.
When and if you can, say hello to a tree, fern, or crow. Then listen - how do they answer?
Share this newsletter with a friend <3
with love, heather
This according to the Fern Society of America (who knew such a thing existed??) amongst many other sources.