In the Eye of the Wild

I think of all those creatures that have plunged deep into the dark and uncharted realms of alterity and have returned metamorphosed; able to face “what’s coming” at their own pace, they go on with what’s been entrusted to them under the sea, underground, in the sky, in the lake, in the belly, in the teeth.

I think that we shouldn’t run away from whatever remains unfinished deep inside us, that we have to confront it. I don’t know how to translate that into simple words, so I say: Vassilina, if growing up means seeing your dreams die, then growing up becomes dying. It’s better to ignore adults when they try to tell us that the boxes are already there,

I am so afraid of dreaming with, again.

I do believe it’s possible to become “not I, but the wind that blows through me,” as Lowry said,

You might think I like it, fishing, after more than ten years’ work with hunting and fishing people—on the contrary. Especially in winter. Waiting for hours in the cold. Telling yourself they will bite, even when nothing is happening at all. Sticking at it, even when nothing goes on happening. Why does no one ever talk about this? I wonder, rebelli

in order to establish a link with the world beyond—an effective link, I mean. But where, towards what or whom, to direct my listening?

What does it mean to emerge from the abyss where uncertainty reigns and choose to build new boundaries using brand-new materials salvaged from the depths of your dreams’ unvarying darkness? From the very depths of the yawning gob of a being other than yourself?

I asked him five years ago, on finding him outside Fort Yukon surreptitiously heading for the forest. I can’t hear anything here. I can’t see anything either. Too much chitchat, too much comfort, too much family, and not enough of anything else. Too much fuss! I am off to dream farther away.

I think of Clarence, the old Gwich’in wise man from Fort Yukon in Alaska, my friend and valued interlocutor for all the years I lived in his village. I always found it amusing when he used to tell me that everything was always “recorded” and that the forest was “informed.” “Everything is being recorded all the time,” he used to repeat. The trees, t