Everyone loves those phenomenal photographs of the Earth taken from outer space. In them we see our blue and green planet with her wispy cloud-hair÷not so immense as we thought, but rather, finite and vulnerable. No borders are visible, and we sense how we are all constituents, cooperators, members · how every person, every lifeform is a part of this seamless unity we call "Gaia."

But on another level, the photos were taken from much too far away. To really know the Earth, and thus to know ourselves, we must in time focus on but a single one of those brown hued continents, and then a particular bioregion, estuary or mountain range. On the Pacific Northwest, the Klamath or Calapooya, endangered Sugarloaf and the gardens of Williams. On Trillium and Mt. Ashland, and the sparkling Illinois ("the prettiest jewel I ever saw") and then on a select grove, a specific meadow, a well appreciated yard. So close, that we can see the sparrows making nest in hollow street signs, a secretive murrelet swooping down from park trees, or the pretty bugs and flowers best observed on our knees. As adults we are likely to seek out those postcard-perfect views of great heights and wide expanses, but a child will look instead to those things up close, those things that can be experienced with more than the eyes, those that can be handled, arranged, tossed, rolled · or rolled about in! Kids know what adults often forget: that place is best understood up close, in microcosms nestled between hillocks, inside the hollows of lightning struck trees, in the overgrown corner of the school playground or between waving rows of sky-clad corn.

There's no doubt that we call "place" is really made up of myriad little worlds, inviting us to be little again within them, enlisting our patience and attention, enticing our sensual exploration. Place insists that if we're truly to experience it, we must first slow down. Slow down and "smell the flowers." Behold the blooming present. Sample the unfolding miracle of life, up close, and intimate. It is here that we find our purpose and our calling. And it is here that our plant and animal teachers meet and inform us. And truly, they are more than our brethren÷for they are an extension of ourselves, and we of them. They're our "totems," instructive guides drawn not from a deck of cards but from the depths of relationship and the well of our experience.

Even now we can feel them÷if we really pay attention! Even now, esconsed underneath layers of civilized habit, wrapped in protective clothes, shielded by the walls of our offices and homes. You'll note how easily they penetrate our every physical and psychological defense, pass right through our skin, meld with cell and self, impact our vulnerable psyches for life. They seek us out, seek parity with our spirits, lead us through dream and visions to our true selves. And something deep within us, something deeper than our fear and disbelief, as deep as our bones · draws them unto us.

They are the terrestrial "others," spirits of the winged and furred, bearers of talon and claw. They have served our kind for millennia as instructors and allies. They're our kindred spirits, fellow manifestations of this living, feeling Earth. They are playful creature reminders of our own innate animalness, our suppressed instincts and as-yet unlived dreams. By embracing rather than denying our animus, every sense is heightened, every skill sharpened, every act empowered with the strength and grace of our totem spirits.

Certain species such as whales and porpoises are often singled out as "communicants," informing humanity in an exchange that goes back to the very beginnings of our time. We can cite the responses of dolphins to the plight of drowning sailors, but in a sense most of our kind are in one way or another floundering in the waters, in need of the guidance of other kindred species to help us back to the shore of our authentic being, back to the common ground of irrevocable interrelationship. I've often written about the complex echolation of the sounding humpback whales, and yet all of life is reaching out to us, each in its own way sending probing signals of communion and connection. And each awaits those returning echoes that would indicate that we, too, seek to communicate. That we, too, care!

Our search for our real selves, our quest to reclaim peak animal awareness, our effort to discover our home place among the whole of creation is essentially a "rewilding:" the reinhabitation of sensate body and the vital present moment. It is in this enlivened state that we are most responsive to the needs of our lovers, our family, our community, and the community of all life. It is only thus aroused, and concerned, that we will make the necessary changes · the changes that could insure the survival of not only our endangered animal teachers, but of our own kind as well.

There are plenty of artful words like these to point us in the direction of healing and wholeness÷but the actual journey begins in a moment of overwhelming quiet, when the tape-loops of the mind dramatically snap and a world of stark clarity is suddenly revealed. The clamor of our own busy minds gives way to the subtle music of wind and water. The details of every little thing around us rise up in prominence out of what seemed like a common gray field. The rocks, the wind, and even the pen we write with all stretch towards us like cats in demand of attention. Once familiar hallways may appear strange and foreboding, while a hint of delight and wonder pulls us out-of-doors.

Whether through delirium or device, the once rock-solid mirage thins until fully transparent, and we're thrust back into the immortal world where magic and the mundane are one. In this moment we realize that we are no visitors, and should never be made to feel out of place. That we exist not "on" the Earth but "with" and "in" her. That this is our home, our context, our flesh. That our being is as a single cell of a corporal planet, our planet but a single cell making up the greater body of an unlimited universe.

Our homecoming÷our totemic journey÷begins to effect our hectic schedules, as even the harsh pounding of industry seems to slow down into a simple and steady cadence. Listen for it now: a pair of steady beats one after the other, the second slightly quieter than the first, then followed by a beat of silence. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. No matter where we are, city or wilderness, we will find ourselves fully here. Here, at the perpetual beginning, at the center of experience, the center of now: the unifying heartbeat of Grandmother Earth. It was this maiden noise that first greeted our developing ears, while we floated blissfully in the fluid universe of a maternal womb. And it is likely the last sound to echo in our conscious minds when we die.

You were always here. The atoms making up your being once shimmered in the breath of dinosaurs, and fueled the fearsome fires of creation. The same primordial lava courses through your veins as set the oceans to boil, and cooled to form the continent where you stand. You're a direct product of and descendant to the very earliest organic molecules. You carry in you the molecular memory of a blood-red sky tinted with rainbow bands of unmixed gases, the saltwater repeatedly pierced and stirred by amorous lightning thrusts, a great cauldron giving birth to the first living cell. All that follows is a part and extension of that ancestral cell. All of life, from ocean sponge to howling wolf, redwood monarch to questioning human, share this single common progenitor.

Encoded in the matrix of your bowels is a map of the evolutionary voyage, the dead-ends we know as extinctions and the continuous unfolding of new and fecundate forms. It is a process reenacted inside the uterus of every pregnant woman, from single-celled simplicity into a tailed fetus, on through the toddler's first upright steps. You are a permanent part of a three-and-a-half-billion-year celebration of life and sensation. You extend into every life form that has ever have existed, and even now, the spirits of those other life forms extend into you. Like skeletal antennae, your bones continue to pick up vibrations from the distant past, tapping the strength of mountains thrust up from the sea, the geologic remembrance of purpose and place. Your muscles recall waiting for the sun to warm your reptilian body before you could move, and your nerves are familiar with the giddy feeling of taking flight from the highest crest. A shared genetic memory lies just below the conscious surface, a protoplasmic record and engram · intimate knowledge of survival and bliss.

What we today call "instinct" is the audible will of the planet. It is the willful living Earth, speaking through the wild sentient self. In the totemic journey we learn to listen to the text of intuition and the specific example/instructions of our allied species. Recognizing an affinity to particular totem spirits is more than attunement to our guides. It is the recognition of aspects of one's own self. Quick assimilation of their lessons can be the most empowering of all "magic" practices, bringing with it not only a more empathetic sharing of the global suffering, but a boundless joy and certain purpose!

We invite folks to come to our enchanted canyon to quest and learn, to remember and engage in a place of power. The bear, the heron, the ringtail cat share space with the spirits of the ancient ones who preceded us on this sacred land, offering the kinds of lessons that fill my books. But I felt the magic when in dear Oregon as well, while protesting the encroaching clearcuts, and on the trail up Bald Mountain. And in the inner wilds of Siskiyous, and even next to the creek in the park÷as the laughter of children blended with the sounds of the water and the insistent murmurings of the ancients who came before us. And truly, no matter where we are, we walk in a land of totems! Fate stalks us even in city alleyways, while familiar spirits arm you from within. Elk hooves reverberate in heaving strata, well below the asphalt and the maze of gas and power lines. Expectant seeds shoulder their temporary concrete burden, patiently awaiting the return of sunlight. And every Spring, outlaw dandelions poke their smiley little faces up through the cracks in the sidewalk.