Nick Demske
I just read Max [Garland’s] entry and the Whitman he referenced reminded me of a quote attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Mary (Magdelene). The quote, in the translation I’ve read, is “…..be encouraged in the presence of the diversity of forms of nature.” The first time I read it I said “…….huh?”. Cause it’s wordy. But it’s also confusing in context. It comes as the end of a few-sentence answer to the disciple Peter when he asks about sin (“…..what is the sin of the world?”). So this is ostensibly Jesus’ recommendation for safeguarding against discouragement and sin.
That’s weird. That’s freaking weird. If someone was like “How do I stop from sinning?” (granted that’s not the question here, necessarily), and I was like “Be encouraged in the presence of the diversity of forms of nature,” you’d be like “Cool, cool……Nick is doing drugs.”
But isn’t that the answer the scientific research keeps confirming for us? I love how ancient wisdom cultures keep getting co-signed by scientific research, millennia after the fact. Science is like “Turns out meditation is crazy good for you,” and gnostic traditions are like “No shit, y’all. We done been said that.”
I recently heard second hand from a woman who does literacy work (like myself) about a study she read that claimed writing about trauma had significantly stronger recovery metrics for vets with PTSD than talking with other vets in group settings. She mentioned this because she was part of a group that helped facilitate such a program. She then off-handedly mentioned that the study also said simply being in nature had significantly better metrics than writing about trauma. So……there’s that.
This Jesus quote has become a protection mantra for me. “…..be encouraged in the presence of the diversity of forms of nature.” It’s nonsense, at first, but it’s basically like saying “drink water if you’re thirsty.” It’s such a simple, direct, basic prescription for what some would argue is THE challenge of being human, that my impulse is to dismiss it as……a mistranslation or something.
But when I turn to the diversity of nature—not by thinking about it or watching it on TV, but being in its presence—it’s so utterly insane that it actually arrests everything I think I know about everything and forces me into a child-like mind-state. If I’m feeling hopeless, that sort of just vanishes cause……what the hell do I know? Scientists estimate that 2/3rds of marine life isn’t yet discovered. There’s over a million micro-organisms in a single fistful of compost. Everything alive shares some amount of DNA, which means we’re literally all related. Damn.
These are my siblings. These are my parents. My elders and my ancestors. I am them and they are me. And we are the interconnected web of life. Ain’t no climate change, or nuclear war, or shelter in place gonna change that. And I can’t help but be swollen with hope at the thought of my big-ass family.
Nick Demske lives in Racine Wisconsin and works as a children's librarian there. In his community, he's very involved in local politics, racial justice work and criminal justice reform. He is also an elected official (County Supervisor, Racine County Dist 1). Nick is author of a self-titled collection of poems which was chosen for the Fence Modern Poets Series prize by Joyelle McSweeney and published by Fence Books in 2010. His work has appeared in over 100 journals and magazines, he runs the BONK! Poetry and Music Series and he is the current chair of the Wisconsin Poet Laureate Commission.