Page 7 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

the women in her poem don’t just say the words—they take her hands. In the

years ahead, I believe, many of us will be learning to “take her hands.”

In “Bio-Empathy: Writing to

Resee the World,” four

Toronto writers weigh in

about what they feel is

demanded of literature in a
time of mass extinctions;

taken together, the writing

and the artwork in this

“Making Kin” issue read like

a response to the call they

have issued. Like Part I,
Part II of “Making Kin” is

dominated by accounts of
Photo by Lori Kitlik
intimate relations with our

nonhuman kin, relations that in many cases demand or bring about profound

changes. I myself spent a revelatory two weeks in Baja in March being first with
the blue whales of the Sea of Cortez and then the gray whales of San Ignacio

Bay. The trip was a direct result of the writing in Part I, most especially Nancy

Windheart’s “Saved by Whales.” Nancy, who co-led the trip together with

wilderness guide Anne Dellenbaughii, persuaded me to sign up. But in truth the

persuading had already happened via Nancy’s writing about the whales, which

primed me for the experience. Andrea Mathieson’s “Listening for the Long Song”
played a role too—in particular her observation that “...most of us have lost our

ability to hear the subtle sounds of the Earth and the voices of all her creatures.” I

wanted very badly to learn to listen to the whales!

I am not yet ready to provide an account of that trip here—though I will try and do
so for the next issue. It was difficult, initially. I just couldn’t convince myself the

whales would want anything to do with us humans after what we’ve done to them

and to the oceans. But after a number of days, it became impossible to deny that

they were coming to us and coming for us--and that they were having a powerful

effect on me. My rational mind had to no choice but to take a back seat to what

was demonstrably happening. In “The Mystery: Approaching the Elephant
People,” Deena Metzger writes of a similar process. Over a period of seventeen

years, Metzger has made nine trips to see the elephants in Africa. Only now after

the ninth trip are certain understandings arising with clarity—and we’re given the

benefit of that clarity in this piece. Yet, as she acknowledges, so much still

remains shrouded in mystery.

What I know is this: I came back from the whales able to listen in ways I couldn’t

before. I came back convinced that what I habitually see and hear and feel is a

tiny fraction of what I could be seeing and hearing and feeling. “We are all so