The Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park is perched on the edge of Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The park is home to waterfalls, high lakes, virgin forest, wild turkeys … and spotted knapweed. The fragile ecosystem is being overrun by a deceptively pretty flower.
On our trip to the Porkies in July, we met up with park naturalist, Katie Urban and a team of local environmentalists to hike into the wilderness and yank out the knapweed. We’d never heard of spotted knapweed, but as soon as Katie pointed it out, we realized we’d been seeing it everywhere in Michigan. Its lacy, pink thistle-like flower belies its tenacious fibrous stem, deep taproot and the toxin it puts in the soil that prevents native species from growing.
It was satisfying to spend a few hours with these dedicated folks, pulling out piles of knapweed from along a pristine wilderness trail.
Satisfying...and also discouraging. The stuff is everywhere. The seeds carry in the wind and on hikers’ shoes. The plants need almost no soil or water to thrive. We pulled out bags and bags of it, but we couldn’t get it all.
Spotted knapweed is like lots of toxic things – racism, patriarchy, mansplaining – once you know what it looks like, you see it everywhere. No matter how much we want to eradicate it, no matter how much we’d like the environment to return to its natural, balanced state, its ubiquity is daunting.
Katie the Naturalist (shown above with a spotted fish not spotted knapweed) encouraged us not to despair. “We won’t be able to get it all,” she said. “But if we keep at it, keep clearing out some prime precious places, the natural ecosystem will grow.”
While we traveled through the upper Midwest, I kept thinking about invasives taking over the wilderness. I love these wild spaces and felt sad to think of them being overtaken by things that aren’t meant to be there.
I wondered, too, about my own body, mind, heart and life: what is invading my natural state? What is crowding out my intuition, my creativity, my peace? What is taking over my wilder nature, my own wilder-ness?
As I looked for spotted knapweed in my own heart and mind, I found distraction, catastrophizing and fear. Posts, emails and pictures that keep me busy and numb. Spinning out the worst possible outcome from the doctor’s appointment, my friend’s troubled child or the latest headline. And fear -- at the root of most of my invasives -- of discomfort, of uncertainty, of chaos.
What is it that invades your natural habitat? Social media? Screens? Scary thoughts? News? Nightmares? Needs of others? Work? Worry? What you have to do next? Walk the trail of your experience and look for what is encroaching on you. What is crowding out that which is meant to grow in you?
Your natural ecosystem, your wilder-ness is wide open, spacious and at peace. As Pema Chodron says, “You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.”
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got all kinds of big weather patterns moving through me most of the time.
In her book, Diana, Herself: An Allegory of Awakening, Martha Beck writes:
“Just like any civilized person, you’ve spent practically your whole life torturing an innocent wild creature. Starved it, then force-fed it, cut it, cursed it, driven it to exhaustion. Imprisoned it with other creatures who tormented it.”
“What?” Diana shakes her head in miserable confusion. “I don’t even kill spiders! I never wanted to hurt anything.”
“The innocent wild creature to which I refer, my darling, is you.”
What if you nurtured your wilder-ness, your natural state of spaciousness and peace? What if you spent more time in your wild natural state of spaciousness? Maybe you will notice the sometimes deceptively pretty things that are crowding you out. Maybe you can clear some of them away. It’s unlikely that you’ll be able to remove all of them, but perhaps you can free a few precious spaces for your wilder-ness to thrive. And maybe that’s enough.