You Can't be Woven into the Web of Life Without Being Bound

On getting claimed, obligation, and giving up a little freedom

I placed the iron bracelet on my wrist. It is made of meteoric iron, something that combines the earth and the heavens. It marks you so the wedame, the spirits of the wild, can find you. 

I have been claimed by something that I didn’t even know existed two years ago; something that might have been seeking me out my entire life, but I did not have eyes to see or ears to hear. I have been claimed by something that has been lost in our culture. Not just lost, but violently repressed (due to practices like witch hunts). 

To many, and perhaps to you, communicating with ancestors and the spirits of the wild may seem ridiculous, I feel its true-ness viscerally. 

In our culture, we so valorize freedom that we resist being claimed. Being claimed by something or someone binds you to them. It restricts your movement. It imposes obligations, and I think this is where our modern understanding of freedom gets twisted. Our freedom is a freedom of limitless choices. You can pick from 143 varieties of tea at the grocery store. Even as a toddler Barney, Barbie, or any number of other cartoon characters tell you, “you can be anything”. With enough money you can do anything, travel anywhere. You owe no one anything and expect nothing from others. 

That ability to shake off obligations and expectations is heady. It can easily get overwhelming, and limitless choice is not in service to our own or our community’s happiness. In fact, research suggests that the more choices you have, the less happy you are.  Turns out, we are more likely to regret the choice we made if we have more options not to choose. 

The world doesn’t need you to be anything or everything. The world needs you to be you. We need you to provide the unique thing you are meant to contribute to the ecosystem. You are not meant to find belonging by doing whatever the f*$% you want. You find belonging by sharing your gifts and those around you seeing your light, cultivating it, and celebrating it. 

To my mind, being claimed is different from belonging. Belonging is feeling comfortable being your full self with certain people or in a certain place. It is an inside game. It is vitally important and woefully missing for many of us. We seek it out in religious organizations, boutique gyms, or clubs. Getting claimed is somewhat different. A force outside yourself says, “You. I need you.” When

Martin Shaw

speaks of getting claimed, he speaks of place, of truly beholding a place, of becoming the eyes of a place, hearing the voices of a place, and sharing the stories. I think of getting claimed as including that, but also including other forces or people that seek you out. This is different from your parents insisting you take over the family business. This is more of a spiritual or soul path call. You have a choice in the matter. You can ignore the call, ignore the voice, but my sense is that often this claiming is calling you toward something that is more truly you. 

Today, I feel doubly claimed. As I drummed and sang to the grandmothers, they claimed me as a living ancestor, meant to learn their songs, live their folk ways, carry them forward. It’s not really becoming an ancestor in life, that’s not possible. It’s re-humanizing. It’s beginning to re-weave ourselves into the web of life, to hear the voices of plants and animals, yes, but also the ancestors and the saints and the waters. I don’t think I can overstate the importance of this re-humanizing in the many problems we face. When we belong to the earth, we don’t have to fill our loneliness through continuous consumption. When the earth is alive, extraction from her without respect, reciprocity, and ceremony is violence. When we shift our focus, as a culture away from accumulating power and toward finding ways that all life can thrive, it changes how we care for and respond to our mothers, children, elders, ill, oppressed, and divergent thinkers. 

A spectacular painting by D. Helene Woods, on display at The Phipps Center for the Arts.

That web of our lives in this world is really key. It is not possible to be an isolated strand dangling off by oneself. This is true on an individual and species level. In this era, many are asking us to perform self-care, self-love, and even “re-parent” ourselves. Yes, I would venture that all of us could use more care and more love. None of us got every single need met by our parents, nor were we meant to. Certainly, when you need to rest, rest. When you don’t have more to give, no one benefits from you giving more. Stop being a dick to yourself and show yourself the same patience you can show a beloved child. 

On the other hand, I think a big reason self-care and self-love have gotten so much traction is that we don’t feel like we can make demands on each other anymore, that no one has claimed us, that we are not bound to them. We are isolated in our single family homes so we assume that no one else is feeling as lonely as us. We assume that no one else is craving a hug. We assume no one else is buried in piles of laundry and dirty dishes. We assume being a new mom or caring for an ill parent is easy for others. When we don’t share that this is a struggle, and we don’t remember back to when we were struggling to reach back and ask if someone wants help, we retreat further into isolation. 

This week, I helped two people fold laundry. It cost me nothing. I hope it made the other person’s life a little easier. We were spending time together chatting anyway. This is how our ancestors would have done it. They would have shared stories and gossip and feelings while sharing the work. We belonged to each other. We shared in triumphs and struggles. We depended on each other to survive. We were bound to each other. We claimed each other. 

Do you long to be claimed by something? Do you long to know someone has been waiting for you? I do. Building a human culture in which we can claim each other and be bound to each other in a healthy way is probably still a couple generations away. While I wait, I am leaning into that longing. I am letting myself be claimed by otherworldly forces: ancestors and wild spirits. I am starting the process of learning the lost ways of my ancestors by learning the wise, old and ongoing ways of the Dagara who have carried them forward and generously shared their wisdom with those of us who have lost our old ways. It is my hope that learning the ways of the Dagara will light my path back toward the ancient medicine that has claimed me.