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In the beautiful creation story of my Anishinaabe people, the first task given to the first person, Nanaboozhoo, was to go out into the world and listen to everyone already there—our more-than-human relatives—and learn from them. Learn their names, learn who they are, learn what they offer everyone else and, specifically, learn what they might offer Nanaboozhoo and their descendants. Learn the role that humans will play in the bigger picture of the wilder world because, as the last to arrive, we are the most ignorant and need all the help we can get. Nanaboozhoo learned all of this and learned, too, the shared language that everyone spoke. Most important, they learned how to listen first, pay attention. Nanaboozhoo was an eager listener and all their newly introduced relatives were delighted.

Time circled and spiraled. More people arrived. Some moved to different places and learned other ways of being. Then, somewhere along the line, too many of us drifted away from everything Nanaboozhoo learned. We grew arrogant, and in our departure from humility we forgot many of these essential understandings. We lost connection to the shared language of the world around us because we stopped listening. 

I often feel this loss. I often feel borderline despair for what the world has become, how my place in the world feels forced into a disconnect I don’t want to be a part of. When the weight of all this grows too heavy, when my footsteps begin to drag, when the sense of estrangement from my more-than-human community pulls at my spirit, I know I have drifted too far from the example of Nanaboozhoo, and I return to the wilder world with my senses wide open. There I wander and sit and refrain from inflicting my own noise on the world. I let the whispers of others return front and center to my consciousness. I feel grounded again. Ready to return to the path.

From the very beginning our nonhuman relatives craved Nanaboozhoo’s attention and they still crave ours. Going out into the wilder world reminds me it isn’t too late to remember; it isn’t too late to return.

—Chris La Tray, author of Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home (Milkweed Editions, 2024)