A tale of rewilding the body
I wrote this piece after an encounter with a “Waldschrat”. Some call the existence of “Waldschrat” only folktales, and others like me have more direct experiences of such an encounter. “Waldschrat” forms part of the mythical moss people or moss folk (German: Moosleute, “moss folk”, wilde Leute, “wild folk”), also referred to as the wood people or wood folk (Holzleute, “wood folk”) or forest folk (Waldleute, “forest-folk”). They are known in the folklore of Germany as having an intimate connection to trees and the forest.
As a scientist, it’s almost taboo, and I can feel myself resisting to write that I have encountered a “Waldschrat”, or a troll, or goblin…Because in science, if I can’t measure it or can’t control it and hence prove its existence, then it might as well not exist. For me, the real teacher are experiences. I mainly use science when I want to deepen the experience into the true nature of things.
Below is my prose “Poesie” as a study of the nature of my own experience in the encounter with a “Waldschrat”. The prose is an interplay between the power of the Buddhist way, “the middle way of the Buddha”, to awakening, through the discipline of the mind, and the shamanic way, through effortlessness integration of the three bodies: the Earth body, the social body, and one’s own body as one interbeing.
Entanglement with a “Waldschrat”
I heard the moss people started calling wolves, bears and bisons,
Singing for their return already back then in 2000s.
The wolves in the wilder East heard their songs and followed the melody,
Breeding quickly in Germania to build the packs.
I heard the moss people say bears and bisons will soon follow suit,
And with their return, the rewilding of the human folks could begin.
It happens that one lucky or unlucky day I saw with my own eye one of the mossy folks,
A waldschrat, clad with moss and dirt, moving in and out of trees in celebration of the wolfs’ new pups.
He looked at my stange request with kind mossy eyes,
When I shouted, “hey there, teach me what you do” and regretedly I added “without getting dirty”.
But then the waldschrat dissapeared,
And the trees whacked their leaves with laughter at my human funniness.
Oh, the trees giggled, she likes her human plumage un-entangled from moss,
Dirt-free rewilding she wants, they teased me.
I ignored the trees and waited and waited,
But the waldschrat never appeared.
I got madder and madder,
And tried all my shamanic tricks.
I turned into a spider and weaved a web of stories,
I slid into a snake and danced they web of life,
I caught a red Milan’s feather and circled the web of cosmos.
My endurance failed,
And nothing happened.
I turned thinner and thinner,
As I disconnected from the source of creation.
Then the panic attacks hit me,
And the oaks stopped laughing and took me in their arms, rescucitatating me with pumps of oxygen.
Dont resist your pain, they murmured softly, because resisting only locks your future to dead internal tissue,
Let the red wound instead flow as life medicine.
When my wound became a river and I regained consciousness of being,
The oaks smiled and then hummed among themselves.
Now you have our medicine, little human, the oaks said,
What will be your choice?
You can choose the fast way, the oaks said,
And use your red wound to bait the waldschrat from his nest.
Or you could choose the middle way,
And live in the shadow of the visible and invisible worlds.
But the choice is yours, they said,
Both choices are terrible, I protested. Is there not a third or forth way?, I begged.
Hum, hum, the oaks hummed,
Oh little human, the oaks said after some time, there are third and forth and other ways, including no ways at all, but you must choose the fast or middle way to get to the other ways.
Both choices are terrible, I lamented again,
The fast way is not my way, I protested. I will do nothing against free will.
Then your way is the middle way, the oaks hummed.
The way of non entanglement, the oaks continued. The middle way is both empty and full of possibilities.
I shook my head in disbelief,
You call this medicine?, I groaned to the oaks.
Ho, ho, ho, the oaks said, strong medicine for little human,
And now you are the medicine, little human, the oaks hummed.
Just about as I was to give in to the great mind’s unentanglement,
A voice behind me spoke.
I turned and felt the waldschrat’s voice echoing,
Why do you stick to emotionally the fast way and mentally the middle way?
At this very moment, pencils of light fell to the forest floor,
And I saw an opening in the earth.
The path of no resistance between the fast and middle way,
I felt that clearly through the earth’s invitation.
Before I had time to think, my body surrendered to the ground of no resistance,
And the waldschrat’s beingness could enter, turning me into forest compost.
