Out of all the agreements, this is one I strive to keep. It’s also the hardest. I woke up from a dream in the middle of the night. I dreamed about Ely, Minnesota, the deep forests of the North Woods, where most everything is impeccable with its word. The black bears, Lily and Hope, are busy being bears. They hibernate in Winter, fluctuating between restless activity and long naps. They may have cubs in January. It’s not something that is up for debate. They emerge in the Spring and seek a mate, roam the forests of red and white pines, gangly cedars, and rough-hewn milkweed, and pluck fruit off of agile chokecherry trees which they bend across the path and navigate with their tongues.
In my dream, I was walking through the woods, similar to the nature walk back behind the Bear Center on Saturday night. It was humid and wet, the ground soft underfoot. A long line of people skirted the trail through tufts of mosquitoes; they quietly listened. What I’ve learned about impeccability is that it is different for each person. If you are a bear researcher, you report back to the public from the angle from which you study the bears. Each person’s approach is different. One is not less impeccable than the next. They may start out with different beliefs, seek to prove or disprove them over years spent in the woods, watching and recording black bears.
I was thinking about how that applies to every day life. We tend to hang around people who are most like us. It takes great effort to understand those we might disagree with. To be willing to have our opinion changed, based on fact, based on what is right — that’s a form of impeccability. To deep listen. Again, impeccable. It takes work to listen to what people have to say without already forming what your response will be when they are done speaking. There are many different versions of right and wrong. Not black and white. Gray. If you get to know the facts about any one subject, person, place or thing, there is a lot of gray.
I learned at the North American Bear Center that what might have been believed true of bears 20 years ago, may not be true now. With more research, comes a deeper form of truth and understanding. With age comes wisdom. The same is true in my own life. I recently ran across an old journal from the time period when I was turning from 21 to 22. I had recently moved to Montana from Pennsylvania and my life was topsy-turvy. Over the course of a year, I ended one relationship, began another with a woman who had a toddler. That relationship would end in three years. The toddler is full-grown; I’m only a blip in his life.
What I believed when I was 20 is not what I believe now. The way I was impeccable with my word is not the way I try to be impeccable today. I work harder now to not make commitments I know I can’t keep. I also fail. But I feel more willing to accept the failures. By fessing up. Apologizing. Asking for forgiveness. There can’t be too much forgiveness in the world. There can’t be too much love.
I’ve learned the hard way that impeccability is something that is earned over time. It doesn’t show up on your doorstep and beg to be let in. It is proud, strong, forgiving but demanding. The white pines are impeccable. They catalogue the seasons and provide protection and nurturing for black bears in the North Woods of Minnesota. The lumber barons who nearly wiped white pines off the face of the planet? I wouldn’t call them impeccable in their commitment to the sustainability of our world. But things are more complicated than that.
Maybe they were impeccable with their word to those they did business with, to the communities they helped build and make thrive. I don’t know. I don’t share their values. But I shy away from condemnation. I try to understand their shortsightedness. Sometimes it’s just greed. Pure and simple greed that drives people to break their word. Fortunately, I still believe that it’s not the greedy who shall inherit the Earth. But I’m not so sure it will be the humans either.
-Related to Topic post: WRITING TOPIC: THE FOUR AGREEMENTS
I loved this. Thank you for the reminders, about being impeccable, about failure, and falling short and forgiveness and love. I also am not the person I was at 21 when I thought I was gifted and special and beyond anyone’s understanding-and at the same time thought I was small and invisible. All that angst, too, was a blip.
I think it was Stoney, the first dog that was all mine (I was 22) who taught me the most about being impeccable. She had distemper as a puppy and the vet told me to put her to sleep. I didn’t. Instead, I nursed her through it. She taught me about the tough parts of love, about inconveniencing myself for someone else’s sake, about commitment, about being steadfast. She slept with me every night for 8 years and one night, chased away a burglar before he could make it through my window. My kids would hate hearing this, but it was Stoney who gave me my first lessons in mothering. My children – who had their own lessons to bestow – benefited from Stoney being my first.
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Thank you for the thoughts. I enjoyed this piece of work very much. We are different. I never would have even chosen impeccability, purity, as a quality to strive for. I have quite possibly been wrong.
I have spent my life striving for wisdom. In hindsight, wisdom seems a quality that cannot be earned. You don’t chose to be wise, it choses you, and then only if you can open yourself completely to accept it. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can be an impeccable corpse.
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Thanks for the reminder about the challenge of people with different points of view. And pointing out that impeccability is a multi-faceted jewel. Profound!
When I read the title, I expected you to address the all-to-easy tendency to say, “Sure, I’ll do that,” when we have no firm commitment to it. Like my nephew used to tell my invalid mother, “I’ll stop by after school tomorrow.” Almost without fail he’d get busy with something else and not show. He meant well, and surely had no idea she spent her day eagerly waiting to see him.
I’m glad you expanded the boundaries of this topic, at least for me.
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In the title, I first read “world” instead of “word.” I am in the north woods of Wisconsin, also a home to the black bear. I think I made the switch because I am reading “Nature and the Human Soul — Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World” by Bill Plotkin.
The book speaks to the imperative of humans realizing the interconnection of all things in order for the soul to realize it’s place and purpose among all other things. The book begins with this poem “Hieroglyphic Stairway” by Drew Dellinger:
its 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?
what did you do when the earth was unraveling?
surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?
as mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
what did you do
once
you
knew? …
Thus, indeed, be both “Impeccable with your Word” and your world. Surely, the black bears teach us that.
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I’ve read this post several times and enjoy the way you make the comparison between the “younger you” and the “present you”. We all change over time.
I looked up the word “impeccable” which means “without fault”, a synonym is “immaculate” which I associate with religion. Makes me wonder how “without fault” I’ve been with my word. Would I even recognize “impeccable” speech. I have more thinking to do on this write.
I don’t think that nature can be impeccable because nature has no faults…pine trees and bears simple live their existences doing what they do in our world. Only humans have the capacity to be with or without fault.
QM, I agree that I don’t think humans will inherit the earth.
breathepeace, a beautiful poem. I wonder how I will answer those questions for the people born long after I was born.
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Hi Bob — The book makes the point that animals (and other things in nature) live out their soul’s purpose, naturally and impeccably, because they do not struggle to figure out what it is. They just do it … from birth. The human ego causes us to question, to wonder and to try different things. Humans alone have to “find their place” and purpose in relationship to the natural world. And, Plotkin points out that humans are also unique in that some may NEVER discover their place or purpose in a lifetime.
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[…] Dad. I listen to you now. -Related to posts PRACTICE: Be Impeccable With Your Word – 15min and WRITING TOPIC — THE FOUR […]
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Thanks, breathepeace, for the comment and explanation. More food for thought.
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Gunnar, the following is an amazing insight:
I have spent my life striving for wisdom. In hindsight, wisdom seems a quality that cannot be earned. You don’t chose to be wise, it choses you, and then only if you can open yourself completely to accept it.
You’re right. We can’t just BE wise, we have to earn it, learn it, get there. But we can BE impeccable with our word.
QM, the bears and Ely and the researchers all resonated deeply with you, it’s evident in this Writing Practice. I get the sense that you saw integrity, honor in the work there–that’s what I take away from this weaving together of your dream, the experience, and the agreement of Be impeccable with your word.
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breathepeace, I love the poem, too. All of the questions resonated, but this one especially so because last Friday night a group of us had a conversation about just this:
did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?
I love how you saw the word “world” and it took you in this direction (of thinking of the book and the poem), and how it still comes full circle.
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Jude, your description of the unconditional love of animals and what they teach us about nurturing is powerful. It took me many years to open myself up to that kind of love. It was something many of my friends knew before I did. Loving animals has helped to teach me how to give and receive love.
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Gunnar, I agree with ybonesy — a good insight about wisdom. You don’t choose to be wise. It chooses you. And, in my experience, after a lot of long and hard living and making mistakes! I like reading that you would not have chosen impeccability as a quality to strive for. It reminds me how different people are. I think part of it, for me, is that my mother wanted us to be impeccable with our word, but she called it honesty. She didn’t like when people lied and tried to get us to tell the truth, as painful as that might be. Of course, she usually knew it before we did when we were younger. Does impeccability relate to honesty? I think so. Will ponder more.
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Sharon, thank you so much for your comment. It does seem like when we are young, words can be hurled and unfurled every which way. It’s hard to know then where the true commitment is. I realized today that I feel like I’m getting more rigid in my opinions about things the older I get. I think remembering to try to be impeccable helps me to stay more open. Not really that easy to do though.
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breathepeace, love that poem. I think I may have heard that author speak on MPR or NPR. The title sounds really familiar. And I wonder every day — what have I done to make a difference?
To both you and ybonesy and Bob, the black bears, the researchers, the land, the people I met, had a profound impact on me. I do think nature is impeccable for all the reasons that breathepeace mentions.
And yb, yes, the integrity and selfless dedication the people at the North American Bear Center have for their work blew me away. I am especially cognizant of how the researchers have handled controversy and conflict. And it comes up as well sometimes among the fans on Facebook. They all have to work it out. Human relations, accentuated by passion, sometimes envy. In spite of it all, the Bear work goes on. And the Black Bears go about being Bears. Bear Medicine. Introspection. I’d like to volunteer some time there. Maybe soon. You can learn so much from human interaction with nature. Most of all, I miss the quiet, the peace.
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I really like how this piece captures the tension between purity and flaws, the outcome being: we do the best we can in the moment. That is impeccability. Wonderful illustratiions of this in the bears and trees just being who they are, not open for deabate, and in the lumber barrons — we just do not know where another stands.
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breathepeace, I did some research on the white pines this morning, so I was thinking about your comments and about the poem and book you mention – “Nature and the Human Soul — Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World” by Bill Plotkin. I want to read that book. I’m going to see if they have it in the library.
What resonates with me is how interconnected everything is and the part about finding our place in connection to the natural world. It’s something I’ve always felt close to but never quite known how I could give back at a more detail level, more than just talking about it. I think something clicked for me on this last trip to Ely, MN to visit the black bears. I saw the interconnection up close and met people who are super involved in their daily lives in bringing about change.
The challenge has been for me — how can I help at the local level, in my own backyard. Rather than continuing to talk about global warming, tree harvesting, diminishing populations of animals, species that are being wiped out. It can be overwhelming. Maybe the key is to pick one area I’m passionate about and volunteer time, write, get involved. I’ve been inspired. Everything is connected.
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Joyce, thank you for your kind words. I like what you said – being impeccable is doing the best we can do in the moment. Intention. What are our intentions. We sure aren’t going to be as seasoned or make as well-informed choices when we are teens as we may have the opportunity to do later in life. Experience offers the chance for growth and change.
When I started researching the white pines, I realized how whole towns had grown up and thrived because of the lumber giants of the Midwest. Greedy? Maybe. But we can’t have it both ways. If we enjoy the riches provided by those who make money off the environment – water, minerals, oil, food – then we play a part in all that they are doing. It’s a hard pill to swallow. The more I learn, the less I know.
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