Isolation is killing us.

It’s no secret. Study after study keeps showing that humans living in communities live longer than humans without access to the collective.

The impacts of isolation expose the fact that the mind and body are not separate - the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of isolation lead to physical symptoms, while the lack of material and physical care that isolation breeds for so many with physical illnesses, disabilities, kids or elders / others to care for, leads to mental illnesses.

Basically, even though we can run into a lot of conflicts in community (and we all know I’m one to hermit for hours or even days at times), our well-being over time, as beings in bodies, is directly linked to our access to, and experiences of, community.

Historically, this has required geographically proximal community. And in the US, that is something that is often hard to access for anyone, because of the way much of our built environment and municipalities are constructed to promote isolation in our households, and individualism in our activities and engagement.

Third spaces, which are spaces other than home or work, such as cafes, libraries, community centers, parks, beaches, bookstores, bars, sports teams, theaters, etc, hold an essential role in connecting us, through presence and our perception / senses, to human and ecological communities. Though some of them require cash to enter, while others are for the public (but only at certain times).

But here’s the thing: even before the pandemic, access to these spaces relied on, well, our ability to access them. And on top of money barriers, a lot of thosespaces, and I mean a lot, are not physically designed to be accessed by...well, most people. Elders, small children, immunocompromised folks, people who use mobility aids, people who need to be seated or lying down in order to be safe - the list goes on, and most of us, if we live long enough, will find ourselves on that list!

It’s when we’re aging, parenting, sick, barred from accessing public spaces safely due to ableism, or racism, or misogyny, or transphobia, or, or, or...that we most need community. Chosen solitude is a beautiful thing. But unchosen isolation is killing us.

It’s also harming the planet. And being isolated from our ecology is harming us, as human animals.

Living as if we are not members of an interconnected ecological community, both as individuals and as a species, obscures the chain of impact to people and planet that is actually happening all the time. It also just doesn’t work to ignore webs of ecological connection, as we’re all learning. Ramifications and impacts move through the web, and show up in our bodies, our communities, both human and beyond.

Our bodies evolved in relationship, with each other, and in relationship with the ecosystems around us. When we are isolated from hearing water move, from smelling the sea on the breeze, from feeling the sun on our skin, from touching the leaves of plants, from smelling the soil, our perceptual bodies freak out.

We can’t always tell when this is happening, but it’s happening. If your body can’t hear, smell, see, touch, or taste water for a prolonged period of time, on some level it is now feeling unsafe, because it needs water to live. It’s going to need to find water.

Here’s the good news: even if you, like me, have trouble physically accessing human community and third spaces safely sometimes, you are always, always inside of an ecosystem.

You’re never actually alone.

The atoms of the air you’re breathing were once part of something else, and now they’re becoming you.

If you can go outside, or open a window, or get a houseplant, or look at a picture of a tree, or listen to a recording of a creek, or touch a sun-warmed stone, you are cueing your body, letting it know: you are not alone, you are not cut off from the web that cares for you, you matter, you are matter, you are connected, you are safe enough here.

Here’s the even better news: we can now create intentional practices of connection, from wherever we are, whatever we have access to. We live in the internet age. Virtual third spaces abound. This newsletter is a line of connection. I write it picturing you all as a big community in a raucous, music-filled dining hall, or dancing in a moonlit field.

We have the internet. We have each other. And we have the beyond-human and the land.

All we have to do is tune into whichever of our senses we have access to, or into our imagination or memory if senses are not accessible, and we are in connection.

Try creating an anti-isolation practice for yourself this week. Set a daily alarm to go out and touch a plant or soil. Set another one to contact someone you’d like to connect to, even if it’s just a heart. Let it be small. Let it be simple. Let it be right there.

You are not alone. And together, we are re-weaving the webs of community. Even when it feels bleak, despair-ful, terrible at times, know that you are in the community of ecology, of place, and you don’t have to do anything in order to belong.

Learning more about ecology, ecological mapping, permaculture, and sustainable gardening lead me to feeling much more interconnected, not just with the land, but with other people.

If you’d like to expand your ecological and garden learning in a community container that actively undoes isolation and brings the magic of land-based gathering to you through your screen, wherever you are, you can join the spring Garden Gatherers program that starts this month. Enrollment is open for the next 9 days!

And you can attend tomorrow's pay-what-you-want zoom workshop, Design Your Spring Garden! Register for that right here.

Anti-isolation can look like: one part gardening, one part gathering. One part ecology, one part community. This is a course, and a community, that offers both, taught by someone who really knows how to facilitate a gathering for pleasure, learning, and connection.

Isolation is Killing us