Strange Strangers is primarily created in collaboration with a mated beaver pair, the three of us actively (and temporarily) interfering with the flow of a wetland stream and the lifeforms within it—the beavers through the construction of their dam, and I, in this video, by engaging with the interference patterns created by their work.

The list of participants does not end there: the DNA expressions of each wetland plant and all the life forms in the stream are also intimately involved in this entanglement.

Timothy Morton, whose work focuses on philosophy, environment, and the coexistence of humans and non-humans, suggests we rid ourselves of Nature altogether and reminds us that all life forms are made of, and come from, other life forms. Ecology, in its totality, is a mesh of interconnected matter and life, where there are no rigid boundaries between life and death, no clear differentiation between species, and no center.

He imagines all life forms as strange strangers mucking about in this unimaginably expansive ecological goo. It is intimate, awkward, and queer—not unlike my own work. I borrowed “Strange Strangers” from Morton for the title of this video.

I am unsure that humans will ever be able to resolve our relationship with Nature, certainly not as a society. As an individual, I am continually grappling with all of my relationships, human and non-human, and forever in search of words to describe what I merely intuit.

Poet Robert Bringhurst looks to Taoist philosophy as he comes to terms with the idea of Nature:

“An old Chinese term for nature or the wild is zìrán, which means ‘just like itself’ or ‘that’s the way it is.’ There is a passage in the Dào Dé Jing, the classic of Láo Sim, that says, rén fá dì, dì fá dào, dào fá zìrán: ‘humans align themselves with the earth; Earth aligns itself with the sky; the sky aligns itself with the Tao; the Tao aligns itself with nature’ — or, ‘the Tao aligns with being what it is.’”

Just imagine — this matter, this energy, this nature, this ecological goo — all that is —never created or destroyed. It is transformed endlessly, as is everything within ecology, as is my own body — all of us continually transforming and co-evolving with all that is.