As someone who believes in chosen family, I pay close attention to the people I encounter. I look for who sees me. Most recently, I was seen by something not quite human, a humble creature that’s often invisible in the mountain grass.
It was in our climb down from the second peak of our trail. I paused, stunned. A jade green snake blocked the path with the length of its body. It looked at me with one eye, watching me as I watched it.
I called out to the group behind me, but before everyone could see, the snake turned around and disappeared behind the cover of mountain grass. It was as if the tapestry of grass released a single thread and called it back again. The snake’s color was the soul of Mt. Maynuba itself.
Ate Rose, our sturdy-footed guide, said she had never seen a green snake in Maynuba before. Secretly, I felt chosen by the mountain. To be seen is to be called kin. I know you. You are like me. There is nothing quite so special as this connection which reminds us that we are not alone in this volatile world.
I was still thinking about the snake during our rest stop when I heard our guides talking about wind turbine projects. An electricity company bought out Batolusong, which meant the trail was closing to the public.
Other corporate projects were impending or underway, like the contentious Kaliwa Dam in Kalinga, further north along the Sierra Madre range, that will suffocate a significant part of the Sierra Madre forest ecosystem, impacting even the mountains of Tanay in Rizal.
Crony capitalist development in the Sierra Madre is entangled in many concerning issues: displacement of indigenous peoples, climate change, and extreme biodiversity loss, to name just a few. It is hard to situate oneself individually and much harder to chart a path forward in collective struggle.
I’d like to offer a reframing of these entanglements. Instead of asking ourselves what we can do to fight systemic issues of displacement or climate change, we can ask ourselves what we must do as kin to the mountains, the ones we call madre, mother.
The answer will naturally vary, but this questioning produces an iterative process. A fight ends with winners and losers, but a relationship never ends. It grows, it transforms, it is passed on.
Solidarity that extends into the distant future is dependent on the relationships we nurture with humans and wild(er) beings. This is an invitation to be in solidarity, in relationship, with the Sierra Madre and its web of life.
