030. Isostacy, Ecotones, and Healing
The wisdom of loss, limits, boundaries and edges, from the earth and Ruth Allen.
I’ve started my very first read for 2025, finally finding my way to
’s book Weathering. What feels more true though, is Ruth Allen’s book, Weathering, finally found its way to me. And it’s changing me.I knew by page nine I would need a pen and an open journal to accompany me through the stories and geology lessons Allen presents on the pages of this captivating book. I quickly realized I couldn’t read this in bed. No, Weathering would need to be read at the kitchen table as the morning light poured across her pages. So the ritual these past few days has been, morning dog walk, breakfast, light a candle, pour a cuppa, settle in at the kitchen table with this beautiful book and my trusty journal.
I am only two chapters in, eighty-five pages, and it feels like a homecoming to self and to the landscapes which shape us. This homecoming feels honest; noticing the brutal bits, the fractures and fault lines, the limits and erosive aspects of being human. This homecoming looks to the earth to for her wisdom on what it means to have edges, what it means to set permeable boundaries, and how to approach the limitations we live within.
This week a friend going through a time of upheaval texted me a single request, “Tell me something good?” In response, I shared a lesson from Weathering I had read the night before and could not stop thinking about:
ISOSTACY: the process by which mountains accumulate material under the surface, making them heavier, and then weather eroding the mountain’s surface making them lighter again. Basically, because of the erosion constantly unburdening the land from collected material, the mountains can continue to form. In short, Allen says, “Stuff must be lost for everything to keep rising” (p. 9).
Lingering on my journal notes after hitting send, I ran my fingers over that line again, “Stuff must be lost for everything to keep rising,” I felt my heart-rate increase, noticed my body letting out a deep sigh. I know, there is something here for me, and for my friend, too. Wisdom tucked between these pages waiting to be unearthed. Relief in knowing the ways of the land might also inform our ways of being human.
The land knows loss, knows what it is to be burdened, knows what it means to let go of what has been gathered to keep rising. “It’s not a comfortable thing to shed a skin, or slough off old material that has accreted to us over time. It is almost never comfortable, to change our shapes,” (p. 38). Sometimes we make the choice to shape-shift, other times, like with the mountains, the hard work of changing shape is the only way to keep rising.
Time passes. My friend replies simply, “Oh my goodness. I adore this.”
Allen goes on to say, “In order to evolve and grow we must be prepared to face the erosive aspects of life…It’s the weathering that creates the finest landscapes of our lives, shaping us and defining us over time” (p. 9). At this point, I’m wondering if I want to go back to school for geology?
I’m also wondering about my own unburdening. Wondering about my own rising. Wondering what this past year of loss might mean in a world where Isostacy exists.
Like a fly in honey I am still stuck on Isostacy when Allen drops Ecotones into the mix, almost casually, as she shares details of an outdoor therapeutic session with a client. Allen writes,“Ecotones — transitional areas — unboundaried with permeable borders shift our connection of where boundaries of impact lie” (p. 48). I pause my reading to pull up google, punching “define ecotones” into the search bar. In all honesty, I am punching the phrase, “define . . .” into google frequently while reading Allen’s work. And I love it. I feel like I am on a treasure hunt where the reward is psychological and emotional healing through understanding how the world works. What magic to weave this web of humanity and the earth together, finding anchor points I never knew existed.
Full of curiosity and wonder I read a bit more about Ecotones and discover something called the Edge Effect:
ECOTONES: the transitional area between two ecological or biological communities, eco-systems, or regions like marshlands, estuaries, reed beds, grasslands, mangroves. Ecotones are the in-between spaces, the overlapping between two distinct places and ways of life.
EDGE EFFECT: increase in biodiversity and density that occurs in ecotones due to greater number of landscape elements, mixed eco-systems, more complex vegetation.
I consider this; ecotones are the in-between. The space between two ecological worlds in which something new and entirely it’s own takes shape. And even as an ecotone is its own entity, there is flexibility within its borders for inhabitants on either side to find each other in the middle and integrate. In the middle, drawing on the here and there of its surroundings, ecotones provide environments for increased flourishing.
I wonder at my own middles. My own in-betweens. The in-betweens that often feel so uncomfortable, messy, uncertain, chaotic. And I wonder, what if some of my middles are ecotones ripe with opportunity for life and growth and flourishing of their own? What if I stopped asking my middle to be what was, or what could be, and sunk down into what is — what would I find?
EDGES, BOUNDARIES, LIMITS
There’s so much richness to digest in the pages of Weathering. As I read about ecotones and their permeable boundaries, I follow Allen’s thoughts into a story of walking with a client through their concept of edges. Where are our edges and when do we begin to walk them? The client stands with Allen at the edge of a rock ledge, exploring physically the invisible boundaries of what feels almost dangerous, and what feels just exciting enough but still safe. What can the edges of a place teach us? “We are compelled to edges, boundaries and limits,” Allen says (p. 26).
I consider my own fascination with edges, noting how all of my life I have run away to the sea when in distress, confusion, contemplation, or creativity. I launch myself headfirst towards the furthest edge I can find. The edge of the ocean lapping at the sand, the edge of the horizon sinking into the sea. Allen calls edges, magnetic and that resonates with me.“Edges, in many ways, contain within them something existential, something essential…edges are frontiers where we find ourselves. Walking them puts us in touch with possibilities” (p. 26-27).
I wonder at the edges which pull me closer, and the edges that push me away. Which edges feel safe to explore, and which feel frightening. Where are the edges I find myself now — could they be frontiers with something to discover?
Summer of 2022 I started my Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a focus on Expressive Therapies. It is the most fun I have ever had in school - thinking about the experience of being human in partnership with the magic of the arts guiding us through self exploration and healing. In my first year, assigned readings quickly lead me down a nerdy rabbit hole right towards Ecotherapy, and the role the natural world might play in the therapeutic process.
Allen’s remarks on edges reminded me of a creative idea I was considering during that first summer residency. Under a 30 minute time limit, I was tasked with creating a reflection of my inner landscape. With watercolors and oil pastels I made the below sketches and titled them, “EDGES: the hard and soft lines we draw for ourselves, and how we move around in the world considering them.” A spark I am now feeling inspired to expand upon creatively in the coming year.
As I synthesize the juicy science Ruth Allen is sharing, alongside my own inner knowing, I pause to turn around and look at my process of working through day-to-day triumphs and tribulations. Always there has been art, always there has been a love of, and desperation for, outdoor spaces to walk and observe how to be alive in this world. So often nature shows me something true about who I am. So often my art reflects my experiences in nature right back to me.
A continuous, wild dance.
I am only two chapters deep into Weathering and my mind is reeling with curiosity and excitement. This book feels like the geese in Mary Oliver’s poem, announcing over and over our place in the family of things. I can’t wait to keep reading and following their formation further and further towards what feels true.
Oh I might have to get this book now! I’m weathering my own little health crisis and it’s kicking up a lot of dirt.
Thank you for sharing!
This was such an enjoyable read! I also have deep a jealousy of your journal entries! So much beautiful artwork and musing throughout the pages. I’ve always been so envious of any writers notebook that’s filled with such beautiful drawings. Such a treat to for us to peak inside yours!