WHO'S HERDING WHO?

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If publishing a book is like giving birth to a child (so it feels like), I have now reached the final phases of labour. To get a little break from the pain of proofreading, I went to Jutland to visit shepherd and artist Lise Hovesen. I brought my husband and daughter along. It was our second visit.

Lise has founded Nomadic Shepherd School. The classroom is the heath, the teachers the sheep, and Lise holds space. You can enroll for a day or two, and learn some basic herding skills: how to lead the flock from its field of grass in the morning to the heath and back in the late afternoon. The flock consists of 300-400 Spælsau, Gute and Lüneburger sheep, ancient Nordic breeds, experts at survival in this part of the world.

The sheep are owned by shepherd Berit Kiilerich from Lystbækgaard, and they maintain the heath and its characteristics, the open landscape with heather and rare plants that will otherwise quickly be overgrown by shrubs and trees. The sheep are stewards of the land.

Lise herds without a dog. Bringing a dog, she says, allows for reading a book or bringing your attention to something else, because the dog will do a lot of the work. Instead, Lise is both shepherd and dog, and so are we this day in August: one is the shepherd, leading the way, the others form a gentle border to prevent the sheep from running to the neighboring farmers' fields. Herding without a dog requires total awareness, being one with the flock and its movements, leading with your energy and intention. The flock follows you, trustingly, but only after you've proven yourself to be trustworthy.

Next week, I will start teaching at Københavns Professionshøjskole, a module about leadership and sustainability. Basically I should just bring all the students to this woolen flock of teachers. There is a lot to learn from herding and being part of a flock. The sensation of moving together on the land, resting together, and being accepted by the flock, is a humbling sensation from which gratitude flows. It is a leadership of care.

Lise and her flock

I have interviewed Lise for my upcoming book, Serving the Moment: Almanac of an Apprentice (it will be in Danish: At tjene øjeblikket: en lærlings almanak). Each month, I learn from a person and his/her practice. It is a book that explains spiritual ecology through practices, 12 of them. It is a critique of a lot of things, but mostly a journey of becoming rooted and consciously awake.

Lise forms the month of August, the month of harvest, and the prime time of the heath, dressed as she is now in her purple heather robe with a sweet abundance of red cowberries (tyttebær), blueberries and black crowberries (revlingebær).  

Lise, a wise and calm shepherd, a woman without roots, she says, who's found a home in her nomadic practice on this land, put a wreath of heather in her hair as we followed the sheep back to the field. I walked next to her, and my daughter exclaimed: Here comes Jesus and Mum! Little did she know that the chapter also deals with the shepherd motif of the Bible, and with finding the Biblical "kingdom of heaven", not separated from you, but as an inner "dimension of spaciousness" (as Eckhardt Tolle says), as consciousness. A dimension that the heath is both a mirror of and a portal to, being that vast landscape of dreaming and peace.