General Discussion
A Red Squirrel eating a mushroom at Cascade State Park
Yesterday was my fourth day at the studio cabin (unfinished shed) in Grand Marais, and I feel like I’m getting into deeper synch with nature. I’m much less distracted by my thoughts and I am finding a deeper presence and awareness that is easily masked by the mundane acts of everyday living. Being out of the city helps. I don’t feel that I have other energy pressing down on me. I feel liberated and free.
I’m taking notes on all the birds and critters that I see, looking them up in my Animal Speak book by Ted Andrews and Animal Spirit Guides book by Steven D. Farmer PhD.
I think my husband has been aware of this other love affair I’ve been having, I like to hug trees when I enjoy the parks in the city of Saint Paul. But I miss the birds when I live in the city. Here, on the land that I was called to, in Grand Marais, I am taking great delight in the Goldfinches, Chickadees, Red-eyed Vireos and Veerys that I hear and maybe even get to see – if I’m lucky. I’ve also heard the Broadwinged Hawk and the Ruffed Grouse and let’s not forget the Crow and the Raven. I loved the goldfinches, even when I lived in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Their song sounds like a giggle to me. The joy it brings to me is beyond words. It feeds a part of my being, a dimension of my energy body, that gets cloaked in the city.
A couple weeks ago, it occurred to me that I am stabilizing and integrating. The last four years have been filled with great loss, but with great loss has come new beginnings. It’s starting to become more clear to me how I want to structure my client-focused practice, which I am planning to start this fall. I have found some wonderful tools and techniques, some of which work beautifully together, some of which are great on their own, and I am eager to share what I have learned.
It has also occurred to me that I have worked in healthcare for the majority of my career. I started out in 1999 working as a receptionist in Medical Imaging Luther Hospital in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And my interest in healthcare has taken me into worlds that are surprisingly more common than our western culture would have you believe. In Eau Claire and in the Twin Cities I have found pockets of healers, and I’ve worked with a dietitian, mediums, Reiki Masters, to name a few. I’ve also been steeping in the Inca mystery teachings from the sacred Mountains of Peru. I share all this not to say “Oh, look at me, look how great I am,” but to share how earnestly to heart I take these changes that our culture needs to make (if we want to approach the Polycrises of our times with new levels of competence and compassion). I’ve also begun to see and recognize how we often give our power away to the doctors, to the medical professional, when it is really our own bodies ability to return to homeostasis that is at play. That is the healing process. Our body is doing the work. No one can do that work for us, for our own body has within it an innate intelligence. I firmly believe that we need to approach our health in a more holistic way, owning our own power and ability to make changes where we can. This is where what we eat comes into play as well as the stories we tell ourselves.
I think we each need to spend time in the woods to see what it is that we really need and value. For example, I’m surprised by how little water I can use in a day! (Because we don’t have water or electric at this time on the land I bring it up with me). And I’m taking great delight in the showers at the campground!
Because I no longer have my breasts, I feel like my heart can more easily touch the world or maybe it’s that the world can more easily touch my heart. I have felt not only my own suffering, but the suffering of us all. Because we are all interconnected, what we each feel individually feeds the intricacies of the energetic threads that tie us all together. This is why it’s more and more important, than ever before, to feed our peace, feed our inner joy. And do what we love. As my mother says, “Find what you love and do a lot of it.” I think I’m finding what I love and I’ve been doing a lot of it. Sitting in circle with a group of women or one on one with another practitioner, I’m learning how to create Sacred space in the every day.
It’s interesting how sacred is an anagram of scared. I am beginning to think that if we can live in a place of awe and wonder, (which nature easily provides), perhaps that which makes us scared, has less room to live within us.
But how do we get back to nature in our cities? That could be the million dollar question. I think that relationship with nature is very personal and we each need to define what that looks like for ourselves. Just like what our body needs for fuel is individual and different, no one perfect diet is right for everybody! We are each unique in our constitutions, histories, traumas and experiences. Who am I to say that awe and wonder must be experienced in nature alone?! I’ve experienced these feelings listening to music, talking with friends or at dinner with family, looking at art, even driving. Maybe what we should start doing-instead of asking how we are doing, we could start asking each other how we are seeking wonder and joy in our everyday. We can ask how we are filling our internal cups so we can be more present with each other, less distracted by our stories, and our traumas. This isn’t to discredit our stories or our traumas, but rather to shift the fixation off of these topics so instead of looking backwards into the past, we can be present and look forward into the future.
I think it all comes down to self-awareness and self regulation. This is part of what I’m planning to teach. Now, if you don’t mind, I have some more nature to attend to!
May you be happy
May you be healthy
May you be well
May you be at peace
May you be free from suffering
May all beings be happy
May all beings be healthy
May all beings be well
May all beings be at peace
May all beings be free from suffering
Aho!
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