self trust and the wilderness….
Hi there…
How are you? I am feeling deeply rooted these days. Deeply rooted is a new experience for me. I had to find a way to it. I knew that I’ve needed it. TO BE GROUNDED. I remember vividly when a dear friend of mine expressed and tried to show me HOW TO GROUND. She took me outside and instructed me to place bare feet on the grass. I didn’t get it. I went through the motions and NADA. My head was loud and up in the ethers. She then took me to her piano and instructed me to lay under while she played. I did it. I loved that experience and felt very loved in that moment…but not sure if I achieved landing in my body and feeling a sense of ROOTEDness. I was very neck up. Know what I mean? THINKING, thinking, ThInKing, ruminating, no peace, no access to much else. That was 20 years ago. That moment was significant. A seed was planted. Ever have an experience or awakening like that? Where you become aware of a deficiency within you and kinda feel hopeless, like you’ll never get…”THERE”….?? That is exactly how I felt in that moment.
I think I tried a lot of things to help me get there and they did. All the yoga…all the prayers…all the meditations….moving FAST and trying HARD. They weren’t in vain. It took that. To get to a place of being able to regulate myself. I see it like I was burning off that head energy through my body…until…recently where I have had the awakening that moving through the world in that way wasn’t sustainable. Nor did it serve me or anyone else. I needed to find my way to a slower pace. I needed and craved moving my body slower. I needed to be in the FOREST, FOR REST. It was a calling. The whispers of my soul were yearning for deep breaths, slow meanderings (in regular clothes), the forest called to me every day. So, I began to listen.
Two years ago we moved to a temporary home. We live next to a forest. I walk to the forest everyday. I wanted to do it NOT for the exercise. I wanted to down regulate my nervous system. I wanted to attune to nature through my senses. It all sort of unfolded. I just started to LISTEN TO MYSELF. DEEPLY.
Deeply listening to myself meant stop going to hot yoga and strength training. Stop moving fast if I wanted to go slow. I was stressing a lot about getting to yoga and different workouts that had felt too stressful on my body. My body was reflecting this as well. Would it be ok to listen? All I wanted was to go slow in all the ways. Drop all the excess baggage.
My walks were for relaxation and soul nurturing. I wanted to wear regular clothes and my boots! I wanted to meander and stroll. I wanted to stop and take in all that nature had to offer. Sit under trees, stare at flowers for long amounts of time, walk barefoot, I honored these longings.
This led me to sitting under an oak tree and watching my dogs run free, taking my shoes off and being so surprised by the spongy floor of the forest, looking closely at a dead sunflower during winter, watching a fern unfurl, listening to the birds, being awestruck by all of it. Experiencing WONDERMENT! I was there everyday. Through every season. It was changing me. It was teaching me. It was GROUNDING ME!!!!!!!!!
It was touching me so deeply that I began to align my cycles with natures cycles.( I’ve written a lot about it here.) I began to trust myself more and more by trusting that I am nature. I am the same. I have cycles. I carry the energy of the seasons. I began to feel deeply rooted. I could sense through visualization and meditation that I could commune with the trees and all plants by visualizing rooting with them. It was significant, as I don’t have a sense of being rooted with my family of origin. The trees and plants became my family. I can trust them. They are my teachers.
All of this led to a deep self trust. Which led me to healing more layers of trauma. Which led to more experiencing of my wildness. Which led to a new series of paintings, called, “WILD FLOWERS”.
These paintings happened very spontaneously. I just began one day and they were coming through me at a rate I’ve never experienced. It was deeply cathartic and meaningful to me. I could hear the forest telling ,me to move quickly and trust that the images would come through. What was expressed are all the seeds that were planted in me while I was in the woods. To trust myself and my own talent. To trust and honor my own unique expression. I suppose I was channeling the messages of the wild flower. I could hear them whisper, “STAY WILD”.
So, my hope and prayers are that these paintings can carry the resonance of my intentionality. That these can be visual reminders of our innate WILDNESS. Stray lines and messy movement. How could YOU embody your own wilderness? Could we all practice being 1percent wilder every day. Some suggestions: howl at the moon, sway like the wind, place feet on the ground and FEEL the ground, gaze at a beautiful flower, sing along with the birds, float in the ocean (she will hold and rock you) just as your mama’s womb did…remember YOU ARE WILD!!!!!!!!!!!
