Returning to Nature

In a world that often feels dead set on bringing the fears and pain of life into awareness, how do we cope and not sink into hopelessness?

I have been pondering this question deeply for the last few weeks and I do not believe there is an absolute answer. I tend to sink into the sorrows of personal and collective grief just as easily as you may with one too many hours spent plugged into the information grid pumping me full of “breaking news”.

I succumb to fear just like the next person. But I have found my lifeboats which float by to fish me out of the sinking depths of a world gone wild. These buoys are my partner, my friends, my family, my support network of people I have built intimacy and connection with over the years. I am deeply grateful for them and at times my reliance and connection with them can bring deep fear as well.

An exquisite conversation about the continual, inevitable cycles of death, dying, rebirth, growth, and creation in accordance with the natural law of our world.

I have been navigating the existential waters of sentient morality intensely as you may know if you have been reading along for a while now (If not, read more about my seasons of transition with death and grief here). The conversation linked first with Death Doula, Alua Arthur on The Nature Of podcast with Willow Defebaugh really spoke to some of the questions I have been grappling with.

My heart has been swirling on the question:

If we all eventually die, how can we truly love others without the constant fear of loss overshadowing the joy we can experience with them now?

The conversation between Alua and Willow sparked many embers of curiosity in my heart about the true nature of living through the lens of addressing our own individual and collective mortality.

Alua states, “I believe all fears ultimately boil down to a fear of death of some kind.”

This resonates with me deeply and I hope if you have the capacity and desire to listen to their conversation that it illuminates some tender truths about how to understand the interdependent relationship of living and dying returning us back to our true nature.

A connection of natural wisdom woven to share how to be a steward of the unceded indigenous lands we reside on in Turtle Island to cultivate connection, harmony, and love in remembering Nature loves you back.

As I continue to ponder how to stay afloat and cultivate hope in a world which can feel hopeless at times. I look for more floatation devices to support the journey. Where my human supports feel finite, I find my original connection to the land I currently reside on, the original caregiver, Nature, as a true constant comfort.

Two more conversations with Willow on The Nature Of podcast have unfurled essential pieces for me about how the growing distance from natural cycles and the Land, we are stewards of, has resulted in much of the pain and suffering we as humans experience and enact. Willow’s conversation with Robin Wall Kimmerer (author of The Service Berry, Braiding Sweetgrass, Gathering Moss & others) is deeply tender and uplifting for the spirit. They bring awareness into how different our lives, as humans, could be if we cultivated a relationship of reciprocity with Nature in remembering, as Kimmerer states, “that the Land loves you back”.

“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Interwoven with Kimmerer’s words about remembering love between humans and the rest of the natural world leads into the idea of the Mother Tree introduced by Suzanne Simard. In her conversation with Willow, she explains how important the Mother Tree of a forest is to nurturing the younger trees and providing protection and care for the entire ecosystem around it. This idea of the Mother Tree begins to evolve as a way of being and giving care in the human experience to be in accordance with the returning flow of the natural law of our world.

A beautiful conversation about the power of the Mother Tree in forests and how we can tap into this energy in many areas of the natural world.

These three conversations about nature, natural law, and the cycles of being in the world inspired the spirit-spoken poem, A Better Home below. This poem was a moment of clarity I experienced amongst a multitude of dark nights of the soul while navigating a deep wintering season of my life.

I feel a mirroring to the seasonal shift around me so I am accompanying the poem with photos of the natural world around me waking up from the season of rest and beginning to open its eyes to the brand new chapter of growth in the Northern Hemisphere.

Hellebores- an early bloom- signs of a shift to come, a new home being created before our eyes.

A Better home

Once a better house arrives, will you be happy?

The Ultimate Question he asked me many years ago,

I still ponder.

Will you even have the capacity to realize it has arrived if you are pining after the next?

In an expansive world, this is the challenge.

To recognize when wanting for more is robbing you of the joy of recognizing what has already arrived,

Realizing the present reality was what you once wanted most.

Satisfaction and contentment are the foundation of receivership.

To keep holding one’s hands out as they overflow with abundance is a scarcity mindset.

Blinding to the sight of all that has been given,

Deafening to the call of reciprocity,

Numbing to the gift of sharing,

Unable to sense the Great Love that exists for you,

Here and Now.

Held within the walls of a Better Home, I once desired so deeply.

Arriving in the embrace, knowing this is what I truly need.

A tiny eight-legged friend navigating the edge showing how we find balance as we move through the terrain of the unknown.

A quick escape route of pleasure will not bring security built on real love and expansion.

I understand better now the truth of a life built to last.

The validation of others is not necessary, though often desired.

Watching a morning bird chirp out to the world,

“This is my home too.”

A dream of so many,

Blessed to my hands.

This great privilege, I take for granted.

Gratitude is the name I speak out.

Singing it to the trees,

Dancing it into the breeze,

Gazing upon it in the flickers of the setting sun,

Submerging in the flow of its bubbling touch.

To be alive is such a gift.

In every way, experiencing as is destined.

I awaken each morning to the awareness of Now.

Closing a chapter on Then.

Writing a story of tomorrow with Hope.

But truly this present moment is imbued with the Natural Law of Love.

The translucent sheen of the infinite potential can be easily missed by these human eyes.

Fallible to remove our sight so we can attempt to possess the world which was never ours to have.

Exploding colors of encouragement to keep going —- finding the beauty and art in the all the ways Nature shows up cycle after cycle.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, they say.

But what sentience drives us?

Beyond flesh and bones boiled down to atoms of stardust.

We are awareness embodied by Nature itself.

All, if we will allow.

Hoping some truth, we will stumble upon.

Knowing it was there all along.

A Home I once fervently dreamed of came into existence by the Natural Law of Creation.

It is enough.

To hold me,

To nurture a life so worth living.

I am Great Love.

I love Him.

I love Her.

I love Them.

I love Myself.

I love God.

I love Rei.

I love The Great Mother Tree.

The flowers unfurling with consistent dedication.

Being called back in to the world which has missed you so deeply.

This is the Divine Gift in all it’s simplicity and complexity.

I pray make me Love in all ways.

The old world and the new, which is being created moment by moment before my eyes.

A season of birth, growth, death, rebirth —- cycling simultaneously.

Hope is grown in the embodiment that each is equal and interdependent to one another.

Unattached to the beginning and end, as the lines blur in Natural Flow.

Releasing my illusive plan so I may return to the Nature of All.

Thank you for going on this journey with me. I wish for you, in whatever season you are physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, or relationally, may you find the arms of the Great Mother Tree to nurture you with care and support in the midst of the turning wheel of life.

With gratitude,

Erica