Hello, Prairiewoods friends!
My favorite days are the days when I fall in love over and over and over again. With people’s faces, their smiles, with the bees drinking water at the fountain or the prairie grasses dancing with the wind, a dog’s gruff bark, the feeling of love emanating from deep within me. I haven’t been having many of those favorite days lately. I’m trying to be ok with that given all that we are living through at the moment. I know that this life is for living all kinds of days, but we all have our favorites, right! Yesterday I was on a walk with my old, brown dog, Percy. I was feeling a bit hopeless. Feeling like I had forgotten that the world is a loving place. Slowly as we walked, I felt hope and love coming back into my being. Each time I smiled and made eye contact with another person I felt hope and a loving world. Each time I stuck my face in the faces of the lilacs and said hello I felt the love of our world. Each time I stopped under a tree and looked at its bark and its leaves and its scars I felt hope. It is always there, sometimes I just forget to look, forget to see clearly.
Each morning I wake up and meditate. Lately I have been feeling very disconnected from Source. My body has been in stress mode for too long, too many ups and downs, like a rollercoaster. My doctor told me that my adrenal system is fatigued and in overdrive from stress. She recommended Alternate Nostril Breathing (ANB) as a great way to assist the body and our adrenal glands in rebalancing. Learn more here if you like Alternate Nostril Breathing. This week I have been beginning my practice with five minutes of ANB and then moving into meditation with a soothing angelic chant playing in the background. I envision that God is just before me—open armed, nurturing, mothering all of my tender parts. I rest my head on Her shoulder and we share our hearts. Together we tend the tender. Connected again, boom, thank you, Jesus!! Apparently I am very forgetful.
How are YOU feeling today? If you are struggling please know that you are not alone. I hear the same from most everyone I talk with. It is a gifted reminder that we truly are stepping more and more into the WE of being. We are doing all of this together; we are more alike than we are different. This week has felt especially hard as I continue to explore different aspects of self, continue to uncover who and what I am as well as what I am not. I am trying to let go of old stories, create and affirm new stories and honor this in-between, liminal space that I/we find ourselves in, all while navigating life’s daily responsibilities. The corona cocoon continues, dismembering and breaking down the old as the new works to be born. I keep thinking about the word apocalypse. In ancient Greek, the original meaning of the word is an uncovering, a disclosure of knowledge, a lifting of the veil. What are we being invited to uncover in ourselves and in our world? I feel like so much is being uncovered. The ethanol and oil industry are flailing, the meat packing plants that denigrate human and animal life are being exposed ever more clearly. In a staff meeting earlier this week one staff member touched on the point of exclusion, what people are being excluded in our dominant culture? Another piece of the uncovering. As we continue to uncover the layers of this rather odiferous onion and lift the veils from our own lives and that of society and culture, I find myself asking, what parts of my own self do I exclude as well? And furthermore, it isn’t just the self and the humans that we exclude but the other-than-human realm as well. I think that all three are completely interwoven. When we quit excluding people, quit excluding our whole selves, quit excluding the more-than-human realm, what beautiful, diverse, body-full world could we live in?
So basically, what I’m getting at with all of this is that I NEED therapy right now and guess what, I have an awesome therapist! You can go to her too! She is the Forest or the Birds or the River or the Sky or the Insects or the Soil. Set-up a session, half to one hour is best and have a nice visit. You don’t even have to pay her with money afterwards! Maybe her payment is breath or adoration or a hug. Better yet, ask how she wants to be paid back, what exchange feels reciprocal?
Here is an amazing podcast if you want to check it out, When the Forest is your Therapist with Ben Page, director of training at the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.
If after reading this blog or listening to this podcast you are looking for a place to find a therapist, please know that the land at Prairiewoods is still open for walking, being and musing. All are welcome. If you feel called, we are picking garlic mustard at the moment. You are welcome to join with us anytime. There are bins on the gravel road near the Founder’s Grove where you can place the pulled plants.
I chose the picture of the bleeding heart plant because everyone needs a bleeding heart plant in their life. If your heart is bleeding, let it bleed. The world needs your heart blood.
—Emelia Sautter, Prairiewoods ecospirituality coordinator