The Places That Heal Us
What is your most favorite place? Describe it. What qualities does it have? Beauty, silence, solitude, wildlife, wild people…what makes it special to you?
We might not consciously realize it, but our body-mind-spirit is tuning in to the energies of place.But what makes up ‘place?’ It’s more than rocks, grass, sky, trees, flowers, wildlife. It’s all of that and more…the essence of place includes something that is perhaps nameless but it includes a felt sense of something special.
When you are in your favorite place, what do you notice about yourself? What is happening in your mind? Your body? Your emotions?
I’ve spent years writing about how Nature affects me, how it touches my soul and brings me to greater harmony with myself and the place. I’ve bared my soul trying to encourage others to find this sense of wonder because in my experiences there has been nothing more profound and satisfying to connect deeply with whales, dolphins, rocks, sea, manatees, mountains…and at the depth of that connection find myself deeply in communion, in profound Oneness.
It’s obvious that humans find connecting with Nature healing, at least on some level. Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the most visited national park in the United States had 12.5 million visitors in 2019. Grand Canyon NP had 5.97 million, Rocky Mountain NP had 4.7 million and Zion NP had 4.5 million. The total number of national park recreational visits in 2019 was 327,516,619 with a total recreation visitor hours of 1,429,969,885. Great Smoky had a record number of visitors in June of 2020 with an increase of 7% from 2019 and an increase in camping of 21% from the previous year. And this is only national parks. National forests, state parks, state forests, city parks, and other public owned lands offer much more opportunity for outdoor connection. And then there are places that are never statistically documented where people go outside to connect with Nature.
Why do we go into Nature? Ultimately, I suspect the common thread that draws us is beauty. We still want to feel awe and wonder and capture wildness, even if it’s photographing a bear on a cellphone camera from 200 yards away or standing at the base of a heavily visited waterfall to feel the mist of water that plunges from above us to the ground where we stand. The same urge to connect with the magic of Nature is as strong for the person yelling and whooping at that waterfall as it is for the person standing in silence with tears running down their face.
Journey to Brigid
Stepping Sideways
This morning as I walked along the sacred paths of rock and water and sky, the sun barely peeked through rain clouds. Plop, plop, plop of rain drops added to the ahhhhhhhh flow of the creek as water rushed and swirled over rocks.
I stopped at a beautiful little shelf of rock where water pours into a boiling pool of crystal-clear water. The voice of the water sang a steady flow of ahhhhhhh and I began to sing along….ahhhhhhhh. Then I went up the scale using the same sound and found my heart opening to the water, rocks, trees, sky…salamanders, birds…to all life.
As my walk continued I sang and listened to Nature respond to the sounds moving up from my being. I felt a part of everything around me as Oneness expanded in my being.
At some point in the bath of Nature sounds, a question began to form. Why don’t you just step sideways out of the polarity, out of choosing sides, away from the madness. What would that be like?
Continuing the walk I allowed the question to bubble in my mind, in my heart, like the water rushing over rocks into pools of water. Flowing with the idea, my body relaxed and my mind felt relieved. How amazing to step out of the chaos, to give up the intense energy of being caught in polarizing forces and step to the side, as if stepping into a large crack in a mountain.
It wouldn’t mean giving up my ethical values or denouncing my citizenship. It wouldn’t mean I stopped caring about what happens in this country, in the world. It would mean removing myself from the insanity of polarizing forces that are ripping not only this country, but many countries apart. And of course every person.
I was reminded of the story of the Tuatha de Danaan, an ancient race in Ireland, who at some point in their existence were said to have simply disappeared into a subterranean or hidden existence. Maybe they stepped sideways out of a warring world.
Energetically, if we step out of conflict and remove our energy given to one ‘side’ or the other, we stop adding to that strong polarity and begin to empower ourselves by not giving energy to conflict. It’s not that we give up or remove our concern and caring, it’s that we just step out of conflict. As I walked and played with this idea it felt like entering another dimension.
Recently I have commented to friends that it seems we are polarized into two dimensions. Neither ‘side’ can see the other’s point of view and in fact both ‘sides’ believe the others to be destructive to the country. There’s something unusual about the intensity of that vast gulf between the two ‘sides.’ So what if some of us step sideways, out of conflict, out of that energy of blame and exist in a realm of peace.
“There comes a shift in perception, when one’s closest allies are the invisible forces of Nature. Where does reality begin and end? What is actual and what is reflection?” Colette O’Neill wrote this and raises questions to ponder…I simply want to know what happens if I step sideways out of world of conflict. I’ll let you know….
Maybe.
The Living Landscape
The stone skeleton stood against a blackening sky. Rain approached and each of the few, February visitors left except for the guardian of the site and me.
I stowed my camera, pulled out the low Irish whistle purchased earlier in the trip, and sat with my back to the wind. Tentative notes fluttered out as I thanked the ancestors who called me here, back home, to `Eire.
A few heavy raindrops fell but as I poured gratitude into the sweet notes, the cloud split and went around the Poulnabrone Dolman and the sun erupted. It was as if the ancestors and nature spirits returned gratitude for me noticing something more than just a popular tourist attraction.
It is a living landscape into which I walk whether in Ireland or the sacred mountains of the Blue Ridge where I live, move and have my being. Every day I am nurtured by a spiritual communion with the land, water, plants and animals–the living landscape.
