This 2-year old tweet made its way to my eyeballs via an Instagram story recently:

I’m really holding the vision of a similar legacy. Part of my soul mission in this life is to inspire others to be at home within themselves and to feel buoyed by their abundance of kin. Living and dead. Human and other than human. To chip away at this conditioning that we are alone.

Relating with my ancestors, owls, dogs, datura, Courthouse Butte, rain, the cold, the Moon, lightening and thunder, Oak Creek, the Atlantic Ocean, crows, and Pink Ladies Slipper has been the simplest, most accessible, potent, and profound source of healing in my life. Even going back and recognizing ones who raised me. These ones have provided guidance, love, support, companionship, reflection, co-regulation, and accountability during the darkest times of my life.

So, I tend to get really, really excited about stewarding others as they tune into this endless relational resource. You’re not alone. You’re never alone. It’s just a matter of tuning in. Of paying attention. Of listening. Just like any interpersonal relationship: you can’t talk the whole time, you have to listen too. You also can’t just listen the whole time, that doesn’t build trust, you’ve got to share some of your heart with these ones.

One night, during dinner at Rewild (the women’s retreat Samara and I used to host) as I served the women a meal I had made for them, and said my mealtime prayer, I gave an impassioned speech (that I do not remember much of, as I was letting my grandmothers and the land speak through me) in which I gave a plea to the vegans and vegetarians to consider the moles and voles that are exterminated to keep plants alive. To, as my teacher says “bring kind attention to the intimate killing that sustains our lives.” Every so often, jokingly and lovingly, one of the women will text me or say to me “Consider the voles!” and honestly, it feels like a hug from my soul.

As we get to know these ones, we get to know ourselves through them. Spending time will allow for the channel of communication to flow. What are their personalities? What makes a waterfall a waterfall? What is the wisdom—or warning— of the salamander? What patterns, traits, cycles, or wisdom does the cedar want to share with you? There’s no “right” answer we’re trying to discover. Any thought, idea, image, or dream that occurs to you as you spend time with these beings is worthy of your attention and care.

Learning to navigate these other kinds of relationships is not only a fundamental skill, but also supportive of personal transformation and healing. This work is a container for having emotionally corrective experiences that may not be possible with other living humans, expanding our capacity for bliss and intimacy.

I invite you to sit under the oak tree, swim (cold plunge?) in the river, make eye contact with the owl for as long as she will let you, taste the mugwort, see how the meadow changes colors at sunset, count the spots on the ladybug, sleep with a stone from the mountain under your pillow. As we begin talking to, not about, the natural world, we realize our forgotten fluency in the language of the Earth.

Feeling:

alone

sad

grief

anger

nothing

confusion…

because

of unfulfilling friendships

of a soul sucking job

of the patriarchy

of colonialism

of your family

of the weather?

Have you ever considered:

How much the rain wants to touch you? It rushes from the heavens to caress you.

You have ancestral blessings, not just ancestral burdens.

You’re never, ever, alone-- even when the room appears empty.

Noticing your connection with the Earth can feel like a remembering.

That you will be an ancestor one day.

Why you feel better — or at least different— after spending time in a forest, or in a body of water.

How noticing the color of the sky can shift something deep within yourself.

How much hard work and sacrifice the mineral being make to keep us connected in this digital way?

How the answer to every question about community, resources, communion, innovation, and growth has already been answered, we just have to look in an unfucked with ecosystem?

Nothing lasts forever. (Except love.)

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