View from my Hammock

I am finding that it is taking me some time to learn how to slow down in this new place I live. To be able to take time out each day to sit and read or write. I have just felt so scattered and unsettled from the move, feeling that I had so much to get done, while fretting in the back of my mind that the days were mindlessly passing me by. I knew I needed a place outside my home where I could decompress, to get away from my to-do list and simply "be." To ignore the laundry and dirty floor or the feeling of needing to buy something to make my house feel like a home. In the end, I did buy something - a hammock stand - so that I could string my existing hammock on its framework in order to have a pleasant place to rest and swing in the breeze.

I just read an excellent article called "Healing Ourselves" which talks about the important connection between nature and humans. How humanity has lost something valuable in its move away from the natural world. And how a return to spending time in nature can help cure us of much that ails us. I think we all know this subconsciously, especially given how refreshed we feel after spending time outdoors.

I think I have been craving the natural world for a long time as I facilitated programs to get women in my church out into nature while living just outside the city of Philadelphia. How I found myself constantly heading to local waterways or woodlots in order to clear my mind. While these activities fed me well for a good long time, especially because I so loved all of the women I was in community with, I knew in my core that I needed to find bigger tracts of nature.

Coming back to my native state of Michigan, to the wild places I summered as a girl, has rekindled something in me. Taking me further back to who I was before the world came in and told me who to be. Allowing me to start anew and consider rebuilding myself while embracing the sanctity of nature.

Roots

When I first learned that I was soon to be moving back to Michigan this past February, I stumbled upon these words which spoke deeply to me:

She's unravelling the story in her roots.

She's been journeying in the deep for a while now. Currently, she's tracing her history with the lands that have held her. That piece of land where she was born, the land where her ancestors came from, the land where she first bled, the land where she fell in love, the land where her heart was broken, or where her children were born. She's discovering how the story of the land is deeply woven with the story of her life. Cities, towns, villages, forests ~ so many places where her story is deeply planted. Sometimes the story of the land is not different from hers. They share the same pain body.

As she traces her connection back into the earth, it's not been easy. There are so many painful tales buried in these grounds. There are many denials of who she is. Incomplete loops. She's meeting her underground roots for the first time, spread in so many places. As she re-enters the relationship with her underground, she's understanding what it is that is holding her, anchoring her. She's taking her time to gather all her history back. She's kissing the roots of her tree. 

~ Sukhvinder Sircar

This passage inspires in me to dig deep into my soul depths. To retrieve the lost parts of myself, covered up by time and complicity. There is an intertwining between myself and the land and it is my hope that as I discover one, I will discover the other.