Nature Knows
Something happens every time I’m inside the woods. Last week, I walked one morning and it truly felt magical. Whenever I caught my mind lost in thought I asked my feet to move more slowly. I watched the placement of each step. I felt the vastness of everything around me and I felt me in there, too.
I followed the sound of a bird.
It was bright red. It wasn’t a cardinal and it was not a bird I see frequently around here. It felt like a sweet little secret gift.
When I came to a lower level of the trail, I felt the urge to sigh and moan and, yes I looked around first to make sure there were no other humans because this is still new to me, and then I did it. I yelled and released. It felt good. Like those guttural sounds you make in childbirth that vibrate your being in a different way. Like it’s my insides communicating out and not just ruminations from my distracted mind.
In another instant I got the urge to take my shoes off. To feel the moist Earth. The soil, the moss.
Shortly after I stepped on a thorn and realized the poor choice of place to take off my shoes and put them back on. But even for a moment, the soft soles of my feet and their sensitivity shifted something in me.
I found a tree and put my hands on it and let it deepen my breaths. Something about the deeply creviced bark and the stoic elegance of the Tulip trees always talks to me. Suddenly I felt so sorry. So sorry about how humans have destroyed this planet in the name of greed. Simultaneously I felt so grateful. Grateful for her resilience. For her forgiveness.
“Teach me”, I ask the Tulip tree, my eyes closed and hands gently resting on her abdomen. I imagine the deep web of mycelium reaching down and out and all through the forest below us. I imagine perhaps they felt the soft skin on the underside of the arches of my feet. I imagined they passed me something - vitamins, nutrients, bacteria, wisdom. . .
Something spiritual, yeah, but more so simply how to survive.
My mind travels back to our second post partum period. A newborn and a toddler being treated for Lyme. A hardworking husband. COVID. And a mama lost and still learning and still loving. But not showing up as my truest most present self.
We made a lot of mistakes.
And it wasn’t her fault.
I want her to know. Both her and Me.
I put my hands on my heart and I let myself feel and I let myself forgive.
Then I go home and, before the urge to say to myself, “It’s too late.” “She doesn’t remember.” “She won’t understand.” before the urge to say those things to myself settles in, I scoop her up. My daughter. And I look at her sweet eyes and I say softly and clearly “Hey, remember those days awhile back, like when you were 2 and bedtime was hard, every single night? Remember how I yelled? Im really sorry.”
She doesnt say anything. But we’re wrapped up in arms and in the type of silence where nothings expected of one another.
When I have a moment alone again, I find a sunny spot in my house. I sit down and soak until my skin feels radiant. And I feel whole. This has become a much welcomed habit.
This helps me sleep better at night.
I have moments when I see the Zinnias in bloom, the bumblebees buzzing, the sun setting across the horizon and think, only letting it touch me superficially, “Ohh wow. Nature is nice.”
And then I have these experiences when I feel from my skin deep into my cells that “Oh yeah. Nature is necessary.”
