Welcome!

Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Friday, June 12, 2015

Advice-Taking

I decided to take my own advice. Without really intending to do so, I just did the “facing the sun” nature practice from Monday’s blog.

I’m sitting outside in the sunlight, with my eyes closed. The sun is kissing my nose, blanketing my cheeks, swishing across my thick eyelids and knocking up against my chin. There is a lightning-bolt-shaped fire of gold behind my lids, surrounded by varying colors: red, blue, and a hueless color like crisp mountain air. I feel the heat and the nourishment of this planet.

And my ears are filled with thousands of leaves dancing against one another, a thick sound of fleshy aliveness rubbing against one another. The breeze has turned to wind and all I can do is find gratitude – fat, ripe, and sweet on my tongue. My body is weary but all I think to do is dance. I understand how I could complain about the cramped knot in my shoulder or how my brow has to furrow if I want to see these words appearing on the computer screen as I type. I notice reflected back to me - from the screen-turned-mirror - how my eyelashes create long symmetrical shadows like ashy sunrays down my cheeks. And all I can do is find the thrill, the peace, the raw nudity of my being in this lush and verdant now of my afternoon.

Clients situated for the weekend.
Book goals articulated to writing partner.
Accounting, scheduling, and correspondence current.
House cleaned to satisfaction, weeds pruned, houseplants watered, groceries purchased…

Instead of turning to the outer world, I begin to turn inward. To the knowing place. The calm place. The satisfied-even-though-the-big-projects-aren’t-all complete place. The only place I can go that asks nothing: spacious, compassionate Now. The now in Nature. The divine. The unflinching, unapologetic Earth that blows and sears and cycles and settles. The now in me that is unencumbered by a calendar, uncomprehending of tomorrow, unconscious about yesterday.

Why do we take so few opportunities to rest in this lovely, natural place?

It did me good to take my own advice.



 All blog images created & photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2015 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
Posted by at