Jesse Wolf Hardin points out the importance of the experiences we have through the sacred presence of a place. Ecopsychologist Michael J. Cohen, in his book Reconnecting with Nature, describes these experiences as our natural 53 senses. He suggests that anything in nature, be it "a park, a back yard, an aquarium, or a potted plant," can help us reconnect with the inherent knowledge with which we came into this life. As a student of ecopsychology, I am finding that the more I open my conscious attention to that which is around me in nature, the more I see about myself. If I stay in the same place to focus that conscious attention, then that place becomes increasingly enmeshed within me, within my essence. Life at Lost Valley aids in both spending more time in nature and doing so in a particular place.
On my morning jogs through the new forest, I experience my natural sense of color, one of our 53 senses, and its effect on my mood, another one. A bright newly blossomed fireweed reminds me of my sister in Alaska and gives me a feeling of love. A dark evergreen forest patch puts me into a place of melancholy and caution. I recognize the mood I feel upon embarking into the depths of my internal darkness. Freshly hand-tilled brown soil moves me to feeling secure, to being grounded and feeling that I possess the basis of my life in the soil of my soul. Experiencing the same place morning after morning strengthens my experience of colors and my moods associated with them and shows me how they can change depending on the exterior forces acting upon them. In the rain, an evergreen forest patch becomes a haven of shelter and brings up sensations of security, while a brown, freshly tilled garden bed becomes slippery, wet, and quicksand-like, making me feel melancholy and cautious.
My life is like this experience in nature, with certain exterior forces acting upon me, changing my moods. What Michael J. Cohen describes as a "wrangler's story" once taught me that changing moods, or even deviating from the norm of what most people experience in the way of moods, was not acceptable behavior. I have learned a new story through my experience in nature: changing moods is natural and even helpful for me. I am moved to feel an internal confidence that my actions are worthy and acceptable. Debilitating, unnatural senses of guilt, shame, confusion, and fear all dissipate as I run through the forest and examine color after color and rejoice in my natural sensation of each one from a place in sacred presence.
I see that this is where the need for something named "ecopsychology" fits in. We have passed the age of gray-haired, pot-bellied male dominance in our souls, and are intuitively finished with looking outside of ourselves to find the gold at the end of the rainbow. We are the rainbow, and we possess every prism required to refract our own light into any color imaginable. We have been taught to ignore, abuse, and misuse the natural world from a place of pure fear. Self-empowering individuals challenge Big Brother, henceforth has come the practice of divide and conquer. It is time to reunite with our Earth Mother, with nature, with the natural world around us, and finally regain our truth. That longing that every one of us is carrying around is starting to leak out everywhere you turn. Is there anyone you know who is not striving for a peaceful, balanced, relaxed existence? Listen to nature, look around you, and hear the silence. It is everywhere and we are a part of the beautiful balance. We each have the ability to tap into our peaceful dream; we need only allow the natural world to show us where that place is inside of ourselves, and surrender to it.
The sense of emotional place, of community, belonging, support, trust, and thankfulness is one I feel as I walk on the paths between the cabins of bustling community members and through the meadow where my apprenticing garden companions dwell in their tents. The journey through the trail system on this land lends to the connection of all of the community members here--the gentle grazing deer, the curious hummingbirds, the honey producing bees out pollinating the apple trees that will feed us in the fall. I trust that someone has put on the soup in the kitchen as I harvest the organic greens we have grown in the garden to accompany the noonday meal. I thank the neighboring weeds that have accommodated the pests while I pluck each perfectly formed lettuce leaf. Every part has its place in the whole of the cycle of life, one supporting the other.
Opening up a stream of consciousness to the natural environments around me has been the key to seeing more clearly my connection to those environments and to acknowledging my own set of natural senses. I can then blend the physical sensation with the mental understanding of what I inherently possess, and clear out the emotional channels with the help of spirit in nature, replacing previous distress with positive, secure, self-loving connections. Peace, contentment, security, and oneness follow in the embodiment of the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual planes being joined together producing truth. My unhealthy previous need for acceptance and external guidance brought me only internal turmoil. All that I was taught is not all that I am. No one can teach me that. I already embody that information and have access to it at all times by reconnecting to place, to nature--by feeling and acknowledging the natural senses I possess.
Straggling in from every corner of the property, everyone comes together to be nourished by the bountiful food around us, joining in a song and a sense of appreciation. We have begun to learn to participate in the perfect cycle of life around us as we compost our scraps after our meal (feeding them to the chickens, ducks, and garden), yet we have much to learn. Multiple labels adorn the row of economy-sized garbage cans as we attempt to decrease our waste as much as possible, yet the perfect balance still eludes us. Nature produces no garbage. There are many more days needed of walking down those paths past the cabins and through the meadow to notice more pieces of the infinite puzzle that makes up the whole of nature--to listen and watch for clues to nestling into our places in the puzzle. We each have our own niche, and together as a race we make up a section.
Consciously observing, I watch as an insect completely emerges from his skin before my eyes. His new body and wings still clumsy and unbalanced, his front legs frantically caress his shed skin as if searching for a way back in. I recognize the part of myself that has just left my cozy, warm, consumer-based home in Colorado for a simple living space with no running water. I still feel a bit clumsy and unbalanced in my new home, yet am in awe of the metamorphosis transpiring before me. At this moment I know that this change was inevitable and natural. I am grateful for this message before me, and feel at peace.
I sit on the porch of my little cabin as the sun leaves the sky and gaze past the meadow to the flag of the world. The winds have died down, the intensity of the heat has left the day, and the forest is calm. I consider writing late into the night to complete a project I am working on, but instead stop to connect with what is around me. I feel the calm in my soul, observe the sun setting in the planes of my ideas, and join the surrounding energies in rocking myself to sleep. There are no deadlines in nature. There just is.
Lynn Ruoff, a new member at Lost Valley Educational Center, is a recent graduate of its Organic Gardening, Permaculture, and Community apprenticeship program, and is enrolled in the Certificate Training Course in Ecopsychology through the Institute of Global Education, Project Nature Connect. Lynn is a teacher who is currently in the learning stage. Contact: PO Box 325, Dexter, OR 97431, [email protected].
©2002 Talking Leaves
Fall 2002
Volume 12, Number 3
Eco-Shelter, Coming to Our Senses