Kendy (xe/xem/xyrs)
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In Summary:
This experience is off to an awakening start! The weekend of the intensive I found myself actually engaged with something for the first time in awhile. This feels like the path for me and like something I can grow in. It’s already pushing me outside of what has become comfortable for me and reminded me of valuable things that I find comfort in. One of my biggest take-aways is this sense of capablility. I often find that I doubt myself and my abilities. I feeling very capable in this and supported by our small cohort community! I’m looking forward to getting to meet some other cohorts as well, but y’all will always be my number 1s!
It’s also been an interesting experience to be accountable for “homework” again. School, homework, and classes were my life and my identity for many years of my adolescence; I didn’t like it, but I knew how to do it and do it well. So entering back into this world of learning something new in a classroom-like setting again, and this time by my own choice. I own that I haven’t done great in this first round and have purchased a paper planner and sat reminders on my phone to have better time management again. -
Initial Post (sorry it’s late!)
To be connected with Nature is to see ourselves as Nature. Life takes time, and Nature never rushes. It understands that all things will come with time.
As a child, my family vacations usually consisted of some type of camping. Which, as an adult, I love. However, as a child I found myself frustrated with why I couldn’t experience something different like a city excursion, or a hotel once and a while. It was always a campfire and a tent. I didn’t know it then, but this instilled deep knowing in my soul that I would always be held by the natural world when the human world would inevitably fail me.
When learning how to “adult” I find myself on the trail talking to my dog and the trees about what I need to do. When considering major life changes, I find myself floating down a river or sitting creek-side listening for the “right” answer. When in need of deep emotional healing I find myself exhausted, on top of a mountain, surrounded by nothing by the breeze you can only feel from the summit. When struggling with change I find myself gazing at the moon, hearing its gentle reminder that change is the only true routine there is. This relationship, though it has remained unconscious until recently, was instilled in me as a child and has been a constant & reliable relationship I have returned to for guidance time and time again.
I am reminded of poems by Mary Oliver then thinking about what Nature Connectedness means. Two quotes, from two of her more well-known poems come to mind: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”, from Wild Geese; and “I do not know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day.”, from The Summer Day. These quotes, to me, mean that we are only animals and we find ourselves in Nature. The experience of experiencing Nature can heal us and be a prayer without words if only allow ourselves a second to be still and known.
This relationship with Nature and recognizing that I am Nature is what I want to share with other people in my coaching. I hope to be able to guide others to be able to recognize the nature in themselves and build a relationship that they can return to time and time again as well. It was clear during our first weekend intensive that I would learn how to share this and constantly be gently reminded that I am on the right path.
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Julie, I love how you make note that we are all connected to Nature, because we are Nature!
I often think about this little nugget of a fact and wonder “if we are nature, and our nature is to create, then aren’t the things we create part of the natural world by default?” It’s a rabbit hole that I’m wiling to talk more about any time!
The Nature in us, that we are, is there no matter what. Even if we do not acknowledge it. -
I love this I-Thou relationship. I have not heard it explained in this way before!
I appreciate and am inspired by the way that you have articulated yourself, your experience, where your hope to land in this piece. It makes me happy to hear that over the weekend of the intensive you found it easy to wander!