 It is my intention to know, and embody, my true nature, and to share that power, that energy, and that healing with the world.
To be a bridge between the healing found in nature, and the healing needed in the culture. And vice versa. I choose to be an instrument of healing the abuse of force in the world, through choosing to embody my peace-power, and to use my voice powerfully to create a vision on the horizon that effortlessly inspires and heals and pulls forward. To make this choice daily in my own life, and then to use my voice powerfully to illuminate for others a path to finding the power of their own true nature, within themselves. It was in the woods that I first experienced my true nature, my power, in the form of deep bliss, interconnection at us cellular nature with the world around me, and peace. As in nature, peace is power; it is contained, respectful, open, and flowing. I am one of so many individual, interconnected beings, each sovereign and independent, yet also interdependent. For me, this path, and the woods, are my path into the highest self. I can hear, and I can heal, most clearly in the woods. Living from my true nature, which is peace-power, is the truest thing I know, and it is the meaning of my life. Everything else is noise, and clutter, and the culture. It was here that I had an even greater appreciation and perspective on the abuse of force in our culture. Embodying power means having the strength, the courage, to release the dynamic of force within ourselves and our lives; those ingrained habits that perpetuate force, whether it is outright force, or the desire for certainty, the need for a particular outcome, or a feeling of superiority/inferiority. Releasing these underlying energetic patterns, every time they are seen, is an act of tremendous courage and trust, and is an act of restoring true power. As I reflect on this journey, I’m reminded of Joseph Campbell’s hero's journey, where we must leave our home, our culture, everything that is familiar to us, face trials, and then return home, in order to show the way and lead to the new. This path has given me everything, and it has also cost me everything: money, prestige, friendships, my own identity. That's ok, that's what it took to get here. And, it has restored and returned me, in return.
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The easiest way to describe force is to describe power. Because force is anything that power is not.
I first experienced what I call power in the woods. The deepest sense of trust, interconnection, peace, belonging, bliss. It is a felt sense within the body of deep interconnection with the nature all around me. Sometimes my cells become so diffuse that I feel like I disappear and it is only the slimmest sense of my senses that remains. It is the deepest peace possible, everything is exactly as it should be. It is deeply respectful of every living thing - and everything is living in some way: human, animal, mineral, vegetable. Everything is living because everything is comprised of energy. It is felt in the heart area, and it can only be experienced by abdicating the brain to the heart. In this culture we live above our necks, we experience life (for the most part) in our heads. Thinking, analyzing, rationalizing, stimulating. Living in the head feels like force to me. I used to feel like my head was outsized, and just dragging my body around after me. Living in our power, however, is experienced from the knowing in our bodies. It is completely open-hearted. Rumi says that, “your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” St. John the Evangelizer has been paraphrased to say that, “your truth is holy. Your deepest truth is the holiest thing about you.” This bliss is the deepest truth I know, which means it is the holiest thing about me. Spending time in this state is healing: it heals me, and it heals the world. Experiencing life from this place is being in your power. Everything is perfect, things come or go with no agenda besides trust and truth. This is your true, divine nature. We are whole, complete, always. Touching this is the essence of rewilding. Trying to describe this is hard. The part of the brain that feels feelings is not the part that uses words, that is capable of analysis. By very definition this description is wrong, but it is my best attempt at understanding it. Over time, we become bridges, bringing that peace, power, interconnection with us back into the world. And, in true bridge fashion, we develop a pact with nature that we will take care of her. She heals us, we heal her, we heal each other. My pact, right now, is to clean up trash. It is Norma-sized. I do not have to do more than my share, but I do have to do what is mine to do. This is mine to do. This can’t be experienced in the head, it is felt in and with the whole body. The heart flows in one direction, endlessly refilling and flowing. We are simultaneously tiny, a morsel in the massive world, and so mighty, woven into the fabric of it all. We belong. This bliss undos all the pain of the culture, and is so deeply healing. It is an act of intention to experience it, to desire to know ones true nature, and then it is an experience of the body. The brain recedes, and the awareness, the truth, of the body speaks, knows, allows. This is the truest thing I know, this is the meaning of life, this is holy power. And, anything that is done from this state, is true and perfect. Because there really is nowhere to go and nothing to do in this life that is more important than what this state calls forth and into being. Exercise to explore:
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