I live in a river valley, at 3000 feet at the foot of The Black Mountains in Western North Carolina.
The mountain peaks out my window are some of the oldest mountains on the planet. They are exquisite and still. They are dynamic and changing. Once, tall as the Himalayas, they now stand a mere 6700 feet. Slowly they shifted. Each day they change a little.
The black mountains are, in many ways, the most consistent presence in my day-to-day life. They are always with me, there to greet me each morning. And I am always in relationship to them.
Each morning they tell me something about an experience I will have – is there snow? Is there a huge cloud blanketing the ridge? Or is it clear and blue? Over the next two months, I will watch a carpet of bright green growth spread and crawl from the river valley up to the peaks. Come summer there will be giant rhododendron blooms, moss blanketing the forest floor, and wild blueberries for the bears and children to eat.
I walk every day through the woods around my house. I have done that for many years, it is my way to process my thoughts and to settle my body. I don’t walk for exercise. I walk in nature just to be, to process, to connect to myself and to listen. It is true medicine for me. I feel deeply grateful that no matter what I do and no matter who I am – the air is there for me to breath, the sun rises and the moon waxes and wanes. I do not have to do anything, be good, or work harder, and the earth provides so I can live.
The natural world is the most consistent relationship in all of our lives.
Remember how we were talking about our relationships and how they influence us? Or how they can influence us? Let’s take a look at how we might use this relationship to our advantage.
Your bones were formed because you live in relationship to gravity. If you did not live with gravity, you would not have bones. Your eyes can see an exquisite array of colors because we live in an environment with light. Without light, no need to have eyes to see. In other words, we’ve come into being and evolved, not distinct from nature and our environment, but in an essential relationship.
We are formed by it and informed by it. But here is the thing – we often act like this is not true.
How did we get so disconnected from the most constant thing in our lives?
In the western world, the industrial revolution pulled focus on the outcome. The product was valued over the process. What we could make, how fast, how automated mattered most. What mattered was what we could make – it did not matter how we got there.
What did this lead to? We know the amazing influence of the industrial revolution….
It changed the western world by transforming business, economics, and society. These shifts had major effects on the world and continue to shape it today. Before industrialization, most European countries had economies dominated by farming and artisan crafts such as hand-woven cloth.
The unprecedented levels of production in domestic manufacturing and commercial agriculture during this period strengthened the western economy and resulted in greater wealth and a larger population in Europe as well as in the United States.
Many good things came of the industrial revolution that we can’t imagine living without, but it only benefitted a few and disproportionately affected many. Not only did it lead to cultural changes, it also led to major pollution and climate change.
The question for us is – how is it affecting us personally now? The ship has sailed. We are not turning back, but how is this affecting how we relate to the other mots consistent relationship in our lives, the relationship to ourselves?
We switched our attention and value system to what could produce over the actual process of production. And remember from past blogs, where attention goes, that part of the self-image grows.
As one of my teachers used to say – you can get a screw out of wood with a butter knife, but both will come out damaged, right?
Once we shifted our focus on the outcome, what could be made, how quickly, and for how much profit, everything changed. We lost our connection to the experience of the process of living.
Think about this for a second – when we were hunters and gathers, or even agricultural societies, we paid attention to cycles. We knew what animals moved through an area at what time of year. We knew when we could plant certain crops or when some were doomed to fail because of a lack of rain. We understood our exquisite interdependence with our environment.
Until we didn’t. We don’t have to look past Texas this past week to see how this has gotten things way out of balance.
There is a balance we can strike much closer to home – it is with our bodies and how we relate to them. We can drive cars, ride buses and buy sneakers made in a factory AND still connect to our bodies and the natural world.
When we start to pay more attention to our body, our cycles and rhythms, we BENEFIT from our relationship to our natural environment as well. We begin to understand our inter dependence, how our cycles are related to the natural cycles that formed us, that we live in, When we do this will be less at odds with nature, but more directly we will be less at odds with our own nature. We become more in tune,less at odds with our cycles, and learn to work with them to enjoy the pleasure of living.
Your body experiences cycles each and every day just like the sun rising and setting, and the moon waxing and waning, and the seasons changing. Tune in.
Take a breath in and out. Just a normal breath. Notice how the air going in your nostrils is a different temperature than the air coming out. You feel that? That is part of your exchange with the natural world.
You are not a machine. You are a dynamic ecosystem.
Most modern medicine is based on this machine-like approach to the body. I am grateful for MRIs and antibiotics and vaccines, but you can ask any honest practitioner of a modern medicine, and they will tell you they do not have all the answers, the body and mind are a way, way, way more complicated and complex system than modern medicine can address with a singular approach.
Some ancient medicine systems, take this into account. In traditional Chinese medicine for example, they do not see the body and mind as distinct or separate from the environment and natural cycles. They recognize that we are influenced by the seasons and our environment.
If only we could take what is best from all of these practices and merge them into one. Many people are.
Let’s look at all the ways you can start acting like the exquisite complex natural being you are and stop acting like a machine.
- The food you eat, the water you drink – notice how it tastes. Notice how you feel after consuming it. I don’t eat the same food in the winter as in the summer. I can do it because I have the privilege to have access to really good food. But even when I was living with much less access and on much tighter budget, I found ways to pay attention. For example, I stopped buying and eating apples in the winter – they just tasted bad. Apples flown in from who knows where did not taste like apples picked in the Fall, so I would rather not eat them. I would rather eat applesauce in the winter.
You may not have access to fresh food, or maybe you live in a food desert or it costs too much to eat fresh food. I get it. Consider then to simply pay attention to what it is you do have access to and how you feel when you consume it.
There is nothing wrong with boxed cereal, pasta and rice. It’s tasty. Maybe you want to grow a little herb plant on your windowsill and add it to the rice? Or maybe you notice you felt better after eating less rice with some butter or fat on it rather than more rice with nothing on it? There is no one size fits all. The point is just to start to notice how you feel. Become an expert on you.
- When your body is tired rest. The earth rests every winter.
You are not a machine. You are not a better person if you do more, produce more and don’t rest. Your life is a process. We know what the outcome is – we will all die;-) So notice your natural rhythms and cycles. When you are tired rest. Remember the sun will rise and set without you, you will keep breathing and your heart will keep beating even when you rest. You don’t have to do something all the time. You can also just be. You are a human BEING after all;-)
- When you have energy and feel active – enjoy it.
We seem to focus so much activity on outcome and what we can make with it. When you can, is your energy also available for pleasure? Do you always have to use your energy to be productive? Or can you be productive and enjoy it? Can you bring some pleasure and enjoyment to your activity? Play around with this. The solutions do not have to be big. They can be as simple as noticing that you don’t need to clench your jaw while you walk fast or get that project completed.
- Compost, prune, let it go to seed.
Parts of your life and routine would benefit from pruning and cutting back. What’s your body telling you that you can compost, prune or let to go to seed? Compost makes rich soil for things to grow – you have to let go and get rid of things and let them die in order to have the fertile soil for things to grow. What is one small thing you can compost in your life?
- Dream of what seeds you want to plant.
Maybe you want to consider what you want to grow in your life? If so, dream it, feel it. Plant the seeds in your mind’s eye. It does not all need to grow right now. Maybe it needs to grow later. What do you want to grow now? What can wait until later?
- Get a house plant and notice it.
What does it need? Do you have the right environment for it? Just simply tuning in to a little plant can remind you of your connection to seasons, your nature and your rhythms.
- Stare at the sky, feel the air on your face. I know that Covid and lockdown has been rough. It is real. If you are able, look out a window and notice what you can see, maybe a patch of sky, maybe a little patch of dirt. Look at it daily. Notice how it changes. Maybe consider writing down what you see or feel or consider taking a pho
