butterfly

Grandmother Gaia, creatress of all manifest is married to Spirit. Engorged with the fullness of Anima, she birthes breath. Each thought a brain flutter soft wings now open, now resting on the leaves of trees. A quick flash of color and then dullness. The butterfly has disappeared into the tree, and my hand resting upon the bark has also dissolved, I can hear the whisper of what lies within us. My heartbeat a thousand shudders of animal flesh awakening. Flash of wings crashes the sky open. Cracked open and sap drips lustily from the heartwood, cries openly to the crashing sky, breathes in the raw nectar of exposure. I piece together what fell apart. My eyes open upwards and catch sky falling, birds departing noisily, butterfly wings lilting on the breeze, open colors flashing boisterously among the shuddering branches dissapear. Full breath in. Grandmother Gaia transforms time.

leaves of bliss

I learned to love trees when I was a young yellow headed girl, singing songs to myself in piles of leaves. I smell crunch, crackle delicious woodsmoke, wet moss and earthy overtones. Smells so good deep in that pile of leaves I want to taste it. Put a leaf in my mouth; dry crackle crunch ughh, I leave you to decomposition. Smiling, satisfies the olfactory, I am content letting you crunch deliciously underneath me.

I want to sleep on a bed of leaves. Old worn yellow holy blanket, brought out for such ocassions as gathering fallen leaves, slung over mom's shoulder like a wild Santa Claus retreating to the woods edge. She piles them at the feet of their owners. Before they are deposited out again, I lie my head on the blanket, my bed the crunch pile of partially rotted tree debris, smelling ripe as the shedding Earth, soft as a yellow blanket.

I find something else out about the trees. In them are holes where animals can live. Baby animals crying for days because their mamma has gone away and they are hungry. My dad found two raccoons like that. Curled up in his grey flannel, their eyes barely open he carries them home for me to look at. I learn how to nurture them. We name them Sister Bear and Brother Bear after the Berenstein Bears. I bottle feed them in the screen porch as the crocuses poke their sleepy heads out of the moist Earth and the air gets warm.

When I'm older, I retreat from the house carefully when there is company, before anyone can notice I am gone. Running to the edge of the woods, I grip the uneven bark in my soft palms and hoist myself up into the crook to sit for a moment, relishing the safety of my high vantage point. In the thick green foliage of the late summer Oak I press my face to her side. I climb high as I can. I sit comfortable as I can, with my back against her trunk, my feet pushing the thick branches, legs taut. I whisper stories and hum tunes that I never remember until I am with her again.

my thoughts are so important

Returning to womb-box room of dimmed lights to perch above the glowing, humming screen and remember my roots in this subtle forcefield of imperceptible unity. I catch glimpses of her maybe for a moment and this tiny sip of returning has me tumbling like Alice into a cavern of contentment. This cyclone of Mystery swirls me, a dancer with many colored scarves all unraveling from my pulsating body and out into the beyond. I am listening to a chorus of sounds as I twirl, so potent i am gifted visions of multi-dimensional geometric shapes that correspond to the notes pouring etherically from on high
meanwhile....
i enjoy live bluegrass at a bar in the midwest with old highschool friends and drink guiness

Tonight I am huddled inside attempting to stay warm as the frigid wind pushes soundlessly against the window panes. Since returning to the Wisconsin winter of my youth I have been seeking to reconcile myself with the cold enough to nourish that part of my being that requires daily moments with the unbridled earth. I foray a few blocks from my mother’s home and am able to appreciate the sun glinting against the crystalline snow and the insular silence that comes from everything being frozen. I am able to appreciate these things for a few moments before my tearing eyes and my stinging thighs take the better part of my attention and all I can think about is moving to get warm.

Three years ago I was living in the northern Wisconsin wilderness, cloaked in only woolen garments and large pack boots, hanging onto survival in the long winter months without any inside to return to when I was cold. I was a participant in the Wilderness Guide Program at a primitive skills school in the Great Lakes Region where I and 13 others were challenged to survive a year in the woods as trapper/gatherers. Just this morning I was joking about using a snow-covered stick to wipe my butt whilst taking care of business, outside, in a frigid clime; like a very cold wet wipe!

Now I am shivering in the house, lamenting the very winter that gifted me so much when I chose to acclimatize and embrace my bodies innate ability to handle these temperatures, years ago. After living in Maui and then California, the harshness is almost shocking and I can no longer identify with the me of yesteryear. Something about this bothers me, its near intangibility barely knocking at the door of my awareness whispering of what has been pushed away or forgotten.

We watched a movie today near the warmth of the fire, in which a woman lives in Nature and meets a man who was raised to believe he is a monkey and their adventures into the highly civilized world and then back again to the woods. I was dismayed when at the end of the movie, the ape-man who had publicly denounced sterile civility and proclaimed his return to the natural life of harmony made a last ditch effort to return again to “comfort” claiming he was cold and hungry. My heart fell and perhaps I even felt guilt as I identified with this character. The movie seemed to say, we have been so separated from the Nature around us that even the most hard-core of survivors, once faced with the spoils of civilization, won’t be able to resist its lures.

Is this true? Well, from a personal perspective, I have experienced that it is something very deep and insistent that causes me to desire a life intricately entwined with the wilderness. I also recognize that this presents itself in people to varying degrees, with some on the extreme who perhaps feel no recognizeable longing to connect with the wild at all. The insistent strength of this connection to Nature within me makes it possible to overcome the temporary discomforts that present themselves during the initial change in environment. However, having been raised with these civilized “spoils” all around me, and depending on things like the toilet and refrigerator to fulfill my basic needs , making the shift to “natural” is quite shocking and admittedly feels unnatural at first. A lot of basic comfort is surrendered in exchange for the gradual sense of greater fulfillment that ensues.

I do however miss challenging myself in this way. I inspire myself to relocate the feelings of wonder, gratitude and calm when I am outdoors, even if just in the city park. I challenge myself to get out of the house and remember how good it feels to interface with the fresh chill of Winter. Little by little, I suspend my doubts of discomfort and surrender to my soul’s need for wildness. Perhaps if each one of us took the time to explore the boundaries of our discomfort with the wild, we would find that the enjoyable moments as well as the lasting feeling of well-being would make it worth our while. Extending this idea further, this small movement toward reconciliation with our surroundings could mean tipping the scales in how each one of us plans to care for the Earth and her resources. Well with that I’m off, stay warm and enjoy the cold!