Healing for the Earth, Day 16: Turn off the News and Turn on Nature

Hello Earthlings,

How are y'all doing out there? Are you getting rest? Are you getting out in nature or at least breathing in some fresh air?

The news is pretty prevalent on the internet and TV right now. It's all over the place. Some of it is very important information that we need to be aware of, but watching the news and tuning into the thousands of news posts on social media 24-7 can make a person go crazy. Seriously. It's not healthy for fellow Earthlings.

You could probably get all the news you need to know in an hour or less each day. I find it healthy to maybe select a few credible places where you intend to be informed and leave the rest.


Here's a little video I made on my walk in the rain today, where I didn't see a single soul, so I was able to keep my social distance from other Earthlings. Out here in the countryside, it isn't hard to do. My counselor calls my channel of choice the Nature Channel. I like that one.

I'm aware of the turmoil out there, but I have decided that it is not helpful to the world if I'm in turmoil too. I can have compassion for what we as a species are going through. I have been offering love and support individually to several friends and collectively in my thoughts, prayers, chants,  drum sessions and meditations to all beings and our planet. This may not feel like much to some, but when I tune into the bigger picture and offer this gift of peace and healing, I find it to be so powerful. It tunes me in with all the other millions of people doing the same and collectively I can feel that energy.

The other thing that can offer so much incredible healing to Earthlings right now is tuning into the EARTH that we are living on. Yes, this big blue marble we call home. This crisis is not a human problem, it's an Earth problem. If we separate ourselves from nature and our planet by making ourselves the only important beings here, we are going to suffer.

In nature, ALL is there for us. Our water, air, sun, fire, material for our houses, and food has always been there for us. It's what sustains us and keeps us alive, actually. And the animals, particularly the wild animals, are speaking. They are literally SPEAKING! I now understand why our ancestors had such a strong connection to the land and animals. They understood very clearly that without them they could not live. Indigenous people have always known this. In my meditations I feel we are being called as a species to WAKE UP and remember that we are also part of nature and to survive we need to work in harmony with it.

I know, from all the news, that we are to keep ourselves 6 feet away from all people other than our family members and partners in order to flatten the curve of this virus. I'm respecting this, We Earthlings are also supposed to sanitize ourselves by washing our clothes, our bodies, our hands, etc. This is working very well. I'm proud of everyone for doing their part.

  I'm also enjoying the gentleness and quietness of our species who are normally so loud and dominant in the world.

We may be loud in our homes, but outside all is quiet. I hear a heard of elk walked down Cannon Beach in Oregon. A herd of ELK! When I see Earthlings outside now, here in the countryside where I live, they walk so mindfully and contemplatively. They keep huge distances from each other and respect space. They look so beautiful, as if they have just woken up to this precious planet that we all have been rushing around on.

You don't have to walk far to hear the quiet stirring of nature again. You don't have to do too much to feel that it has changed and a big part of it is that we are not running the show out there now. We were sent to our rooms! And those who venture outside for a walk, at least out here where I am living, have found a way to connect again.

On the beach today, way off in the distance, I saw a fellow Earthling walking alone in the rain and she was beautiful, the way she moved. And it brought me back to a time before our time when we used to walk like that, paying attention to the direction of the wind and the position of the sun and the sound of bird calls. Behind some logs on the beach, I found the medicine wheel I made with by boyfriend before the lockdown happened. I was delighted to see that it had remained completely untouched for over a week!

Today I spent time in meditation with a few friends virtually. We spent about an hour in silence together. Afterwards I felt so much peace and gratitude. We are all in this together. Be gentle with each other. There's so much love out there. There is so much healing happening! Thank you, each one of you, for doing your part.

The Lucky One

Hello fellow Earthlings,

I'm cut off from most social media out in Sequim. In fact, it's hard for me to get phone service where I am.

 I went into the city early on Wednesday for my class at the college and spent the night at a friend's in Greenwood. It was nice being in my old, familiar stomping grounds of Seattle, but the pace was also intense. Everything in the city has been created to make humans comfortable. I walk into Whole Foods and it's like walking into Las Vegas, only with food. In fact, I swear I heard some sort of electronic sound that seemed to mimic a winning on a slot machine.

The day after my class, the creature comforts were actually welcome. I didn't have much to do that day and I found myself browsing in East West Bookshop above Whole Foods. I walked around and looked at native jewelry and picked up tarot card decks and sat in the back with a book from the Used Book section of the store.

Then, I wandered back down to Whole Foods and drank a Kombucha and filled out a Valentine's Day Card for my boyfriend. He just got a new place in the city. Originally, the plan was for him to move to Sequim with me, but all his work is in the Seattle area, so it made more sense for him to be there. It's strange, we are in a relationship, but I hardly see him. I will see him tomorrow. I bought him a housewarming gift for his new place. It's good that he has a place in the city, because it makes it easier for me when I'm in town and need a place to stay.

Whenever I come back to Sequim, out here on the Peninsula of Washington State, everything slows way down. It's hard for me to move at a fast pace. I feel like there is a lot of healing going on here. I haven't written as much as I've wanted to. I feel I will write more, but I've been called to pay deep attention to each moment.

Today the sun outside pulled me towards The Spit and I walked way down the beach late in the afternoon. The waves were calm and the tide was out. It was pleasant and warm. My heart loves the ocean. It comes alive there. I like looking at the vastness of it. It's like looking at emptiness.

I took a stick I found on the beach and began to draw words in the sand: book, house, love. After I wrote these words, I enjoyed watching the gentle waves roll up on to the beach and erase them. Just like that they were gone, out to sea.

And I feel like the lucky one to have this time. Somehow in this life I'm living I have created time for inner work. It's so valuable to me. In fact, it's the most important work I'm doing. It's very subtle. Sometimes it feels I'm doing nothing at all and wasting time, but when I slow down, I can actually feel so much happening on the inside.

I move as slow as the animals move out here. Did you know that when you slow down and feel each movement, wild animals will come very close? You are moving at their speed. They can sense your gentleness. You are speaking their language.

I want to speak the language of the Earth.

I'm in a comfortable house out here that protects me from the outside. Today I received a text from a friend who I hadn't heard from in a very long time. He didn't write any words, he just sent me a link to Alison Krauss's song "The Lucky One." And when I listen to the words, I can really feel that this is my life.

You're the lucky one so I've been told
As free as the wind blowing down the road
Loved by many, hated by none
I'd say you are lucky 'cause 
You know what you've done
Not a care in the world, not a worry in sight
Everything is gonna be alright 'cause 
You're the lucky one....

It's not that life is easy or without problems. There are problems. The world can be fierce and crazy sometimes and, like the waves out on The Spit which can take everything in their wake, it can toss and turn us and leave us flat on our asses, pardon my French.

But deep under that ocean is a calm. It's available at any time. All the dramas in the world are the waves. They just keep coming.

Instead of letting these dramas, or waves, get stuck in me, I'm experimenting with letting them wash over me and not suck me out to sea.

I want to ride the waves, not fight them.

I'm working with boundaries and what feels right to me in any given moment and I'm not afraid anymore of the uncomfortableness that it creates to speak my truth.

I stepped out onto the deck of the house at around 10pm because I heard coyotes howling. I was barefoot and the cold against my skin woke me up. Is it a full moon? I wondered. I saw the big dipper, it was straight up and down so that the dipper was pointing towards the earth as if it were pouring its sparkly brilliance onto the green grass of the golf course. I then walked out the front door in search of the moon. No moon. All was quiet in the small suburb where I am staying. There were lights shining from windows in all the little houses and I imagined people were snug and warm inside. How lucky we all are to have food, shelter, hot water, etc. Most of us have the essentials and the rest is icing on the cake.

We are not here to own and fight and worry and fear. We are passing through this place to love and to  learn lessons and then we will return to that great big ocean that we came from, all of us drops of it.

We are the lucky ones to be here and have this opportunity to be alive.

We are the lucky ones...

The Spaces Between Doing and Being

Hello fellow Earthlings,

I woke up this morning with the awareness that the Earth was covered in a blanket of snow. Everything on the Earth was very still. I couldn't see it, but I could sense it and I knew. I walked through the dark hallway to the living room and pulled open the blinds that confirmed my thoughts. A deer stood there in the snow staring at me. They seem to come all the time now and very close to the house. We locked eyes for what seemed like a few minutes before it began munching on grass that poked through the snow. Then, all of a sudden, as if it had been called by something in the wind, it turned and walked across the golf course leaving fresh hoof prints in the otherwise untouched blanket of white. It didn't walk in a straight line. It created a curvy pathway back to the bushes on the edge of the golf course. The curves were perfectly symmetrical, almost as if the snow was cut with a cookie cutter of waves. As the morning moved along, those hoof prints became deep grooves that left a mark. It was just one squiggle on a blank page of white. It was an invitation to pause before I began to write.

And it seemed like every time I wanted to write, the moment pulled me in again.

It's now evening. I fired up the sauna on the deck. When I plug it in, lights and music come on. I waited until it reached 105 degrees before I got in. I sat in there and drank lemon water and journaled. What a luxury to be out here alone to write and prepare my online class for the college. How fortunate to have this blank canvas to create. I breathed in the dry cedar and let it warm me to the bone. After an hour I came out and my deer friend was sitting on a snowy hill in the dark, legs gently tucked under her, staring at me through soft snowflakes that swirled around before they found a suitable place to land.

I turned off the sauna. One button shuts off the whole machine, heat music, lights and all. It was me and the deer in the dark. I started to feel a chill enter my body standing there now with snow all around and I hurried inside to warm up. I immediately went and showered and pulled on a pair of sweats, wool socks, a t-shirt, cashmere sweater and and my favorite lambswool scarf that I got on a trip to New Zealand a few years ago.

Earlier in the day,  I walked out to Graysmarsh Beach to the eagle totem pole and walked further out on to the frigid beach with blue glacier-like water. It was so cold that even the seagulls took shelter on a nearby neighborhood street. I stared out past the water to the snowy banks of land dotted with houses that were also covered in snow. So quiet. I could smell cedar burning in wood stoves and it warmed me inside to know that people were snug in their own spaces.

On the way back, a few cars wandered down Woodcock Road. The roads were pretty clear and I imagined people were going about their day regardless of the weather conditions. I suppose I could have scraped the snow from my car and made it down to the post office to send off some bills and letters, but I felt like everything on the planet was calling me to stop. So I did.

I keep trying to understand what I am meant to do. I keep trying to grab a hold of a thread or a clue or a sign. I created a list to keep me on task, but the moments unfold on their own. If everything is planned, I miss what's right here.

Right.
Here.

I did knock some things off that list. I prepared my online class, did a load of laundry, emailed a few people. But between each task, there's a huge pause. Even typing these words feels a bit like wading through molasses. Even if I want my fingers to flutter across the keys, they don't. Maybe I meant to find the answers in the spaces between doing and being.