Something beyond words is trying to reach you.
Do you remember how to listen?
Human beings have been speaking with nature since the dawn of time for health, guidance, and protection. These practices aren’t specific to any time or culture, but are part of how we’ve learned to survive within our particular landscape.
The same techniques are available to us now to help us navigate the challenges of modern life because nature is in our bodies and all around us in the air, water, and food we eat, as well as reaching towards us through our deep imagination, which still uses ancient, nature-based language to communicate with us.
There are three stages to practicing and opening to the wisdom of connecting with the wild within and around us:
- Build a relationship through listening
- Start a conversation through intention
- Further explore and honor what you hear
Here are some things to keep in mind:
- It doesn’t matter whether what you experience is real or you’re pretending or projecting. Out of an almost infinite array of experiences you could be having, there’s a reason why you are feeling, seeing, and hearing exactly what you are in this moment. What matters is that you trust it is important and that you get curious about exploring it further.
- You probably won’t get direct answers. What you experience may or may not make you feel better. And you may not even see, hear or feel anything. Most of us have actively pushed away the wild for years or generations, and it can take some time for it to warm up to us and for us to start to understand its language. What matters is that you are demonstrating an interest and an openness, and if you practice, you will grow to feel less isolated, anxious, and fearful.
- You don’t need to know what is communicating with you or have any specific religious or spiritual beliefs for these practices to transform your life. In my opinion, it’s most profound to let Mystery remain a mystery. What matters is that you begin – through direct experience, practice, and patience – to know that something is there, to discern its voice, to trust it, and to align your life with it. This is what deepens your sense of wellness, belonging, and purpose.
Feel free to enjoy the practices below on your own. If you’d like some support with going deeper, trying new approaches, or working through any obstacles, visit www.InnerWoven.net for more on personal sessions and/or email me at nancy@innerwoven.net.
Listening to Your Body
We often forget that our own bodies are wild animals. The best way to practice connecting with others – human or nonhuman – is to connect with the soil of our own bodies. The better we know our own bodies in solitude, the better we will be able to listen through them as the presence of Others inspires new feelings and sensations.
Get into a comfortable position and close your eyes. Slowly scan your entire body with your imagination, envisioning each part. You can check in with your arms, heads, head, and torso, or you can visit each muscle and joint, or dive inward to welcome your organs, circulation, and/or digestion.
Notice what part calls your attention most strongly. Is it a pain in your foot or a gentle warmth in your belly – an itch on your ear or a tightness in your chest. Let your attention rest on that part without any attempt to change what you experience there, in the way you would listen to a small child who is very upset or excited about something and just wants you to listen. Does this part of your body have a shape, color, or temperature? Is it still or does it move or shift in any way as you watch it? Do you notice other sensations arise in association or any words, imagines, or memories?
Follow where ever these images and sensations lead you. If anything feels too uncomfortable, bring your attention back to the sensation of breathing, or fully return to your body with some gentle movement and opening your eyes. When you feel your experience coming to a close, retrace your steps, remembering each thing you received and rest your attention on your heart, noticing how it rises and falls with your inhale. Place an intention for everything you experienced to root itself in your body, to marinate and emerge when you most need it, and trust that it will be so.
Begin to breathe more deeply into your belly and chest, begin to move your fingers and toes, then your shoulders, spine, and hips, and open your eyes. Take a moment to write down what you experienced and see if there’s anything you’d like to do as a result. Perhaps you want to draw a diagram of your body with shapes and colors for things you encountered. Perhaps you received some insight into something you can do to take better care of yourself and you want to put that on your calendar or “to do” list. As you practice this, you’ll find you are better able to hear and respond to what your body needs in the moment so that you feel healthier and more comfortable being in your own skin.
Meeting the Other
We are intuitively drawn to specific aspects of nature that reflect some aspect of ourselves, often something we need to shed or embrace. When something catches your attention – either physically out in nature or in your imagination – explore it intimately with all of your senses. What is the color and texture of its surface? What shape is it and what function do each of its parts have? What sounds does it make? How does it move? How does it smell? If you sense it’s comfortable making contact with you, how does it feel? How do you feel being near it?
Speak aloud what you love about it and what makes you uneasy, how you are the same and different, what you are curious about and what you imagine you might offer each other. Listen for its response through words or images in your mind, a feeling or sensation, or some occurrence around you.
Next, if you ask and receive permission, allow your body to take on its shape – to mimic it, allow yourself to enter it, or allow it to enter you. What does it sense in the world around it? What might it love, fear, desire? How does it feel about your presence? Where does it want to go and what does it want to do? If you feel safe, let it take you.
When your conversation has come to a close, retrace your steps back to your starting point, remembering each experience and insight. Come back into your human body and share some gesture of gratitude with this Other for sharing its world with you. Begin to breathe more deeply into your belly and chest, begin to move your fingers and toes, then your shoulders, spine, and hips, and open your eyes.
Take a moment to write down what you experienced and see if there’s anything you’d like to do as a result. Perhaps you want to research the Other you encountered, find an image of it to put up in your personal space, or come back to visit it again another time. When we take action in our daily lives to honor what we experience in nature and the imaginal world, we deepen our capacity to receive its messages and show that we are sincere, open, and trustworthy.