Relationship with Nature as a Step Towards Healing our Fear for Our Survival
My last entry scared even me….why would my inner guidance urge me to write about the fear for our survival that seems to be permeating even those of us devoted to bringing sweet thought to humanity? Am I adding to the fear by talking about it?
I am soooooo Jungian in that I know that if something exists and I try to pretend it’s not there, it won’t make it go away. It just makes it scarier. Don’t you remember screwing up your courage to face the monster in the closet, and when you flew open the door and saw the closet was empty of the horrible visage you imagined, you felt a sense of how silly it was that you’d worried so much? I find this now when I am thinking through a conflict that needs to be resolved with another adult…in my mind, it can be much worse than it actually turns out to be in real life.
I wonder if this is might be an appropriate metaphor for the immense concerns we have about the plight of humanity via the earth’s climate change, pollution, environmental distress, etc. Some folks are yelling it from the rooftops because they feel that some others aren’t listening; and others are sticking cotton in their ears and pretending climate change is not happening.
I’m not here to argue with anyone about climate change. I am not a scientist or environmentalist or someone with an education about the many eons of history that this earth has been through. All I can speak from is my own experience.
My experience is this: when I was a child, I LOVED nature. I was outside so much of the time, playing in the dirt under the sky, climbing trees, trying to get lost in the woods (never could). I felt the eyes of the trees on me, felt the support of the ground under me, felt the love of the sun and the moon kissing me. Nature was an every day friend, a trusted companion, a silent, neutral and accepting partner that had no agenda with me.
No, the trees did not have a mouth like I did, but they “spoke” to me nonetheless. No, the rocks and mountains did not have eyes like me, but they “saw” me nonetheless. I felt seen, heard, accepted, respected as a daughter of this world.
And I have always felt that every aspect of creation has a consciousness. It may look very different from what we think of as human intelligence…maybe not a brain that looks like ours, maybe not thinking linear thoughts like we do. But there is for sure an intelligence that keeps things running in crazy orchestrated balance that nature performs every moment of every day since the beginning of time.
The presence of Nature that I felt loomed large…it encompassed me, surrounded and held me, cared about me, interacted with me. It did not hurt me, unlike those other humans. Nature was a host of other beings, entities, creatures that co-inhabited this earth with me. Humans were NOT the most important….we were one of the many.
In this way, I got to know the strength of creation, to know it and to trust it. I had a knowing of the power of Nature and this planet to do its own work, to follow its own process. It was my knowing, and I felt very secure in this knowing, that Nature was a wise and all-powerful co-inhabitor and conductor of the planet.
I reflected on this as I sat with my previous entry, wanting to fix it, wanting to offer suggestions. The fear that humanity won’t survive hits me in the gut, hits me where I live. I have two children, and I am invested in seeing them live their lives and have children of their own if they wish to. I love this earth, and I love human beings, and I want us to be able to be together in harmony.
What I realized as I was thinking about this was that I don’t spend hours and hours outdoors any more. I sit inside and work on my computer much of the day, sandwiched in between being mom and wife, which involves going outside to get to the car (an interior environment), leaving the car to get to the store or the school or other activity, reaching another interior environment…you get the picture. I am not abandoning myself to the great outdoors anymore. And I am feeling that loss of relationship with Nature.
Then I started thinking about what happens when we aren’t with someone for awhile…we forget some things about them. Guess what I forgot about Nature….how strong and self sustaining and powerful it is.
It didn’t take long to put it together that because I am not outside walking in the woods, I have forgotten Nature’s grounded, pervasive, kick-butt survival abilities, and instead I am feeding the fear for humanity’s survival by replacing my outside time with sitting in front of my computer, where the hyped up headlines blur past me and I hear the comments of opinionated folks on FaceBook. Oh my, the drama!
My point here (I will get to it eventually) is that we need some more outside time. No great surprise of earth shattering insight here. When we cultivate the relationship with the incredible power and sustainability of Nature, we might begin to remember that it is not so fragile that it will break in two weeks. A lack of relationship with Nature is breeding fear. If we look our fear in the eye, and see it is not an insurmountable problems we face, we might get off our asses and do something. And, maybe have a good time doing it.
How many of us used to run around outside when we were children, loving the feeling of being part of a larger world, and feeling safe in it?
Nature is the balm to soothe our fears. Yes, I do believe Nature will outlive us, probably by a long shot. But we don’t have to feel we need to overcome it, or control it, or dominate it, or plead with it not to kill us…we can feel its incredible strength as an ally instead of something to be frightened of.
And from a place of integrity and balanced relationship, we can work on the problems that threaten to wipe humanity out in a way that is not so fearful. We can tackle the problems together.
Because we’re ALL IN IT. Some of us believe we are more enlightened than someone else, or more religious than someone else, or more educated than someone else, or have it more figured out than someone else. And all of that may be true! But regardless of all of that, we are all in this together.
