Tag: Mother Nature

Dear Mother Nature,

I imagine your canyons to be the intestines of the world, taking in and digesting all we feed you- the junk foods, the health foods, the superfoods.  We give you madness, terror, anger, fear, doubt.  It’s no wonder why you regurgitate in hurricanes and tornadoes sometimes.   But we also give you happiness, hope, love, and so much more.  In return, we receive sunny blue skies, shooting stars, and gentle, cleansing rains.

You also nurture us with love.  For us, you eliminate what you can of the bad and give the rest of your body, and us, your children, the good.  The healing.  We don’t always return the love, but you still keep giving.

Mother Nature, you continue to astound me.

In these canyons, you swallow me whole.  I feel so small, yet so connected with the rest of life.  I may be tiny, but I am vital.

Most of all, you swallow me in your love.  All of my parts-the beautiful parts and the parts I deemed as mistakes.  You accept all of it.  I am learning to accept all of me too.

Last, I wanted to let you know that I love you too.

Yours Forever & Always,

Ray

Aspens Aglow

I’m just a short hike up from the Fourth of July trailhead in Indian Peaks Wilderness, sitting on a larg boulder with my best friend, Pacer (an Australian Shepard). Before us are several small, bright yellow leafed Aspens interspersed among the pines. The sky is playing with us. As times it has been dark with clouds and a light rain tickles my cheek. The woods feel sacred when it is like this. Minutes later the sky clears. The sun shines on us through the Aspen leaves, aglow. But at this very moment as I write, the sun slips behind the mountain to our southwest. I sit and close my eyes. All I can do is breathe in the crisp air, smelling the dying leaves. I notice my hiking partner is finally sitting still for once, with the same breeze that is blowing through the Aspens also gently playing with her fur.
I don’t feel young, like I do at times in the summer when I am running down on trail. Nor do I feel old. I just am. I wonder if this is how the trees feel. Not tired, but just ready for a slow down. Along with the trees, I am fully here for this change in season.
Driving back along the bumpy, Aspen and pine strewn trail towards the town of Eldora, I wonder: what if there was a nature attachment theory*? A theory that stated all living things are connected, from the dirt to the sky, from trees to humans. And if one was to let herself slow down, to remove the superficial thoughts and things and just be, that she would be able to re-connect with the wilderness, to be held by Mother Nature. In this re-connection, healing from the trauma of the “created” human world would be found.

The attachment to Mother Nature has all the love and safety one needs to be securely attached. In this oneness with nature, humans could become whole within themselves and with the world.

(In what will be a series of my Love Letter to Mother Nature, this first love letter was written in September of 2016 as a class assignment. )

*Learn more about attachment theory here:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/compassion-matters/201307/how-your-attachment-style-impacts-your-relationship

https://clintonpower.com.au/2012/07/wired-for-love/