Come as You Are
Intrinsic Belonging. Thank you.
We aren’t separate from our planet. What happens to our planet happens to us. What we do to ourselves, we do to our planet.- Thomas Hübl
When my brother and I were children, we played in the snow until our cheeks turned magenta and our noses ran salty and clear. We swam until our skin was pruned, let the grass imprint on our bodies while popping dandelion heads, and collected earthworms from the steaming pavement after a sudden summer rain. The dividing line between our bodies and the sand, the wind, the trees wasn’t obvious. Sometimes, it was nonexistent. In that time, before self-consciousness and doubt, we simply belonged.
Maybe you also remember this. From this lifetime, or in some ancient cellular memory, this ease of being.
At some point, many of us in the West received the message that this naturalness, this belonging was somehow not enough. That there were more important things to do—some performance, some measurement (grades to be earned, sports to dominate, stuff to acquire). We wanted to be in the garden, but were told to sit at a desk, because that “mattered more.” We were moved to climb and run, but we found ourselves in uniforms, waiting our turn. We made many social bargains, with our parents, with our tribes, to feel valued or seen, to be safe. Gradually, we disconnected, pulled into a culture that wanted us on the school bus by 7 a.m. (or, later, in an office by 8), with a couple of weeks of vacation a year. And now? Most are screen addled and living indoors. Yes, there are the days we walk in the woods, and exclaim at the spring blooms. Yes there are the sunrise beauties that pops in to remind us that we live on a fecund and perfect turning earth, but in general, there is deep dissonance between the inner longing, the natural self, and modernity.
On our Hawai’i project, we see the opposite. We see the potent healing and perfect health of living with the cycles of the seasons and the day, being outdoors most of the time, singing together, dancing together.
In the contrast, I have begun to see this cultural disconnection from nature as a fundamental developmental trauma, one that we experience both individually and collectively- and that this separation still affects all of the ways we relate.
When we forget that we are nature, that we, unadorned and undecorated, are enough, things get sketchy. We might no longer trust that the Earth will provide for us, or that there is enough for all. When we cease to know ourselves as the body of “god” (which to me is a one-syllable way of saying we are part of “the sacred interdependent collective whole”)— we make adaptations in belief and behavior that extend into our systems.
This separation dynamic may be what’s fueling our endless striving to become overlords of the planet, at the root of consumerism, militarism, and planet-wide ecological disasters—which all seem driven by this fundamental alienation.
I’m writing this today to invite a conscious choice to return to the intrinsic belonging as earth. Go outside. Love your body. Touch grass, as the kids say.
There’s a sort of “humans are a virus on the earth” line of thought in many circles, but I don’t see it this way.
Our species isn’t accidental: humans are perfectly designed to be part of Earth’s ecosystems: we breathe and transmute air, drink water and return it, eat fruits and release their remains. Nothing is wasted. Even our neuro-biology evidences this belonging—balanced landscapes spark feelings of abundance in our brains, while the sounds of a dawn chorus or the lapping ocean bring peace. We have a positive and needed role to play in ecosystems. For example, the scientists at the Santa Fe Institute have designated humans and “super-generalist predators,” pointing out how humans can fit into ecosystems without causing extinction or devastation. Because we are both mobile and omnivorous, when in proper relationship with the rest of nature, humans help ecosystems maintain balance—keeping populations balanced, preventing large fires through brush clearing and small controlled burns, and engaging in beneficial herbaceous manipulation.
It’s the separation, not our inherent design, that leads to anthropogenic hyper-degradation of ecological systems—garbage and pollution and soil erosion as some examples— even to the point of destroying our own habitat.
The objectification of nature as something “out there” also alienates us from natural processes, including dying and death. Without a deep connection to these cycles, we live in fear of our own mortality, developing further strategies to avoid death, and all of the challenges of living in a body.
Here are some thoughts on how we can use the principles of collective trauma healing— specifically: inner rest, relational presence, and emergent restorative action to frame a response to this.
I have the right to be, and I already belong.
Rest in Inner Stillness. Cultivate a state of witness consciousness, dis-identifying from the personality layer, and know yourself as part of something greater. Begin to see yourself as a natural seed of life.
Treat Yourself with Care. You are not separate from the planet. As Thomas Hübl says, “Don’t burn your own substance—your burnout is the planet’s burnout.” Rupert Read says: “We are nature coming to an awareness of what we are doing to ourselves.”
Find Allies. Just being in the questions with others, you can enter into a relational space of presence and explore questions such as: How does connection with nature or the web of life live in you? How does separation from nature live in you? Where do ecological disruption or climate grief live in you? What arises when you consider changing the story—your consumption habits, your behaviors? Where and how will you belong if you step away from separation?
Resensitize yourself. Joanna Macy reminds us that the refusal to feel takes a heavy toll, impeding our capacity to process information and draining the imagination needed for fresh visions. We can strengthen our innate ability to sense the web of life—to experience awe, or grief, to listen with the whole body, to be outside in all weather, to grow something.
Find a Piece of Land. I once heard Charles Eisenstein say, “Find a piece of land and love it.” Paying attention is the language of love. Meet and know the trees and plants on whatever patch of ground you can. If you don’t have a personal patch, love a park or a wild space, with presence, attention, and communion.
And most of all, maybe, allow your intellect to stand down, and allow your own deep enchantment. Come over the ridge as the sun is fragmenting ice crystals into prisms, see fairy houses among the wild mushrooms, rise early to swim with the dolphins, plant peas on the window sill and watch them tendril into being.
All of this Shaktified, material reality is magic really.
And so are you.
—CMM
Bolinas, CA: April 13: Single Day Retreat with Christine and Yasmeen
Boone, NC: May 14-18: 5 day Retreat with Christine, Adam and Viraja. Can you join us?
Thank you all for a successful launch day this week of The Nine Lives of Woman.
