Wildness
Give yourself a moment sometime When the weather is warm And nothing is urgent And you are far from other humans Out of sight In the company of trees and wild beings Give yourself a moment Turn off your phone Set it aside Take off your shoes Your socks Your glasses Your clothes Yes, all of them Your jewelry Even your wedding ring Take off anything that you have put on Leaving only your animal being And then… Be in presence Feel the wind Feel the sun Press your body against trees Into meadow grass Or immerse in water Allow the bugs to crawl across you Without impulse to destroy Gaze into the canopy Or at the infinitely shifting clouds Or at the wondrous diversity beneath you Pay attention to birdsong Without needing to identify or classify the singer Notice the scents of earth and forest Pluck a ripe berry Or a fresh tip of spruce or fir Or a yarrow leaf And taste it Allow your body to lead Not your mind Move freely Following patterns of light and shadow Guided by a part of you That you may have forgotten Many years ago And then… When you feel ready And not a moment sooner Reassemble yourself Slowly Rings, clothing, shoes And wander reverently back into the familiar world Of roads and cars and houses and straight lines And notice what has changed What has awakened within.
This was my experience on the morning of the solstice, my 39th birthday. It was not something I had planned; I simply set aside the morning for contemplative wandering, for visiting a sacred space. I was perhaps expecting clarity or insight but what came naturally instead had very little thought or language, just immersion and wildness.
Our animal bodies have grown soft over centuries of civilization, especially those of us of European descent. The Sun bakes our skin, small branches and stones feel sharp beneath our feet, some of us react painfully to biting insects and drifting pollen, we must don the warmth of other life forms – cotton, silk, wool, feathers – when the temperature drops, even as chickadees and chipmunks remain comfortable in all seasons in their own coats. So there is a matter of choosing a time and place for such immersion. This is not a polar plunge or a test of endurance, but a relaxation, softening, dissolving of boundaries.
It is one thing to write about ecological spirituality, about acknowledging our fellow life forms, participating in the dance of evolution rather than holding ourselves apart. It is quite another to physically set aside the fabrics, the adornments, the identities, and simply inhabit the experience of being within a particular living body on a living planet. I emerged feeling more grounded, more at peace, more at home in my whole body. Perhaps I will make a regular practice of such wild immersion.
Oh how this squeezed tears out of me. "even your wedding ring"..... "when you feel ready, and not a moment sooner".. the tenderness and true intimacy of this invitation. a sensuous call directly to soul. thank you so much for bringing this through to us.
Yes! I wonder if we would write poetry about such things if we had not grown soft through the ages...reawakening the animal is as natural as it is profound! Thank you for this poem.