wild child

I awoke in my tent one morning this past week and heard a quiet voice within: "I don't ever want to sleep inside again." Immediately a louder part of my psyche intruded: "That's ridiculous! Everyone lives and sleeps inside." But it was too late, a part of my being was uncovered and I couldn't turn my eyes away from what lay there.

For 6 weeks, I have been working outside and sleeping outside, coming indoors for food, meditation, contemplation, and washing. I am noticing a shift in the way that I position myself relative to the out of doors -- no longer do I feel like a garden assistant whose actions intervene for the benefit of the land. Rather, it is my place to yield and serve. It is a subtle but profound shift in who leads the dance.

Perhaps it is the combination of working outside with sleeping outside which has altered this dynamic because each night I lie down with the sounds and sensations of weather, my choice is whether I endure or give into the various energies of wind, water, temperature, and light. Maybe the willingness to lie down and be vulnerable has shifted my sense of stewardship; perhaps I have fallen under the guardianship of the natural world and now see myself less as an insider.

With this discovery I am uncovering a belief that my life was to be spent as a professional, be it as a business mogul, lawyer, or psychotherapist. I had not entertained the possibility that I would live with the land as the ground of my being. I tended to look towards recreational activities (camping, hiking, paddling) as a way to satiate my affinity for fresh air and open space. If I consider the level of satisfaction that I have gleaned from this hobby lifestyle as an accessory to my real life I can see that I was not fully satisfied. I was simply looking to more conventionally modern ways to bring the outside in.

In fact, it's less the wilderness that I love than the natural world. There is nothing that compares to fostering greater intimacy with life. There is nothing I have experienced that is as mind-blowing as the voice of the outside which is heard through becoming quiet. The combination of stilling my mind through mindfulness practice and attuning to the movements of nature outside me is revelatory. When this practice is combined with the production of food, heat, and shelter, the dance between being human and being of nature is a practice of worship, grace, generosity, and gratitude.

Rebellion -- I don't kow that I properly pushed back against society when I was a teenager. I feared antagonizing my family and creating general anguish. At that time, rather than dabbling in alcohol, drugs, and sex I pushed aggressively into perfection, competency, and control. My dreams were of living in an estate or a high rise somehow separate from the mediocrity of lower humans and wielding great power over life. Now the phenomenon of rebellion is giving way to non-conformity; a willingness to move through life with authenticity even when it flies in the face of conventionality.

I very much love humans. I light up when I am around people sometimes because there is the possibility of opening and blowing through the boundaries of judgment, projection, protection, and safe/controlled interactions. I no longer wish to live a life away from the magic and mess of humanness. And I now know that I don't want to "sleep inside". No idea how these two parts of myself will coalesce but I am pushing gently into my curiosity and passion for the land not as a place to hide or even restore but as a place to deepen into my own nature. I wonder if I dare to move more towards nature, be it through farming, beekeeping, or gardening, and not revert so hastily back towards the familiar land of therapy. It's a little scary because I fear losing the foothold that I have established as a counselor. But my soul is speaking and the idea of going back into an office leaves me cold.

So, if anyone reading this knows of a way to apprentice as a farmer, sheepherder, beekeeper, or gardener (preferably in Scotland or Ireland) let me know. My back is strong. My hands are like sandpaper now. And I look simply smashing in overalls and rubberboots.