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“The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.” – David Whyte, Sweet Darkness

“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.” -Rumi

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This January, Wild Nature Heart attends the Foster Calm Wilderness First Responder Training! The older we get, the more we appreciate the true adults in our lives. They know how to pack wisely to prepare for the unexpected. They know how to stay calm in a crisis and decide what needs to happen next. They understand how to prioritize the needs of a group to keep everyone safe. This June, we’ll be guiding a wilderness based rite of passage program in the Eldorado Forest. We consider it an honor and a sacred trust to hold the space for Wild Nature Heart participants as they step more fully into their own purpose and calling, and there are many levels of preparation that go into leading an experience like this one. There’s location scouting, guide training, and a lot of personal growth. We’ve been practicing mirroring and the way of council circles. And, to be trustworthy guides, we also want to be prepared for any environmental and physical emergencies that may arise. That’s why we’re currently buried deep in studying wilderness first responder textbooks and why, come January, we’ll be spending 80 hours in Wilderness First Responder Training, practicing with each other and with others, learning everything we can! We don’t expect to ever have to use most of these emergency skills, but we definitely think it’s important to be prepared in case we need them. By the way, if you are interested in being a participant in our in our modern rite of passage program, we are taking applications now and we'd love to hear from you! (Link in bio)
🐌 PACE Whose pace are you following? It seems that much of modern western culture is a conspiracy against slowing down. It sometimes is difficult to sever ourselves from the busyness and distractions epidemic. All the messages seem to say: more! But what if we carved out a sacred pause in our lives, what if we honored our natural rhythms? Winter season is a great time to feel into that slowing down. Sometimes that looks like going at a snail’s pace in order to nourish ourselves, to really look, listen, and feel and appreciate what’s inside and what’s happening around us, to re-engage and re-connect to what is truly important. To just be. Then we will have authentic energy for all the doing.
🔑 LOST KEY Befriending the Dark #5: Poem/story-share for sinking into the season & Befriending the dark, slowness, silence, & shadows. Sufi teacher, Nasrudin, illustrates a common experience for those along the Way. A man is walking home late one night when he sees an anxious Mulla Nasruddin down on all fours, crawling on his hands and knees on the road, searching frantically under a streetlight for something on the ground. “Mulla, what have you lost?” the passer-by asks. “I am searching for my key,” Nasruddin says sounding very anxious. “I’ll help you look,” the man says and joins Mulla Nasrudin in the search. Soon both men are down on their knees under the streetlight, looking for the lost key. After some time, the man asks Nasrudin, “Tell me Mulla, do you remember where exactly did you drop the key?” Nasrudin waves his arm back toward the darkness and says, “Over there, in my house. I lost the key inside my house…” • Shocked and exasperated, the passer-by jumps up and shouts at Mulla Nasrudin, “Then why are you searching for the key out here in the street?” • “Because there is more light here than inside my house,” Mulla Nasrudin answers in a casual manner.
FITTING IN What if what the world needs most is for each of us to stop fitting in? • “We are not here to fit in, be well balanced, or provide exempla for others. We are here to be eccentric, different, perhaps strange, perhaps merely to add our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being. As the gods intended, we are here to become more and more ourselves.— James Hollis, What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life
LET THE SEASON SEASON YOU Befriending the Dark #4: Poem-share for sinking into the season & Befriending the dark, slowness, silence, & shadows. ————————— Some say it is a poet's job to inspire hope or at least to set one upon some picturesque outcropping with a good view of hope just as a bountiful harvest is a farmer's job, cleanliness a janitor's or health, a doctor's domain. But spring hope too easily plucked is a protection against truth. You ask, why be so stingy with hope in a world already thirsty enough? Whatever hope grows within whatever spring springs in your unbound heart whatever fiddlehead unfurls or wild plum blossoms, like stone fruit let them be harvested in the proper season. You can't jump over winter— you may dream of spring on the solstice and try for eternal vernal at the first frost but you can't jump over winter. Slow down and let the season season you. Yes, there is hope in Truth, but there is much hope that is not true until the darkness gets its due. And despair's your better ally than shiny hope, that false friend. Don't jump over the season like an escapee. Tell me, what are you fleeing from? Can you flee from the season within you? Don't be tempted by the empty calories of a bittersweet fruit too easily procured— an early ripening causing indigestion. Let the season season you. Let the cold crack that hard bark of yours— open your meadow to feel it all. Open your earthbody and feel even the worst of it— where it hurts the most. Oh—Be still and let the season season you. Let darkness fall in you like a sword of truth and you will find a deeper root than you ever knew. Then—at the ripening hour, your branches will know how to celebrate the sky and your sun will be the true sun the world is needing most. Do you understand these are the kindest words you've yet heard? -Ryan Van Lenning
THE DARK WILL BE YOUR HOME TONIGHT Befriending the Dark #3: Poem-share for sinking into the season & befriending the dark, slowness, silence, & shadows. Have you yet found your home in darkness too? SWEET DARKNESS by David Whyte When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your home tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
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