Volume 5: Heart Moss
I live in a stunning area. I am surrounded by gorgeous gorges, a big, beautiful lake, and abundant natural areas to explore and spend time in. It is embarrassing to admit that over the years, the amount of time that I make for myself to spend in nature has dwindled, like the year one of our usually abundant waterfalls became a mere trickle. That is what had happened to me, slowly, unconsciously.
Until I acknowledged it and intentionally set out to end my drought. On a Sunday, during my normal prep-for-the-week time, I blocked off a 2-hour window on a Thursday to hike in one of my favorite local parks. It had been YEARS since I had done this, just me, alone in nature with myself, for myself.
Wow, did the Universe open up to welcome me and offer so much wisdom. We are all connected. We ARE nature. If the waters that flow through nature stop, we stop. It's that simple.
And yet, there is a constant forgetting and remembering. I've known how much nature fills my heart and soul, and yet I forget. I allow busyness to reign supreme—a subtle and very pervasive product of capitalism. Must stay busy to prove your worth, and while you're at it, make damn sure you're getting paid, don't give anything away.
Look at the trees – freely offering up fresh air for us on the daily. They don't even get the acknowledgment or respect for this herculean offering. Without their purification of our air, we are in trouble.
Nature, how have we come so far from your generous and instinctive gifts and offerings? How do we learn from your ways, to not only care for you, but to care for everything that matters that we so frequently take for granted?
Back to my walk the other day. I have a beautiful habit (since I started my intentional sacred morning practice) of finding hearts all around. I've seen hearts everywhere, from the bottom of my smoothie glass, to a heart-shaped section of a bee's nest that fell in the middle of my driveway, to heart rocks all around, both near and far—hearts in the clouds, the flowers, the coral, and everything in between.
One beautiful heart moment came to me on this very hike the other day – the hike to break the fast of non-hiking. I spent some time truly observing the easeful flow of the river. As I sat there, I asked for guidance from the river to help me stop perpetually swimming upstream, but to learn to receive and be in the easeful flow, like the river. I very much felt that the river is only able to flow so freely because of the masculine energy holding the container of the river. When the container (structure) is there, the feminine, creative energy and flow can do its thing. Absent the container (the riverbank), there would be no river, no flow. As I got up from this deep witnessing and embodying in myself, I noticed my eyes instinctively scanning the rocks in search of a heart. Despite being alone, I heard a gentle voice utter, "No rocks today. Heart. Moss." Despite the oddness of this message, I gave a small smile – indeed, I had plenty of heart rocks and didn't need any more, so I called off the search. I started on my return journey, but felt called to head in the opposite direction to see a little beyond the bend, before I was ready to turn around.
A few steps in, there sitting in a beautiful oval depression on the entirely rocky path, sat a vibrant green heart out of moss. It was just sitting there, nothing but rock all around; this was not the forest floor. I had never seen moss just sitting far from where it could grow, but there before me was this offering. It felt like the most beautiful validation that, on many levels, that day, I'd made the right choice, which began long before this day. I consciously made time (the structure within my day) for time in nature, with no agenda other than full presence (to allow the flow). In so doing, I awakened every sense I'm lucky enough to have, including even the 6th sense, perhaps the most important of all. This moss heart was my nod from the Universe. I felt the smile, the gracious welcoming, and pledged on that day that this too is an essential way that I resource myself. I welcome you to get out and explore. What delights you and nourishes your heart and soul? Go there, and tell me how it was!
Also, my quest for hearts in the wild will always continue!
