WE ARE NATURE

We are matter, kindred with the ocean and tree and sky. We are flesh and blood and bone. To sink into that is a relief, a homecoming – Krista Tippet.

We have increasingly become indoor folk. Locked in suburban and inner city enclaves, our worlds are those we have made with the abstraction of our minds and emotions. In the distance, our once held knowledge of the natural sciences, ecology and geography, sits untapped.

Our bodies are now for show, attraction and fashion before we consider them living organisms, dependent on sunlight and fresh air, as physical beings that can be shaped by walks and swims. We associate pleasure with consumption rather than the physical and sensual modes of production. 

Like the best homes and buildings, our bodies are not fixed and static forms but rather, receptive and dynamic. Allowing an ongoing communion between light, air, smell and sound and accommodating a range of seasons and evolutions based on changing circumstances. 

To understand the materiality of our bodies is to understand that we are made up of atoms and stardust. As author Jeanette Winterson says, our first parents were stars. Our souls are literally encased in mountains, volcanos, merged with raindrops, coated with pollen and made firm with dust and minerals. 

Astronomer Steve Fossey tells us there is a physical connection between the iron in my blood and the expansion of the Universe. It is a very intimate thing – I cut myself, I bleed, and there is a piece of a supernova.

We need this continuum of connection with nature. This connection is sensual and of the body. In contrast with the mind and intellect which is a much more masculine approach, here, knowledge and truth are known and retained through feeling. Our bodies are therefore feminine and as one with mother nature. There is no right and wrong, no singular truth. Here, your experience of body and connection is as valid as mine. We can share in this connection and everything here is cyclical and never-ending.

To continue this conversation is to invest in our feminine qualities, in the very intimate dance that exists between our being and nature. 

Written by Magdalena Lane