Earth-Heart Living: A Deep Dive Journey
"Spring shimmers with presence,
never looking ahead."
~ Angie Weiland-Crosby
Yesterday I made a point of getting up extra early to go greet the arrival of spring on our new piece of property that my partner and I purchased last year. We've enjoyed getting to know the land over these past 10 months – learning where the deer congregate and the routes the coyotes take through the woods. We've discovered where the downy woodpeckers live and have come to see the small valley that runs through our property as a visual that birds heading to the pond follow like a map. Perhaps the air currents guide them in or maybe the topography of the land shows them the best approach from which to make a landing. A few weeks ago we noticed otter tracks traveling down the center of the stream moving towards the pond before veering off and heading up the hill. And I'm always amazed by the golden glow of the yellow birches after a rain. It's been a fun time filled with magical moments as the land shares her secrets with us.
On this first day of spring I was once more delightfully surprised by what I experienced. I wanted to see exactly where the equinox sunrise occurred on the land from where I stood in the center of the proposed house site. While standing there I witnessed the bird song steadily increase as the sun rose and got brighter and brighter. First, I heard the chickadees singing their spring song and then the Canada geese began calling out from the pond telling me that the ice had melted making it possible for them to swim. Ravens, crows, and black birds flew overhead and landed in the white pines alongside the road. Before long I was immersed in a sound bath as the nuthatches began to sing from the trees all around me. When I didn't think it could get any better, I heard the surest sign of the arrival of spring – I heard the loons! First one, then two...singing back and forth to one another, their haunting song flowing up from the pond to where I stood in the glowing morning light. The loons have left the sea where they spent the winter months and returned to the pond! The change of seasons is underway and excitement for what is coming in these lengthening days is growing in me!
Spring is all about the celebration of new life.
It's becoming more and more apparent to me how important it is to know our own ground, to literally know where we stand while the world around us is shifting and changing to such an intense degree. To have a well-set anchor that can hold us while the winds of earth changes howl and the cultural waves of disturbance toss our humble lives about during these contractions of rebirth and transformation, can ensure we make it through safely, awakening to the new with a renewed sense of WHO we are in relationship to WHERE we are. Our connection to place IS this anchor. This is Earth-Heart Living in its truest, purest sense.
Engage in Deep Listening
Your relationship to place is uniquely your own. There is magic and soul nourishment woven into every moment. I invite you to stop, turn your ear to the wind, to the grass, to the stones, to the clouds and listen, engage, be open to what speaks to you. Engage in Deep Listening where you give yourself the time and space to simply be with the wild land. Embrace not doing and sit in the stillness, quietly witnessing the aliveness of life unfolding in the world all around you.
What does the wild landscape around you hold? What does it embody? How do you belong? What comes alive for you within the wild presence?
