The challenges of aligning our true nature within societal norms
The layers of experience nature offers us, provides the chance to tune into a different way of being
“As I sink deeper into this gorgeous experience of soft slowness, I sense my head as a space all around me. It is part of the air. My thoughts are replaced by emerging birdsong, the thrum of cicadas. The wind blows through my peaceful mind.”
It’s still dark as I leave my hotel room and step out into the humid, tropical garden where the surround-sound of cicadas fills my ears and vibrates through my body. As I slide my door closed, I hear the first cockerel crowing. It will be at least an hour before the sun shows itself in the sky – just enough time to make my way through Ubud to reach the Campuhan Ridge and see it rise.
The main road is already busy. Vendors are selling fruit, vegetables and raw meat. Local women sit at stalls along the pavement carefully building the offerings, known as ‘canang sari’, which are small, woven baskets made from palm leaves and filled with various items such as flowers and rice. These are typically placed on the ground in front of homes, businesses, and temples to give thanks to the Hindu gods and spirits.
I’m interested to see what the Campuhan Ridge trail is like. People have described it as a serene and magical experience. This morning, I’m venturing into nature with an idea I’ve been contemplating (and experiencing) for some time, which is that when we reconnect with nature, and recognise in ourselves the natural beings that we are, true healing follows.
The first part seems simple enough – we just need to spend time outdoors, immersing ourselves in natural settings such as forests, mountains, rivers or oceans. Perhaps we engage in activities like hiking, camping, or gardening. But as I struggle to find the start of the trail, this feels like a perfect metaphor for how we might find it challenging to make that reconnection.
I’ve left the busy high street behind and come to a quiet bridge, barely visible in the darkness. A narrow staircase leads to the river far below where the trails begins. Climbing down, I discover the ravine on my right has collapsed and blocks the path. As determined as I am to hike this route and receive the wisdom nature has for me today, I’m both filled with fear and self-doubt. Is it safe to try and scale this mound of earth to pick up the trail on the other side? Have I even come to the right place?
As much as we might want to reconnect with nature, we might find ourselves afraid: can we spare the time? What if we get lost?
We might also doubt – as I did – the profound urges within, asking to be immersed in the natural world: where will such desires take us? Surely, we need to be at our desks focusing on the day job?
These fears and doubts are like that small avalanche of soil and concrete obscuring the path, forcing me back. But as much as I recognise how reluctant I was to wake this early, the thought of turning back doesn’t comfort me. I know where that path leads: it leads to the same old me who has an increasingly strong urge to live according to nature’s wisdom.
I walk back up to the bridge. There’s just enough light to see what looks like an open field that could take me around the collapsed part of the ravine and onto the path. Still nervous, I venture forth in the semi darkness. That’s when I become aware of the river’s whooshing call. I follow the sound through the half-light and find the path. The feeling is one of triumph: a warm, fast rising within my body that gives me a sense of myself as twice as tall.
These are the glimpses we can have of ourselves as the natural beings we are.
It's so easy to forget. To perceive ourselves as a composite of the thoughts we go through each day: busy, late, inadequate, unlucky, left out, frustrated…
Such thoughts drown out the miraculous sensory happenings we can have as a body when immersed in nature, and the magic to be gleaned from such experiences.
I walk, feeling the ruts of the paved trail beneath my barefoot shoes, listening to the distant call of cockerels and the wind rustling through the trees all around. The layers of experience nature offers us, provides the chance to tune into a different way of being – from one radio station to another. It’s easy to get stuck on ‘Stress FM’, but what we’re listening to on that station are the same old songs.
The world around appears in the growing light. I walk and keep returning to the triumphant feeling that rose in me earlier – this gorgeous experience of myself as twice as tall. I’m able to hold a perspective of myself as someone with an inspiring destiny.
I’m not trapped in the same old cycles of living, hearing those songs on repeat, but growing into something far greater!
This is a familiar gift that nature regularly offers to me. Yes, I can tune back into ‘Stress FM’ when I return home and flip open my laptop, but these days I’m more committed to the natural being that I am – the one nature has revealed to me. My life and work now revolves around finding more and more ways to be that version of myself.
This morning, halfway along the trail, nature gives me another vital piece in my journey. I’ve been enjoying the soft breeze as I walk – the way the gentle wafts seem to split the humid air for a few blissful moments at a time. As I sense the tender movement of air, what comes to mind is the breathwork session I experienced the day before at the Yoga Barn in Ubud.
During the session, I experienced myself inhaling more than just air. I could sense a presence. It was like slipping into a parallel world, where this act of breathing wasn’t perfunctory, an unconscious grabbing of oxygen, but rather something devotional. I understood how the air was life-giving, not because of my need to oxygenate my body, but because it enriched my soul. Each breath brought a feeling of light, joyous, expansion. It was as if I’d plugged myself into the presence I’d sensed. Each moment charged me up more. There was a feeling of rising energy, and also an experience of my spirits lifting.
As I breathed, I could hear the distant rumble and whine of the building works that were taking place at the Yoga Barn, but such mechanical sounds weren’t snagging my attention, (as they might) bringing a state of irritation. This is because my focus was more engrossed in the sense of the world beyond the physical layer of buildings and people. I felt entirely surrounded by a paradise; something beyond the tangible. Throughout my body, I vibrated from the utter beauty of the world and yet this was nothing to do with its physical appearance, but something far deeper.
Tears pricked my eyes and a delicious, fizzy sensation bubbled inside me. I laughed out loud.
Now, on the trail, holding the memory of this breathwork encounter, I find myself standing before a lone tree. I reach out towards its bark, seeing dozens of ants scuttling up and down, some quite small, like the simple garden ants we have in the UK, and others large, bulbous, glistening.
Even though I hesitate in my mind, I watch my hand move without uncertainty and rest on the tree. I close my eyes, once more thinking of this idea that when we reconnect with nature, and recognise in ourselves the natural beings that we are, true healing will follow.
I sense the heat of the tree.
I’m aware of a feeling of such peace.
Something else occurs to me, which is wonderfully significant. In the past, when I’ve come into connection with trees, the feelings I’ve received have ‘descended upon’ me as if bequeathed.
I’ve needed this. There was time in my life when I was too wounded to feel joy on my own accord. It had to be gifted to me. I’ve talked before about how the forest can repair many of our ‘incorrectly wired’ feelings, adding circuitry where there is none.
This morning, however, on the Campuhan Ridge, this feeling of peace does not descend as a gift. It reveals itself from within. It’s already there inside me.
As I sink deeper into this gorgeous experience of soft slowness, I sense my head as a space all around me. It is part of the air. My thoughts are replaced by emerging birdsong, the thrum of cicadas. The wind blows through my peaceful mind.
‘What IS this?’
The question arises from a place without words. It is not a thought, but rather an expansion in my body, opening up to receive the experience of this moment.
And then I have no sense of myself as a physical form.
In this absence is an even greater feeling of presence. Devoid of the notions of my physical body, my supposed identity as a person, my pure awareness is free to enlarge. It becomes infinite. I am spread everywhere.
The feeling isn’t scary. It doesn’t strike me as a loss to be without a body, as I might have imagined it would be in the past, heavily reliant as I was on my carefully constructed identity that I believed necessary to receive love and recognition.
This experience of myself as pure nature is comforting. I’m profoundly content to be a part of something greater. In fact, it’s a relief! I’d thought I needed to stand out to be special, but the feeling of being entirely merged with the natural world is infinitely more perfect!
When we reconnect with nature, and recognise in ourselves the natural beings we are, true healing will follow.
I return from my hike. The sun has risen, glowing white behind a puffy spread of clouds. With each step, I hold the experience of myself as both a physical body moving across the small, square slabs the ridge has been paved with, as well as an awareness that reaches far beyond my flesh.
Years into my ‘apprenticeship’ with mother nature, I understand my work is to integrate the wisdom and healing I receive, building a new life shaped on the natural being I am.
Not easy!
In fact, as I navigate the slabs on the ground, I experience a sense of being out of step. The slabs are not large enough for the length of my stride. Rather than finding my foot in the centre of each square, every so often my heel catches the edge of a slab, slipping down into the grassy area between them. When this happens, the moment I lift my foot, the edge of the slab tugs the back of my trainer off so that I have to stop and pull it on again.
It feels like the perfect metaphor for my integration: the shape of society, the conventions within which we find ourselves, aren’t always the right ‘fit’ for our true nature.
I can continue in frustration, my mind having its way with me as I allow my thoughts to dwell on whose dumb idea it was to pave a trail. Or, I can walk, and keep holding the sense of myself as bigger, more expansive, connected to something greater.
The trust necessary for that second option is a powerful energy. There comes a point in my walk where the path beneath me stops ‘teaching’ me and starts to support my rhythm, my gait. It’s the same path, of course, but now my trainers are no longer being yanked off. It gives me hope I’m walking in the right direction.
As always, wishing you creative contentment.
Gabriela, tree goddess.
Offerings
In this section you’ll be able to hear about my offerings and events.
Join me for my next online workshop - ‘Journaling, Breathwork and Nature Healing to Transform your Creative Process’ - on Thursday 25th April at 6.30pm.
This month we’re exploring the element of water. It might be that you work through the emotional difficulties we can experience when we aren't flowing with our inner waters, which can be hugely beneficial for our creative work. Perhaps you discover how to experience deeper levels of excitement and pleasure for life, and find new sources of inspiration.
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Watch my latest YouTube Interview with Spiritual Life Coach Julie Reisler.
We discuss how to overcome mental and emotional blocks as well as the fear of success. Julie speaks so openly about how leaving her marriage gave her the tools she needed to navigate the self doubt that cropped up when she decided to start her own business, and so much more.