Feeling the Earth in Our Bodies

Our individual and collective journey back into our humanity

BGCL explores what it means to rewild and to come back into connection with ourselves, our communities, and the living world around us. Read on for ideas and reflections to inspire new ways of being in a complex world. 💚

Hello Wild Ones,

The earth is grieving. Beyond the sadness of this autumn season—she is hurting from the extraction, conflict, and suffering that is rampant across this world. She is volatile like extreme heat and deep cold, furious like wildfires, and lashing out like hurricanes. She is creating an equal and opposite reaction to the ways of being rooted in the mistruth that we are separate and more important than. She is rising up remind us of the natural order of things.

If we remember for a moment that we, too, are nature, then it is clear that we are feeling that same grief. We are grieving the loss of connection in our lives (see: loneliness epidemic). We are grieving the loss of our natural spaces. We are grieving the loss of a sense of place and rootedness. We are grieving detachment from our lineages. We are grieving the ability to co-exist with each other and nature in ways that honor our symbiotic relationship. We are grieving the loss of complexity, nuance, texture, and possibility that nature produces in abundance.

We are feeling the earth in our bodies. Anger in the intensifying of the summer heat on our skin. Sadness in the pounding rains that fall like earth tears. Fear in the poisoning of water and decreasing amounts that are drinkable. Suffocation in the air filled with the byproducts of greed, unchecked power, and disassociation. This is a deep grief in our bones telling us that something is not right. Our earth bodies are screaming at us to pay attention, to tune in. But maybe we have forgotten how to do this.

We Have Been Trained to Not Feel

A few years ago, I wrote about learning to feel my emotions as an adult after a decade of being on antidepressants and anxiety medications. This may seem simple, but I was shaped to believe my emotions didn’t matter. Everyday I trained by body to override natural instincts and to hide emotions deep inside where they couldn’t make others uncomfortable. I held them in with food, material wares, and a warm smile. I, like many, was generally detached from sensations of my body, having adopted the mistruth that our logical minds are superior and elevate us over our sensing animal kin.

I speak on this from experience as somebody who struggled with alcohol as a young adult, experienced disordered eating for 15+ years, and still struggles with patterns of over consumption. I adopted acceptable ways of escaping the screams from my body. It was better that I comply with systems of oppression than to decode my personal truth. I worked too much at jobs that drained my soul, hung out with unsafe friends, ate until I could feel something, and perfected hoping I would be enough. I actively worked to shut down the internal guidance that was trying to show me another way.

In reality, I am a deeply feeling human being (Cancer moon + rising) who has learned to live most of my life philosophizing in my head (Sagittarius Sun). I convinced myself that my head holds all the best information about how to move through the world and that my body was messy, imperfect, and too vulnerable. I did not understand wisdom and knowing exist in many forms. I did not understand that emotions moving through my body were attempting to communicate with me. I did not understand that keeping emotions trapped in my body could lead to illness and dis-ease. I did not know.

Learning to Feel the Earth in my Body

Over the last four years I have been getting to know my body through somatic practices like breathwork, movement, and meditation. I have come to refer to my body as my little slice of earth. It is my place for tending and nurturing. A place where I can create safety and seek out wisdom. A place to turn into for answers, instead of seeking validation and comfort outside of myself. A source of liberation and truth that transcends anything that this world could give me.

The challenge is, our systems work hard everyday to convince us that this is not the case. We are told that our bodies are a weakness, a liability, a source of shame. That we should ignore them and allow more knowledgeable people to tell us about our bodies. That liberation can only be found through my votes and our bodies are unrelated. That goodness and success come in a particular kind of package. I have often wondered what is being gained from an entire species being trained to detach from the physical vessels that bind us to this earth. Each time, my body reminds me that out there is freedom—in here is liberation.

The same ways that the grief has been amplifying around us, it has also been unfolding within me as I confront these mistruths. The pain revealed is both deeply personal and collective. Suffering, heartbreaks, and traumas of our lineages that play out in present day through me and us. Our DNA carries the memories, fears, stories, and patterns of 7+ generations. So when I speak of rewilding, it is far more than musings on nature. It is a felt experience of remembering that we are part of something bigger. It is a remembering that our bodies are a sacred part of this experience of life, not an inconvenience to it.

What Our Collective Bodies Know

Even though our language and abilities for grieving are limited, there are signs that we are collectively hearing the earth in our bodies. More traditional therapies are starting to incorporate body work with practices like breathwork, sound, movement, and somatic experiencing. Doctors are writing prescriptions for time in nature. The resurgence of people leaving the city for a life on the land continues. There is greater emphasis on social-emotional skills for children. We are shifting from colonization to re-indigenization. We are slowly heeding the calls to notice. Each of those moments when we pause to reconnect with our bodies, we create a tiny crack in the armor.

I find that this urge to remember is more pronounced for women, particularly mothers. In conversations with nearly all of my friends there is talk about our inner knowing about where we are headed, fear of the changing climate, and a desire to embrace intentional living. They reference more connected living arrangements such as communes, intergenerational homes, collectives, co-ops, kibbutz, or a village. I have heard this from farmers, mothers, business owners, teachers, artists, executives, priests, doctors, and tech workers almost others. We are collectively feeling a sense that we need each other. That what we have been doing is no longer working. Our bodies are telling us it is time to shift and come home.

There is a knowing out there that our bodies need to be more connected to the land. That our lands need to be known and tended to as a source of wisdom, truth, and hope. I see us reorienting ourselves to this way of being that brings us back into our bodies. Remembering this new old way of seeing our own humanity. Acknowledging that we must find ways to be in deeper relationship with one another and this place. We are beginning to feel the earth in our bodies once again.

Affirmations for Feeling

I allow myself the time and space to feel. • I remind myself that emotions are not bad or good. • I tend to my body by listening to the whispers and screams. • I approach difficult emotions with a sense of curiosity and openness. • I re-indigenize by speaking the names of the original land stewards, learning my indigenous roots, and honoring the earth and body as sacred. • I practice ways of honoring our humanity both individually and collectively.

Questions for Reflection

• Close your eyes and take 5 slow breaths, in and out. When you finish, what feelings and sensations do you notice in your body? How does it feel to pay attention to them?

• What is your relationship with feeling your emotions?

• How was body connection modeled for you when you were a child?

• What would you like your relationship with your body to be like?

• What practices help you to reconnect with your body?

• What is one lesson this current decade of life has taught you about your

  body?

Grab a cup of tea and take your time reflecting on a few of these that speak to you. As always, please leave a note or send a reply with your thoughts, ideas, and reflections. I look forward to hearing from you.

Take care, be kind, and we will talk soon,