Destruction, Rebirth, and a Woman Who Talks to Trees
Whenever I find myself in a state of overwhelm, I think of a hamster running and spinning in an endless wheel of efficiency stress and accomplishment- gotta go gotta move gotta do gotta succeed- move aside people I’m trying to accomplish things, here! This hamster wheel is a symptom of our so-called “civilized” society and I believe it to be a socially acceptable kind of crazy. When I inevitably become afflicted with this hamster syndrome I go to the place (or, rather, I visit the being) where I can hear myself once again. That place, that being, is Nature.
I load a large backpack with food, water, and tent and escape to my own sacred spot somewhere in the Santa Monica mountains for 3 days. When this happens, my parents always react the same way: they are scared for my well-being and don’t understand why I’m so weird. “You’re not normal, it’s going to be raining the whole time!” To which I think to myself, good, the rain keeps other people away and I’ll get to be alone for real. (Quick tangent: why are people in LA so scared of the rain? I have a secret that might help alleviate this fear: the rain is…are you ready for this?...the rain is just water. It’s made of the same stuff you use to clean yourself with. Boom, mic drop, mind blown). Anyways…
Sometimes people ask to join me on my solo pilgrimages into Nature, and I always feel torn when they do. Backpacking with friends is fun. But backpacking alone…well…not only is that fun, but so too is it a spiritual internal personal transformative encounter with the ultimate teacher and guide…so…
Nature speaks to me (and to all of us who are open to listening to Her) through symbolism, through feeling, through metaphor. And every single time I greet Her with an intention or a question or a need for direction, She guides me. By the end of my pilgrimage, when I re-enter the hamster-wheel that is civilization, I re-enter completely grounded, clear-headed, and aligned. I re-enter having remembered who I am and what I need to do and I can see the hamster wheel for the mirage that it is.
At least that’s my version of reality- it works for me, might not work for you. In your version of reality, like my parents, I very well might be a strange single woman in her thirties who has clearly lost her mind as evidenced by the way she prefers to be alone for days on end talking to rocks. Or something like that. But I digress…that’s not what this blog post is about.
This blog post is about some of the ways Nature spoke to me during a couple encounters with Her, specifically when it comes to the metaphor of death and rebirth- destruction and new creation- the phoenix rising from the ashes- the butterfly emerging from the darkness of the cocoon. And, reader, if you’re thinking something along the lines of, “Oh boy, here we go, cliché nature metaphors are soon to come,” then you, my friend, you get me.
About a year ago I found myself in the darkness. Following a devastating breakup with the man I thought I would marry, I left my jobs and became pretty antisocial. Every aspect of my life fell apart. During this time, Nature was the only place I felt safe and at home and even happy. I packed my large backpack and entered Wilderness for long periods of time all over the country (and alone). And the land loved me and held me and nurtured me. It was civilization- with its hectic pace and people who didn’t understand me- that was triggering. It was civilization, with its insistence that I go do accomplish achieve, that was overwhelming to me. Every time I returned “home” from one of my Wilderness treks all the magic was gone and I’d fall into dark deep depressions.
The hamster wheel urged me, “what do you think you’re doing, gallivanting about in the wild? You should be focused on rebuilding your life. Get a job you lazy useless lump of wasted potential.” At first, I tried to do what the hamster wheel expected of me, but I kept hitting barriers. In a forced attempt to start working in private practice, the website I tried to get going kept falling apart, I couldn’t find an office space, every time I got a good lead, it would fall through. Nothing was happening despite how hard I tried to make things happen. It was as if the Universe was telling me, “nope, don’t think so- do not pass go, do not collect $200.”
That’s about the time that I found my sacred spot in the Santa Monica Mountains. The landscape was charred and the trees were dead from recent wildfires that devastated the land. (Reader, you’ll recall this wasn’t too long ago, when some of the houses in Malibu burnt down…same fire). Somehow the blackened trees mirrored the major losses in my life. The landscape and I were no longer what we used to be, we were in a state of devastated destruction together. And unlike the hamster wheel in civilization, Nature gave me permission to be in stillness, and stillness gave me permission to be in grief.
For me, loosing aspects of my identity- girlfriend, therapist, sane person- was incredibly disorienting. I felt like I was in the depth of the ocean and I knew I was meant to swim up to the surface but did not know which way was up. For Wilderness, destruction was comfortable. She said to me, “oh honey, are you kidding? I’ve been through this millions of times. It’s just a part of life. A new season eventually comes. And while you’re here, be here. You can never leave a season by force. Trying to be somewhere that you aren’t is like swimming against a current that is far stronger than you. Eventually, the current will sweep you away. If you try to fight it you will get swept away feeling exhausted and defeated. However, if you let go, if you surrender to the season you find yourself in, be wholly where you are, then the struggle will cease and you might uncover strange and unexpected beauty in a seemingly undesirable chapter.”
And She was right. In my dark night of the soul, in my grief, in my period of entering the terrifying abyss of the unknown, I met Wilderness and Her magic in a deeply moving way. I could hear her and be healed by her and held by her and wholed by her. There was something exciting, some strange and unexpected beauty, that was happening.
One night, alone in my tent, a wave of grief hit me so hard I couldn’t contain the tears. And in a synchronistic or coincidental turn of events it started to rain, to pour, to thunder. As the rain pounded and the wind wailed against my tent, it was like She was crying with me. And so I began to sob. The timing of the rain was so in sync with my personal process that it felt like magic and soon enough I started to laugh. And then the cheesy metaphor of it all: the pouring rain (or tears) as the very thing the burnt land needed to heal after the fires.
Fast forward one year…
A lot happens in a year.
I recently returned to that same spot in the Santa Monica Mountains and She, like myself, finds Herself in a new season. This pictures sums it up:
New life- plants and white flowers- sprouted among the carcasses of the dead trees. When I walked closer to the new life I heard a buzzing sound and it felt like the plants were vibrating from all the buzzing. I discovered that making the sound were tons of bees, working hard, pollinating. The bees were in a state of go do accomplish! The hamster wheel would approve.
Like my sweet wild Wilderness, I find myself in a rebirth phase after the destruction. I feel happy and grateful and alive. I get to do work that fulfills me. I get to write. I get to spend time with people I enjoy and who understand me. I am embodying a version of myself I never knew (but also always knew) existed. Like my sweet wild Wilderness, my rebirth period is buzzing with business. I have a sense and a vision for how I want my work in private practice to look and feel, but bringing a vision from the realm of ideas to the realm of material reality requires a lot of buzzing. I am buzzing and I am loving every minute of it, because the work and the vision is rooted in something that has heart and meaning for me.
Perhaps most poignantly of all, as you’ll see in the above images, the new life is forming around the dead trees, taking on their same shape. The death literally offers the structure upon which the new growth can form. I looked at the dead trees and imagined what they might be saying…
“Do I really need to spell out the metaphor for you here?” The dead trees asked. Then a sigh, “the death is the structure for the rebirth. What more do you need me to say?” Because my vision for my practice- the inclusion of nature therapy, the philosophy that “mental health issues” are really just initiations into transformative life processes- all of it is a direct result of having gone through the painful dark night first. The death is the structure for the rebirth.
Or maybe the dead trees were saying, “don’t get too comfortable in your rebirth, don’t forget that pain is part of the human condition. Eventually it will come back for you.”
Or maybe the dead trees were saying, “Destruction was a part of your journey towards becoming the magnificent creature that you are, with a life that you love. Now enjoy the bounty of your rebirth! You’ve earned it! And sure, yes, the pain is eventually going to come back, but you and pain are friends now.”
Or maybe the dead trees poking through the rebirth are representative of my battle scars- my wounds that are finally now scabbing. You can still see them. They are still a part of my story.
Here’s the bittersweet part about my most recent pilgrimage: every single night, alone in my tent, I missed my life back in civilization. I missed working. I missed my friends. I missed my dog. I missed my little home in Topanga. While I still felt connected to Nature, it was clear, my relationship with Her had shifted. I no longer needed Her or wanted Her in the same way and as a result some of the magic was gone. Or if it was there, it didn’t mean as much this time around. And that made me sad. And it made me remember my dark night of the soul with a sense of fondness and almost longing. This, for me, solidified the importance of surrendering to what is. When we surrender to challenging seasons (rather than fight them), we find strange and unexpected beauty in the seemingly undesirable that only once a new season arrives will we mourn its passage.
And then my pilgrimage was over.
And then I excitedly returned to the home I had missed when alone in my tent.
And everything was falling apart.
COVID-19 had escalated at an alarming rate in the days I was away and the life I had felt so grateful for was going to completely change. I imagined the burnt trees winking at me. Here we go again…
Dear Reader, if you want to commune with the magic of the Natural world the way that I do, consider signing up for a NEARBY FARAWAY workshop or WILD WOMEN WALKING pilgrimage. You can also click on the links to be notified once the next workshop or pilgrimage is scheduled. With love.