the wilderness inside
Out on a run just now, I veered off to wander to the edge of the subdivision where the homes weren’t finished and where there was a vast expanse of graded dirt ready for suburban expansion.
I suppose I was drawn to the edge, that particular space in time where one ecosystem transitions into another. Because I studied ecosystem management in university, I read edges like shoppers understand mall layout and I knew this particular edge was the meeting of graded suburban landscape and rural farm land still being cultivated. Between the two was a 25 ft tall tree line that successively grew out into shrub layer then the weedy plants that covered the earth up until the latest graded dirt.
As is the case in life, I may have felt attracted to investigate this edge, but what actually struck me was the wind blowing against my face as I stepped off the pavement onto the dirt.
It brought back a host of memories and reminded me of the thirst for the wild that started me on many of my journeys.
You see, I spent my teenage years living in a suburban neighborhood with an edge. I walked and ran there and stared at the bland, uninspiring, plastic-siding landscape and longed for character, culture and vivre. It was then that the longing for the wild knocked at the gates of my inner life, distancing me from what was before me, beckoning me toward sights unseen.
I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching lately.
I’ve been feeling Shift coming from within. Life is this constant changing landscape. When we step into one dream and get far enough into it, our needs and desires can change and we must be open to meeting that new aspect. To dance with the pulse of life, we must be open to transformation.
When I felt the wind on me just now I remembered being alone outside with a backpack hitchhiking in the desert southwest. I remembered how the wind cleansed me and how alive I felt, how the wind touched something inside of me, released it and carried it away. Comfort can be relaxing, but it can also be stifling.
This has always been a very fine line for me.
Being on those trips alone, I became intimate with my wilderness within.
The untamed, raw and beating self with all senses alive. Spotting a wild animal in these moments and looking into its eyes, I see a sister, brother, a friend. I know myself as that and this awareness feeds my marrow.
At the bottom of it, that’s why I was drawn to that edge, the space in time where two transitioning landscapes meet. As I make decisions in my life, going toward new wilds that call me out, I remember the success of the edge, its consistency.
We can never do away with it and why would we want to? Change and transition are always with us, just as the untamed always meets between two cultivated landscapes: the rural country field and the graded and sculpted landscapes of the suburb.
Let’s hold each other in our hearts as we’re invigorated with all of this life.
@mountainjewel Oh my, this is so beautiful. I can literally feel every word. I love how much I am able to sense the inner and outer wilderness you speak of in your writing... inviting us all to that place where literal and symbolic landscapes touch. Really, really moving... thank you.
<3 thank you for seeing and feeling with me. i'm touched you were moved. so often we can "want to get away from" change or transition, or at least want it to hurry up ;) yet this was such an excellent reminder that these edges are full of so much life <3
Embrace change. Indeed. Thank you for sharing this with us.
It is a tough balance to find. Perhaps you just need a few days in the wilderness, or maybe it is a bigger change.
yeah i think moreso it reminded me of the feeling of the wilderness. feeling big changes, don't necessarily need to "go" somewhere, but def inner shifts happening! feels healthy!
Good. That's a really lovely image of the wilderness of big shifts. That's helpful to me in this now. Thanks.
always keep in contact with that wilderness, we are meant to be wild, to walk barefoot, to be outdoors, to connect with the seasons, it is our call to remember that we are nature and nature is us. It is so important to listen to yourself at these times, to listen to that ancient wisdom that connects us all, stay wild my beautiful friend xx
<3 <3 <3 thank you, yes that ancient wisdom comes through us if we listen xoox
Change is our only constant so we may as well embrace it right!!!! Love the connect you make between landscape and inner landscape here. A beautiful post.
thanks ma dear. yeah it was so clear to me in that moment how the outer landscape brought things out of me and helped me to remember/see! gah love life!!! <3