Imaginary Rewilding, (Includes the piece, 'Guardians')

I stand beneath the giant guardians of this place, the tall, evergreen beauties that tower over and above me...

Imaginary Rewilding

One of the most spectacular things about being human is our ability to use our minds for spectacular imagery. Human imagination capabilities allow us to close our eyes and dream up endless scenarios and possibilities. Each time we use our mind creating imagery in positive ways we are literally changing chemistry within our bodies in a beneficial way.

I have faced some physical challenges after an accident last year, and much of my life has been altered or put on hold as I work daily to fully recover. Along with physio and home care, part of my recovery plan is to do meditation, positive affirmations and imagery as part of my healing. As I am blessed with the gift of my writing, I regularly create my own poems, prose and affirmations to help me navigate through these ups and downs. The following prose I am including is a marriage of using my words and imagery.

Rewilding is a concept that is becoming more popular these days, even if it really is not particularly new. The American naturalist, poet, philosopher, (among other things), Henry David Thoreau in the mid 1800's believed in simple living in natural surroundings. However, modern day man has become domesticated, that is, we live indoors, and we barter with money currency to by our food and necessities. We cook on modern day stoves and ovens and microwaves, and are not sitting around the fire outside cooking our meals. Because of this, we, as humans, have often lost that special bond with the outdoors that only comes as we commune with nature, that is, walk, sit, eat, hunt, gather, as we smell, hear, exist and survive in the great outdoors.

Rewilding is essentially a return to the outside natural world, to mindfully connect with nature in all its glory, and to reawaken our senses and become grounded in our planet. I don't mean here that we have to sell our homes, move to the forests and great outdoors and cease to live as a modern society, but what I am suggesting is that we, at least, take ourselves out into nature and mindfully connect with it in a way that brings the wild and basic human senses out of us. (To explore and learn more on this subject you might like to read a book I highly recommend by Micah Mortali entitled, Rewilding.)

Over the past few weeks, my challenge has been that I have not been able to wander in the great outdoors and connect with nature as I recover from an accident. My solution is to recreate the sensation of being outside from past life experiences by using imagery and creativity with my mind. The following piece I will share here today I wrote as a way to reawaken my feelings of an outdoor experience, specifically, a walk through a richly treed forest. It was easy to recreate because I was blessed to have spent decades spending fabulous summer memories at a wilderness lake cabin in that forest, and I can easily recall gallivanting through the forest from the days of my childhood up into leisurely strolls in my later years. I am fully able to pull those memories back and pour the sensory memory experiences into the written piece I will share today. (I also took the photograph for this post in that beautiful forest many years ago.) The written piece, entitled Guardians, is not the only one I have penned... I also wrote one about walking barefoot in a grassy field and one on walking on a tropical beach in the sunshine and sand. The possibilities to travel places with my imagery is endless.

The importance of using your imagination when you are faced with life's roadblocks and challenges, is that it is a beautiful way to positively and proactively help yourself. It is a means to bring forth happy feelings, reawaken joyful memories, and improve the healing chemistry in your own body. For myself, I use these written pieces as a means of affirmation, meditation, and healing, and have taken the written pieces a bit further by recording them to soft music so that I can put on my headphones, sit back comfortably with my eyes closed, to hear and sense the full impact of the words that transport me to another beautiful place of my choosing. I highly recommend this process...so enjoy my share...

Cheers! Lise

 *****

Guardians

I stand beneath the giant guardians of this place,

The tall, evergreen beauties that tower over and above me,

As they reach up to greet the bright sun and blue expanse of sky.

I stand between and amongst them,

With my feet firmly planted on the ground.

I am aware and conscious of their roots running everywhere beneath my feet,

Unseen below the earthy dirt and covering of soft, bright green mosses and brush.

I know I am grounded to the earth beneath these magnificent guardians,

Grounded lower than their roots,

Grounded right down into the very core of our planet.

I am certainly humbled, and fully grateful.

I stand here to honour, respect and connect with these exquisite beings of nature,

And, in return, I feel fully cared for by each and every one.

I feel the beautiful, natural energy emit from each tree,

Though some emit more power than others;

I feel like I can feel the amazing strength in the tall, flourishing, sturdy ones,

The exuberance and thirst for learning and life in the younger ones,

And I feel the wisdom and courage and knowing in the grandfathers amongst them.

I sense their welcoming, open embrace today as they stand inviting me in,

Inviting me in to partner with them in this moment, on this day, in this place.

Walking up to a beckoning tree, I place both open hands upon its bark.

Instantly I receive a tingle of bright energy, a magnificent connection,

Even as I feel the sharp, rough surface of bark under my hands.

I am aware of the scents of the trunk and the branches that hang near me,

The intoxicating freshness of the healthy growth,

Mixed with the earthy scents of only slightly damp dirt,

And surrounding mosses and brush warmed by brief moments of midday sun.

I know I am fully alive and fully grounded as I stand here.

And I know my body, my mind, my spirit and my soul have connected to this guardian.

I know that I, as a living and breathing thing, have connected to another living and breathing thing,

And I know that we have become one in this moment,

And I am stronger and healthier and richer for it.

by Lise Parton