A return to the natural world
At Sense Of Self, the air smells like cedar. Steam rises off the water and my body. Natural light filters in through the glass. I soak and scrub and breathe, and everything sparkles in slow motion. The pure luxury of slowing down and giving my body the chance to recover after intense activity is so welcome, time I didn’t even think I had.
I ask myself: what would I do with my time if I wasn’t constantly tangled in my own ideas, expectations, or plans? Every element here feels alive, like a subtle reminder of something I forgot beyond these walls – a pull toward the natural world.When I learned of the passing of my favourite musician, D’Angelo, I immediately bawled my eyes out. I know it sounds dramatic to cry over a celebrity, but his music carried a profound depth that I felt deep in my soul. He helped me make sense of feelings I didn’t yet have the language for in my twenties, and hearing of his passing brought all that emotion rushing back. It felt only rightto take a long drive out to nature.When I pulled up to the forest, I felt a sense of peace wash over me. I felt a presence I’d been craving for a long time. The forced stillness was a revelation for my busy-bee mind. My body and mind began to hum as one.
The trees remind me to breathe
The river reminds me to move
The teaching reminds me how to weave it all in
The music carries the roots of my spirit
I noticed the bees moving between wildflowers, unbothered as they carried the next season on their backs. I invite self-pollination, a transformation from the inside out. Planting my own deliberate seed, the creative seed. With excitement and gratitude. Pollination becomes just as much about the movement as the result. I want to express my reverence for all that surrounds me, the moment something unseen becomes generative. The bees paying exquisite attention to what is in bloom, I too invite myself on this journey.
We live in a world that asks for our attention constantly. Notifications, endless to-do lists, cheap dopamine dressed up as connection. But joy doesn’t live there. Reciprocity: the idea of mutual exchange, of giving and receiving in equal measure. Nature operates through it andmovement restores it.
We breathe out, the trees breathe in. We give energy, and we receive joy. We give focus, and we’re given freedom. The music moves, andwe groove with it. Go outside. Let your body and the world exchangeagain. Press play and remember that death and creation exist side by side. Being in nature again I’m reminded of these lyrics by D’Angelo:
THE ROOTFrom the pit of the bottomThat knows no floorLike the rain to the dirt
From the vine to the wineFrom the Alpha creation
To the end of time.
Further reading
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