Rocks, Trees, and Flow

THE NATURE OF US

On fluid identity, the holomovement, and how life is a process of ongoing movement and change.

ROCKS

The path in the above photo was one I built in 2018. I collected rocks from the far reaches of my garden, in an effort to bring some meaning back into my life. Having just been blindsided by the news of my husband leaving, and in a tangible effort to tether myself to the earth, I created this path. My identity as a wife, and part of a loving couple, had been torn from me. I was confused and lost. Grief is all consuming, dark, raw, and wild. Carrying rocks from one place in the garden, I hoped I would make sense of what happened. I would walk it daily, often many times a day, asking for direction.

A few months later, the answer came. As a result of shocking new developments on the depths of the betrayal, I knew I had to leave. I decided to return to Boulder, where I had spent my years from 22 until age 36. I took a little house, sight unseen, across from Boulder Creek. I had some some dear friends living nearby who knew my life story since my 20s, and embraced me through these dark days. One very loving friend had flown out to California, helped me pack my house, and drove back through the snow with me to Boulder!

Along Boulder Creek there is a path lined with boulders I would walk every day. Boulder is aptly named, the land of boulders and rocks of all sizes, and I have since wondered if the rock path in California led me here. I needed solid, and I found it, and yet, there was also the fluidity a rushing creek changing with the days and seasons offered - the stillness of the rocks and the wild flow of the waters.

FLOW

Everything breathes together, Plotinus wrote long ago.

I was mysteriously interwoven with the rocks, and led to Boulder to grieve. I felt the boulders and their deep silent power. Walking the creek every day was both soothing and stimulating, the water rushing down from the Rocky Mountains delivering tons of negative ions. I came to Boulder for the silence and solace, and breathing together, the earth nourished me and held me deeply in her arms. Place and landscape matter, everything was so deep and solid in Boulder, and especially near the creek, always changing. The earth touched me in a different way there. I spent much of my time alone, walking, feeling, and wondering. Gradually it dawned on me that there was a deeper wisdom moving inside me, born of being wrenched from my old life. I became saturated with the deep earth power of the foothills, and my power and certitude gradually emerged again

As summer came the grief was lifting. And then, once another winter had begun, second thoughts about staying longer arose. I felt the pull to return to the ocean, on the west coast of California. I arrived just as shelter in place was beginning, with some much earned insights and wisdom.

Even though it had been very stark time for me in Boulder, it had also been enlivening to feel myself in a different place on the earth. The skills required there were different. My body had to struggle with the cold, walk differently in sturdy boots on icy paths, and adapt to the ways that the new environment was shaping me. The interrelatedness of body and nature that I have explored in past essays was tangible. My former identity had been unexpectedly interrupted, revealing the unbroken wholeness of life underlying my life and moving me.

My last essay Dreams and Possibilities explored this theory of the holomovement - the unbroken wholeness of the totality of existence as an undivided flowing movement without borders, outlined briefly there, as well as Thich Nhat Hanh’s poetic reference, in case you want to revisit:

Dreams and Possibilities

TREES

Everything in nature, everything in our world, is a part of the moving whole. Philip Shepherd, in his book Radical Wholeness explores how a tree participates in the undivided flow of wholeness:

If a tree is correctly understood as a process, where do we draw a line around that process to distinguish where the tree ends and the rest of the world begins? Certainly the boundary of a tree would include its roots—but the soil, rocks, microbes, fungi, insects and moisture around those roots are also inextricably part of the process of the roots, and therefore of the tree. And the soil, rocks, microbes, fungi, insects and moisture around the roots are themselves processes affected by the humus on the ground around the tree and the ways it decomposes and leaches into the earth, and by the plants and insects and animals that contribute to that humus by shedding, dying or excreting.

The rain that falls is also part of the process of the roots, as are the hills and mountains that cause clouds to release their moisture as rain, and the water in the lakes and oceans that evaporates to create the clouds, and the sun that fuels that evaporation. And the process that is the sun is likewise held and guided by and part of the process of the galaxy. So if we wish to draw a boundary around the process that is a tree, that boundary will eventually extend to include everything, right to the outer fringes of the universe. The process that is a tree implicates and reveals the entire cosmos.

Like the tree you are an intricate interwoven process, one that implicates and reveals the entire cosmos. You are a cosmic wonder, and wherever you direct your attention you can feel into the depths of yourself. Your spiritual, mental, and emotional layers are intertwined with your body, as is every part of nature, the wind, sun, oceans, and hills. The place you live affects you deeply, and shapes you - and you impact it as well.

Sometimes emotions and habits run deep. In Boulder, it was necessary to feel and integrate insights daily, over many months, as the knots of abandonment undid themselves. Taking the time to feel and be, I slowly unfolded. We are the interplay of myriad strands of movement, ever flowing wholeness, and the direction of unfolding is always to know ourselves more fully. Through experiences such as I had with this loss, we develop trust in the life.

In a previous post, I explored this theme from another perspective:

Body is the intermediary between ourselves and nature. Aliveness and joy, sadness and grief arise from feelings and sensations in the body. The subtle sense of interrelatedness that connects us to the earth and all nature rests on our felt sense of the moment, how our bodies feel in the moment. The inner space of the body is where we register emotions and sensations, and the skin is the semi-porous divide between this inner space and outer space.

Perhaps you will want to revisit - as it has some practices on feeling the flow of wholeness between body and earth.

A subtle sense of interrelatedness`

And finally, spring came to Boulder! And for me as well. I felt the eternal renewal that is a fundamental part of our embeddedness within the moving cosmos. I was reborn and renewed before I left, a little over a year after I arrived. I returned to California thinking my new life was beginning - just as shelter in place started.

Sigh. But that’s another story.

Thank you for joining me here today!

Sabrina Page, MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness I work with individuals and groups, with a focus on somatic inquiry and embodiment, to support you in living life fully, freely, and fluidly, intertwined with nature. As well, I have studied movement, dance and astrology with some of the leading individuals in their fields. My private sessions are offered on zoom, phone, or in person in Bolinas, Ca.

More information is available on my website, sabrinapage.com

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