WILDNESS AND GRACE
THE NATURE OF US writings on the earth community, love, body, embodiment, interconnection, our planetary moment, music - and the creativity and possibilities inherent in being human.
The concept of wildness appears in Thoreau’s Walden, in the Spring chapter, as follows:
“Our village life would stagnate if it were not for the unexplored forests and meadows which surround it. We need the tonic of wildness -- to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground. At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.”
Thoreau saw wildness as essential for our survival, arguing that it was essential to preserve wilderness for the human spirit. I would go further with this theme, as nature is a part of our bodies and spirit, and in the preservation of our own wildness we uncover the spontaneity and unexpectedness of the present moment.
To be fully present is to improvise, to feel into life with our bodies, and to harmonize with the whole. There is an alignment which reveals itself when we are connected with the whole of ourselves, an alignment that is known as grace.
We can sense the world around us only because we are entirely a part of this world—by virtue of our own carnal density and dynamism—we are wholly embedded in the depths of the earthly sensuous. We can feel the tangible textures, sounds, and shapes of the biosphere because we are tangible, resonant, audible shapes in our own right. We are born of these very waters, this very air, this loamy soil, this sunlight. Nourished and sustained by the substance of the breathing earth, we are flesh of its flesh. We are neither pure spirits nor pure minds, but are sensitive and sentient bodies able to be seen, heard, tasted, and touched by the beings around us. David Abram
We are moved in harmony with the whole precisely because we are embodied, and much like starlings in a murmuration, surrendered to the grace of the moment. We surprise ourselves as movement, or music, or art, emerges in these moments; we find ourselves in wonder that we are capable of such grace.
You can have the other words - chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it. Mary Oliver
We can never have enough of nature. Nature calls us to our own wild nature, unscripted, arising when we least expect, that full-on aliveness that we know is the most true version of ourselves—our true nature.
The truly wild part of ourselves is paradoxically deeply in harmony with life, with the earth and all nature. A connection unfathomable and yet revealing the grace and caring of the universe, revealing an order to things that is beyond our understanding and intellect. We know it through our felt bodily sensations, and through the current of love that moves us.
Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness. Mary Oliver
Nature is purely at peace and utterly wild. We often turn to nature to feel present. As the aliveness of nature heightens our senses, we come alive to the wonder. What we learn, hopefully, is that presence comes from being attentive in the moment, present with our bodily feelings, our emotions, and the world around us.
When we fully participate with life, the outcome is unknown. We are in the uncertainty and improvisation of what is developing in the moment. Improvisation is the essence of true play, as both the child and the artist discover—making it up as you go, engaged with what is arising. This gives a conversation, a dance, or a comedy, the raw edge of aliveness.
Grace arises in the necessity of navigating the moment. At times a negotiation with danger develops our awareness: crossing a stream one foot after another on a log, running down the field for a pass, balancing on a beam, figure skating, we summon new levels of awareness to cope in the unknown situation. It may also be in a delicate conversation or a sensitive moment, we reach for a new level of harmony and connection, a flow with what is occurring in the moment.
Perhaps this is what wild play in childhood is developing in us. We take risks such as climbing trees, jumping from rock to rock in a stream, climbing through mysterious thickets, or exploring in deep woods, developing faith in our own grace and skills to meet the unpredictable wildness of life.
As David Abram describes it: the grace that flows from an ongoing and improvised dance with the sensuous medium that enfolds us.
There is an attunement to the world we develop, part sensual body awareness and part receptivity to the cues of nature, and everything around us—a reciprocity that we hopefully cultivate every day of our lives. We discover that we are part of a moving whole, and each moment, we are harmonizing ourselves with that holomovement, creating more beauty. Wild, graceful, mysterious, unfathomable and engaging—fully here in this moment where life is happening NOW.
I would love to hear your thoughts!
With love,
Sabrina
Quotes from David Abram, found in Becoming Animal.
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Sabrina Page, MA in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness
You can reach me at sabrinapage@earthlink.net. I assist you in focusing on the deep knowing of your body, aligned with the earth and all life - embodiment - to support you in living life fully, freely, and fluidly, intertwined with nature. Optimize your self-healing ability and embody presence and love by uncovering the new in yourself.
My background includes having studied meditation, movement, dance, and astrology - with some of the leading individuals in their fields. Sessions are individually tailored to your current needs.
More information is available on my website, sabrinapage.com
I grew up on a farm, made forts in the woods, played in a creek. The day of the family farm is sadly gone, but I bought wooded property in the country so my daughter and I could walk the woods and play in the creek. She and her husband now live in woods beside a river. In a couple of years my new granddaughter will be big enough to begin the explore the abundant nature around her. I feel very good about that.
There is the "unscripted" and adapting to the moments, for example, trees and drastic changes in weather, yet also the scripted, as, for example, the hyacinths that emerge in spring have their script written, so to speak, in their bulbs and roots. I may have shared this before, yet if so, imho worth it again "We Are Shapes of the Earth" John Trudell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK6tP23oCes&list=RDPK6tP23oCes&start_radio=1