Kinship Practice… You do actually belong.
Hi Dear Ones,
It’s been a minute. Thanks for your attention, it’s precious and I’m grateful you are putting it here.
Wow, I’m feeling buoyant. I just got back from almost a month on the Grand Canyon. 10 women+ and queer folk, some of whom are beloved friends of 15 years. 4 rafts, an astonishing quantity of chocolate and kombucha and dry bags full of costumes. I went down into the belly of the earth and my heart broke open. The Colorado river deposited me at the takeout with a profound reminder. Let me share it with you: YOU ARE NATURE and so, YOU BELONG.
Can you let that sit in you a minute? Breathe it in.
Sure, I knew this. I knew this intellectually. I knew this spiritually. It’s something I “practiced” with. But on the Grand Canyon this thing happened where I started to feel whole. Not just in specific moments of stunning scenery or feeling flow in a rapid. I felt whole ALL the TIME.
There is a spring that bursts out of the high red canyon wall on the lower half of the river. It’s total magic. I stood under that frigid waterfall and literally felt layers of my incompleteness pounded off my shoulders. This spring pouring itself out of the wall, was generous enough to tell me in a way I could actually hear: “you’ve never not been whole. You’ve never not been enough. You’ve never not belonged.”
Everything I need is both inside my system, and outside me in nature. Amber McZeal and Karine Bell, de-colonial somatic therapists talk about this as biophilia: how we co-regulate with nature because we are nature. We may have ruptured attachments in our human relationships, but those attachment wounds have a chance to heal by being in nature. Listen to them talk about that here.
Deep down there in the grandest of canyons I was healing some of my attachment wounds. I listened and felt connected to my more than human relatives. I felt held by the rocks and the water and the cacti. The river doesn’t care if I row a clean line through a rapid. The billion year old lava rock at the bottom of the canyon doesn’t ask me to live into my potential.
Undermining our wholeness is part of what we do as humans. We get caught up in feeling inadequate, defensive and separate. That’s fine, it’s just what happens. But I like knowing my more than human kin are here to remind me otherwise.
The disclaimer here is that an extraordinary experience is not a condition for knowing my wholeness. I didn’t have to go down a river in a spectacular canyon to feel my belonging. The plant on my windowsill is trying to tell me the same thing. I just have to listen.
Here’s my invitation. Go outside. Fondle the bark of a tree. Pick up a stone. Put your hand in a puddle. If you can’t go outside, touch a rock or a plant in your house. Notice any thoughts, feelings or sensations that come up. “This is dumb” is useful information. So is feeling confused or connected or anything else that comes up. If you feel inspired, try speaking to the rock or tree or plant, whisper your prayers to them. Visit your tree or rock or plant every day for a couple of weeks, just to see what happens. Maybe nothing - that’s fine. But maybe you start to hear your more than human kin whisper back to you. Maybe you’ll hear them tell you, “you belong.” And maybe, just maybe, you’ll believe it.
With love and belonging,
Liz
