Hello lovelies
Welcome to our fortnightly connection letter, I’m so appreciative and excited of your presence here.
Recently I sent subscribers some writing on the filter of our brain and how we can blind ourselves to the beauty that is all around us, and also within us.
This researching of the brain filter, got me thinking about all the beauty we miss out on. I dont mean the big huge beauty of mountain scapes, desserts or vast untouched forest.
But of the beauty in the everyday, in the simple, in the ordinary.
The air we breathe, passed to us through the body of Oak, Ash, Hazel, ocean waves and nettle is incredibly beautiful should we take a moment to feel it. The tiny wild flowers on the side of our path are tiny, yet magnificently important to so many in our wilder community, but can so often be missed by our busy human mind, the dandelions in the carpark hold such beautiful tenacity and rebellion, the sound of bee, who’s song is full of reciprocity, the way the light shifts through the day, the warmth of our tea wrapped in our hands, the beat of our hearts, the smell of our child’s hair, the simple dark beauty of soil, the womb of life, the seedling growing in spring, the robin in the garden, the vegetable we use in our food, the rain that went from ocean to sky to our road, all of this beauty can so easily be overlooked, yet we are surrounded by it and filled with it in every moment.
We are so held in beauty, entwined within its web, but still, it can go by without us noticing even a small amount of beauty in each day.
“Beauty does not reserve itself for special elite moments or instances; it does not wait for perfection. But is present already secretly in everything” - John O’Donohue
Perhaps it is because we have learned to look outwards with such negativity, such as the flowers are weeds, the rain annoying, our breath so everyday, the bee distressing, our child, time consuming, and in doing so, we take away the sheer beauty of what is before us.
Or it could be that quite often, people are overwhelmed, busy, just trying to make ends meet, or are rushing, distracted or tight. Not spacious enough to just lift their heads, and see or feel, hear or observe and remember. There are so many things that people need to have a hold on, that beauty, softness and prescient moment perception can be the first things to go, especially when a person is just running on survival or fire fighting their way through each day.
In our culture, the concept of beauty is often thought of as perfection, the unobtainable, or grand scales, it becomes something we buy, or work hard to achieve, or have to push to get it, which can end up with people feeling that beauty is something they feel unworthy of, or something they cant afford or have time for, or is something above them.
And slowly, for whatever the reason, we are moved away from what can open and touch our hearts in the everyday and people stop looking at whats under and around their feet to open their hearts and ground their bodies.
“Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world” - Robin Wall Kimmerer
I have found in my own life, when the world feels like it’s moving so fast, or the feeling of overwhelm is threatening to enter my bones, or anxiety wants to fill my pores or the heavy weight of depression lingers in my blood. It is those small things, those everyday things, that bring me back to my heart, that ignite meaning, warmth and softness within me when all else felt hard.
There have been so many times, times of deep grief, times of deep trauma, those difficult and edgy times, where it was the smell of sweet peas or woodsmoke that had grounded my body, the sight of yarrow, dandelion and nettle growing and offering their medicine so easefully to all who are near, or the way the oak holds a strong home for so many, the way my breath moves within me, the blackbird offering their song to the early morning light or the new seedlings appearing from the rotting log. It is these simple sights of beauty, so full of kindness, so full of natural wild care, that have held my hand and soothed my nervous system. And often, it is not necessarily that I saw them in that moment, and they helped, but it was the memory of them, the connections to those things that I’ve spent time building and cultivating.
“ We have to get real humble and go back to listening to the song line of the river, of the juniper, the cottonwood” - Darren Silver
I remember a teacher I had, Jon Young, who told me and my fellow students about the kalahari Bushmen he has spent many many years with.
He taught us a beautiful story about the connections the Kalahari spoke of, that weave from a baby, the day they are born, like a web, to their human and more than human community.
He told us how they speak of a thread, that you see come out of the baby and the mother and join, forming a thread of connection, then, a little while later another thread will grow to the father, and another to the grandparents, and to the siblings. Then another connection will be formed to the tree outside the dwelling, to the herbs on the land, the forest around the community, the birds in the sky, the family pet and so on.
A web of connection to ensouled beings and life forms, weaving and growing in strength. Each strand, each thread, made from love, and together those threads will form a blanket, that can wrap around the child or, when they are an adult, and hold them in beauty, reminding them of the ensouled life they are connected with, the nourishment they have received and the beauty they are a part of.
When we first make a relationship, there’s a thread that forms. The thread over time becomes a string, becomes a cord, becomes a rope. Imagine you had that bond with all things all around you. The bushmen say the ropes are made of love. And I think that's really what it is. - Jon Young
These connections that form, because they form from a deep connection with alive and living beings, are not just one way. They are reciprocal, for the love is felt both ways, and it is in that way, that the bonds bring a great heartfulness and a feeling of care that holds a person in harder times.
It is believed to be vital, that a baby and a child is given those opportunities in life, to form these bonds of connection with the natural beauty in life, and it is especially important that these bonds are not just with the human world, but with the more than human world. So the world around feels full of meaning and nourishment, rather than alien and unsafe.
If a child never received this chance to create these beautiful bonds, it is essential that they do it for themselves as adults.
All too often, in these times, many peoples bonds form onto objects, such as clothes, cars, toys, phones, computers, TV and consoles. All of these things, although they can be beautiful in their own way, lack ensoulment and they all involve money, upkeep and maintenance.
They don’t hold the beauty that is in the natural and the everyday, a beauty that is so trustworthy, for birds, plants and trees do not lie, they show up in a pure way which a person picks up on and is nourished by, like a mineral rich medicine.
A connection woven to an object lacking in soul and life force, will not be a pure reciprocal bond that ignites a feeling of safety and beauty in the world.
Learning to notice the beauty in the ordinary and the everyday, letting it reach in and touch you, can infuse a you with hope and gladness, it can make the world we are part of feel friendlier, safer. And those connections can form touchstones inside that you can reach for and hold in times of need.
Once we start to take time to look at the beauty around, it lets our brains ‘honing in’ system know, that this stuff, this wonderment is important to us, and suddenly we will start to notice the beauty that is all around more and more.
Take time if you can, to notice the beauty in the everyday, in the simple and the ordinary. I know for myself, this simple act of noticing, has saved me, it has brought me into more intimacy with the world and with myself. It is in many ways, an act of self care and a beautiful act of reciprocity with that which is around you.
POEM: Forgive me
Angels are wonderful but they are so, well, aloof.
It’s what I sense in the mud and the roots of the
trees, or the well, or the barn, or the rock with
its citron map of lichen that halts my feet and
makes my eyes flare, feeling the presence of some
spirit, some small god, who abides there.
If I were a perfect person, I would be bowing
continuously.
I’m not, though I pause wherever I feel this
holiness, which is why I’m so often late coming
back from wherever I went.
Forgive me.
- Mary Oliver
Coming up -
Next week I shall send all paid subscribers journaling prompts and a LINK to our first online zoom gathering for later in March! Woopwoop!
Interesting Things -
An interview with Irish teenage author, naturalist, and conservationist Dara McAnulty. His debut book, Diary of a Young Naturalist—which he wrote at the age of fourteen, and which is in part an intimate portrait of his love of the living world and his distress at its destruction—is a testament to the power and importance of joy, a joy that encircles his relationship with nature.
When Long Litt Woon's life drastically changed, she turned to the secretive world of mushrooms to manage her grief.
What if we stop trying to figure out whether our feelings and intuition are “right” or “wrong”– and instead, just acknowledge them as real–and move toward them?
Hi Anna - I want to thank you for such lovely free newsletters you've been sending out. I am grateful & thrilled at the same time. Sometimes when one is trying to heal from trauma, audio snippets of calming music or nature sounds or talks and interviews and meditations are most helpful. Thank you for sending more of those in the past few newsletters! Thank you for all you do, thank you for the inspiration, thank you for all the efforts you make in helping strangers experience whatever it is they can take from your bright letters! xx
Brigit, this is wonderful and exactly what I needed to read this morning. I bookmarked it in my "Essentials" folder to return to. I was out earlier this morning, just after rising, for a walk. It is a gray and chilly morning, with a cold breeze blowing. My first thought was, "It isn't all that beautiful today...." but then I caught myself. Of course it's beautiful! There were crows flying and I could hear the trills of red-winged blackbirds, a sure sign here of imminent spring. The heavy clouds caught up against the mountains were both mysterious and ominous. In the neighboring fields there was a possibility at any moment of seeing a coyote or a fox. I saw neither, but that doesn't mean they weren't out there watching me. We don't have to actually see each other for the relationship to be reciprocal! As I moved along I loved seeing last year's dry leaves blown free of the willow tree and scrape across the road. I even loved the screech and clatter of a road address sign hanging loose from a fence and being pushed back and forth by the breeze. I marveled that the road, bare and dry except at its edges, was the same one I walked two nights ago while a blizzard howled and covered it all – including me! – in snow. And now there was no sign of it except for the dirty roadside piles, slowly melting away drop by drop, pushed into place by months of snowplowing.
Like you, it seems, these are the experiences I live for. In the loneliness of trying to swim upstream in a world that wants our attention for other things – devices, televisions, ludicrous bluster – it's invigorating to know there are others clinging as tenaciously to the relentless sublime beauty of the living world. 🙏🏽