the wild
Painting by Daniel Ablitt
The wild is not only beyond the pavement and past the edges of our cities - it is within. Curiously as available to a glowing-screen-enchanted-mind even now, as it is anywhere else in the cosmos. It lives in all, as our common essence, our core nature.
If you cannot get out to wide open spaces and plant yourself among the trees and weave yourself into the rivers, I implore you to create - to summon the primal energy daily, in one way or another.
Caress the warm glow of the burning sun within you. Gaze into the mystic black sky of your innermost being.
This is not merely metaphoric direction, but the sensorial reality of inhabiting the soul-self.
Of coming/going home.
“How does one call up the soul? There are many ways: through meditation, or in the rhythms of running, drumming, singing, writing, painting, music making, visions of great beauty, prayer, contemplation, rite and ritual, standing still, even entrancing moods and ideas. All are psychic summonses that call the soul up from its dwelling place.
However, I advocate using those methods that require no props, no special location, and that can be accomplished as easily in a minute as in a day. This means using one's mind to summon the soul-self. Everyone has at least one familiar state of mind in which to effect this kind of solitude.
For myself, solitude is rather like a folded-up forest that I carry with me everywhere and unfurl around myself when I have need. I sit at the feet of the great old trees of my childhood. From that vantage point, I ask my questions, receive my answers, then coalesce my woodland back down to the size of a love note till next time. The experience is immediate, brief, informative.
Truly the only thing one needs for intentional solitude is the ability to tune out distractions…. It is not hard to do, just hard to remember to do.”
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph. D.
Women Who Run With the Wolves
So wherever you are, and no matter how far you drift, the way home to the wild is always - always - in reach. Perhaps just one breath way.
Art by Daniel Ablitt
