Rooted in Deeper Soil
Not fitting in..
Of course I didn't have the understanding or perspective to be able to identify it let alone articulate it as a young person, but growing up in a society structured on a seemingly widening fundamental disconnection between body-mind and human-earth, felt chronically disorienting and disturbing to me. Something just felt 'off' about what many of us humans were up to much of the time. I know I was not alone here.
Naturally, like many young people, I also didn't have the understanding, agency, or capacity during those years to reconcile this conflict beyond the usual host of adaptive strategies, which at best, served only for a limited time. Despite my efforts to numb out and try to fit into the dominant cultural customs, systems, and expectations, I just couldn't make things feel good or right for me. I really didn't fit in. Once I hit my 20's, especially because I had been privileged to spend so much free-range time at the feet of our ecological elders in remote places (rabbit, cat, dog, deer, bear, horse, rivers, forests, mountains, ocean, night skies...), what might have worked for some, seemingly wasn't going to work for me. Or not for long. Something deeper, wilder, and let's be honest, at times just downright feral was taking hold, pushing its way up through the cracks in the pavement of my fragile ego and capitalistically-conditioned world view. In 2004, in some desperation, I finally began following this regenerative force more sincerely and took my first course in a methodology that gave voice and power to the innate healing capacity of the body. This was my first re-orientation.
The Awakening Aliveness of Children..
As I further entered worlds that understood how to effectively restore natural healing capabilities and ecologies, this conditioned separation between my own body and mind began to resolve at deep levels, and some of my previously arrested emotional/psycho-social growth could resume (let's be honest again, some growth - I continue to be a work in progress). I then began to be able to see how this fundamental body/mind split was also structured in many conventional Western and Westernized systems that prioritized economic growth, especially over ecological needs but over fundamental human needs too: the human/earth disconnection.
It helped me understand why, as a reluctant but conventionally-trained educator, relating to the beautiful, spiritual aliveness of the young children in my care primarily through socio-economic systems of rewards and punishments (structured in large classroom sizes, much obedience-centric approaches/curricula, low support for parents/teachers/admin), had felt too painful and soul-crushing for me. I could see places where these systems actively oppressed this wildness despite their resistance, but I could especially see that with my own fragility at the time, I couldn't have sufficiently supported the children’s growth and sustained myself, let alone offered creative system change.
The Caterpillar Stage..
In 2011, I was introduced to a perspective that re-framed the predominant notion that I had grown up with: namely that humans, ultimately, only have the capacity to be a voracious capitalistic parasitic species on this planet, and therefore, are just an unfortunate and doomed evolutionary mistake. From this old perspective, 'survival of the fittest' is the name of the game, and if life is just to be survived (not fulfilled), then tragically, teaching children to be good fighters and winners (academically, entrepreneurially, and otherwise, depending on their familial and social cultures) actually makes good sense.
The new perspective invited the much more visionary idea that we humans, like all other species on earth, might actually have deeper potential for not just survivability or even just sustainability, but for actually enhancing life for all species on this planet, and when individually supported by healthy eco or soul-centric cultures (familial, educational, medical, political etc.), we may develop through ecological stages of growth and development far beyond just surviving. This perspective posits that we humans as a species may actually only currently be in an (unhealthy) adolescent stage of our potential human development. Think in terms of a consumptive, greenery-devouring caterpillar, which is the adolescent stage of a butterfly or moth species, which, once it reaches maturity, becomes a life-enhancing pollinator.
This perspective resonated deeply for me.
Growing Up..
Through encountering this ecological (rather than just economical) framework of human development, 'healing' and 'education' began to take on new meaning for me, and the conditioned dissociation between human and earth resolved even further. Trained in the old perspective, I had been conditioned to shut this natural creative force down in myself and in the children I was teaching, leading ultimately to furthering already dangerously immature global socio-political cultures and systems of mind-numbingly endless economic growth, all devastatingly stuck in survival mode. But with a deeper understanding of this new perspective, I found myself course-correcting again: re-orientation number two.
From this new perspective, it seems the work of cultivating and sustaining maturity in our social/political systems and cultural frameworks must at least in part, involve more of us individuals maturing (growing up), not only awakening (waking up - spiritual enlightenment), and certainly not just continuing 'business as usual'. But mostly, might we not be interested in sustaining and regenerating life on this planet because of our deep love and appreciation for it and for those we love who live here?
The Wildness of my own ecological Innerlife..
The insights I still gather regularly through these lenses continue to help me understand why it felt more aligned for me personally to shift from trying to fit into the education system with my under-resourced capacities, and instead, open my little healing/wholing clinic, Innerlife Health Services (weave my own version of a little womb/caterpillar cocoon for my own and others awakening and growing…and more healing). And this is certainly only one of infinite creative approaches I see so many others in the world taking to hone their own caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly skills and capacities.
In learning to tend to, navigate, and trust the wildness of my own ecological innerlife (with the help of powerful guides, both the human and more-than-human), I have been able to introduce approaches to supporting others in tending-to, navigating, and trusting their own.
Rooting in deeper soil..
Perhaps in response to being in this practice for almost 20 years, a small but unique, crafted-through-the-fires-of-my-own-soul, 'healing/education system' that I can facilitate through is now emerging too. Unlike in my previous attempts at conventional life, this one is not for young children. It is for us caterpillars and butterflies who are rewilding and reparenting our inner lives (including through the cocoon stage of dissolving into caterpillar stew before reconstituting as a butterfly), sometimes alongside parenting outer children and adolescents too.
In retrospect, and with deep appreciation and respect for all other paths in this grand mosaic, it's actually probably best for everyone (especially the children I would have tried to teach) that I noticed when I wasn't really fitting in with current cultural systems; it seems the earth had other plans for me. And it just feels really good to feel rooted in deeper soil.
The Healing Alchemy of Soulful Relating..
Into Soul, my new workshop, is an introduction to the soulful, regenerative relational approaches that are emerging from the caterpillar stew of my own life and learning. It is a gentle, 4-week personal journey into understanding and more fully appreciating this beautiful, wild terrain. I have found, both for myself and for others, that it is incredibly helpful (and it could be argued, essential) to have some familiarity with soul-centric terrain so as to be able to course-correct...or at least trust your bearings...when lost. It is essential in cultivating soulful cultures and systems, but especially, in cultivating soulful relationships...the beating heart of healthy cultures.
This workshop shares my understanding of this terrain and experiences working within it. It also leads to more wild resources and rich community, which are the roots of my work. But as I've discovered through my own experiences too, connection and fellow-explorers are essential, certainly in enjoying this journey, so this workshop is also an opportunity to bring what has previously been offered only as one-on-one Soul Work, into the heart and wealth of communal conviviality and mutual learning, and through the tales of the wild adventures of your fellow kindred spirits too.
If you feel drawn to journey through this workshop, here is the link: Into Soul - the Healing Alchemy of Soulful Relating