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Recent science, along with movements such as Japanese forest bathing (shinrin-yoku) demonstrates that the act of immersing yourself in a forest, in the desert, or in the grass in your neighborhood park leads to lower blood pressure, calmer nerves and a more focused mind. It is good that people are waking up to the benefits of connecting with nature for their own health and well-being. But it is more than that. The living world is where we can be opened up in receptivity to a divine encounter. In order to listen for the holy, to engage in intimate conversation with the sacred, one goes into the wilderness.
When you wander in the wilderness, as our spiritual ancestors did, you detach from what you thought your life was all about, from those many identities you used to think were really you. Some of those identities, especially the ones pressed deep into your wounds, are hard to let go of. But eventually you’ll be asked to give up precisely all the things that aren’t yours to keep anyway. And you’ll be left with who you really are. And then you will be ready to enter the promised land.
This message is excerpted from “Seeing in the wilderness” by Victoria Loorz in the September/October 2022 Gather magazine. Today is the Fall Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere.