For the past six weeks or so, writing duties nag at the back of my mind – I should be writing a blog post and working on dissertation research – but the draw of the outdoors has proven irresistible. As the world started to awaken and burst forth with the exuberance of late spring at Beltane, a primal urge to dig in dirt, plant seeds, and generally spend most waking hours outside overtook all my best intentions. Looking at my computer and thinking about all the things I “should” be doing seemed almost repulsive to me. Hence more than one month has passed since my last blog post. I wonder if my rewilding psyche, withdrawing from an unhealthy addiction to electronic stimulus, is now becoming more aligned with natural seasonal cycles. The Birds and Squirrels report that late spring and early summer demand time for doing, and spending each day reveling in my body’s physicality as I work with more-than-human co-researchers to rewild the Land became an imperative, not to be ignored, urge. So I went with it.
As the wheel of the year turns again and we enter the long, warm days past the Summer Solstice, the heat of midday once again drives me indoors. The computer and the research now seem doable. The weeds, unlike the planting of seeds, can wait. Urgency fades, and I find myself moving again towards writing. Where to begin?
Bill Plotkin (2013) says that in order to heal the planet, humans must first heal themselves. But how does one reach into the depths of their own psyche to assess which aspects need attention? Plotkin also remarks that the shadow parts of ourselves are not only the repressed aspects of our personalities that we want to disavow but that, in fact, by their very nature are completely unseen and unknown to us. Like most humans, I carry within me the scars of lifetime exposure to the traumas of living in a body assigned female at birth in a dominant patriarchal culture and a less-than-perfect childhood. I know I have shadows, which often express themselves in surprising ways, but according to Plotkin, despite wanting to examine the hidden recesses of my psyche in the objective light of day, I must instead explore the mysteries revealed symbolically during sleep and inexplicable strong emotional reactions to everyday situations. In the interest of being fully available for the work I am called to do in the world, during the period I have been neglecting blogging, I decided to plunge into the hidden psychological wilderness of my unconscious mind.
At the farmer’s market on the Saturday preceding the Super Flower Blood Moon, I crossed paths with a tarot card-reading psychic and decided to pop into her tent for some fun and an alternative viewpoint. She asked, “What do you want to know?” to which I replied, “I want to know what I don’t know. Tell me what is hidden from me.” The psychic worked, drawing from several different decks of cards, and pulling the Moon, a seven of pentacles, an inverted Moon, and Death. In tarot, pentacles symbolize Earthly, material concerns. The seven speaks to growth that occurs through challenges and effort. The Death card is about rebirth, putting the past in context, and moving toward transformation. This all seemed to make sense to me. I am in a process of not altogether comfortable transformation, requiring work that (if all goes according to plan) will draw me out of the exploitative Western culture in order to merge with the material world. The Moon in tarot symbolizes what is hidden in the shadows of the subconscious, including illusion, intuition, deep-seated fears, and the unknown. While not providing any deeper insights (e.g., I still didn’t know what I don’t know), the reading seemed to provide some validation that I indeed need to excavate some dark matter. Given the timely symbolic arrival of the Super Flower Blood Moon, I brewed myself a strong decoction of Mugwort Artemisia vulgaris, an Herb known to stimulate powerful and lucid dreams, and fell asleep under the eclipsed Moon.
My partner of 34 years, Simon, and I are looking for a house to live in. I want to build a secluded place in the Woods, but he informs me that he has already agreed to buy a house in a neighborhood with a group of friends. The neighborhood, Leeward, in the Turks and Caicos Islands, is a trendy location for an elite few. I cringe at the thought but nevertheless agree to give it a go.
The house borders the Ocean, and when I step outside, I discover the Sea lapping at the house’s foundation. I say to Simon, “We can’t live here! If it looks like this on a calm day, what is going to happen with global Sea rise or a Tropical Cyclone?” Fortunately, he agrees with me, and we inform our friend that we cannot go through with the deal. Our friend (who is not this way in real life) is furious and starts lambasting me, accusing me of spreading deliberately alarming climate change “conspiracy” theories and telling Simon how stupid he is to listen to me and miss out on an excellent investment opportunity