An invitation To Let Nature Teach., an enticement to go outside and absorb nature…
by: Grace Dunn
Parenting is the most exhausting and exhilarating experience. You can feel all twenty-seven emotions in the span of one hour (see image below). Your child has a meltdown about their favorite pair of socks missing, the other child throws up, and now both are in tears. One from heartache. The other from a stomach ache. You are alone and starting to spin, trying to remain calm. You tend to the sick kid first. Obviously it’s more important to clean the mess and calculate the seriousness of the illness. Is it a virus with a fever or just a gag reflex vomit? However, the missing sock child has cranked it up a notch. Literally screaming for your attention. It may take at least thirty minutes to settle everyone back to a steady baseline of existing.
Now you are hoping to go for a trail run or soak in the tub to regulate your own nervous system and find a way back to homeostasis. You can’t army crawl out of the room without them noticing and sounding the synchronized sirens for more attention. You cave and plop down on the sofa with them. They both inch their way towards you for a hug. You can feel their little heartbeats in sync with yours, all hearts beating in a beautiful rhythm. A universal orchestrated masterpiece that brings you to tears. Now you begin to shift to gratitude. How did you get so lucky to have the opportunity to raise these amazing humans? They are perfectly imperfect. Just like the other children in the world, but these two humans are yours. They adore you with their eyes. They strengthen you with their hands holding yours. They soften you with their hugs. They inspire you with their words and nuggets of profound wisdom. In just one hour you have felt trampled and loved. This is parenting.
Single parenting is an unpredictable adventure, but my garden is a reliable sanctuary rooted in peace. It’s where I go to process what’s happening in my life and in the world around me. Our fast paced society has everyone, including myself, searching for something to relieve the bigness that is felt. We feel too anxious, stressed, worried, scared, lonely, sick, depressed, or addicted. What if the remedies for most of those things could be found in nature? Think about how our ancestors lived and thrived. It’s not too far-fetched of an idea. I have received the healing powers from the Earth for years and I’m here to share those experiences in my forthcoming bi-monthly newsletter (link below!). In it, I’ll explore how I said good-bye to allopathic medicine and found healing elsewhere. The ways in which I escaped my marriage. (It was not a healthy departure.) I’ll share the story of how a relentless autoimmune disease joined my journey and seized an unrelenting grip on my thyroid, which reintroduced pharmaceuticals and return trips to the western world of medicine. The educator in me will share advice as it pertains to neurodivergent learners and how to navigate the archaic educational system in this rapidly changing world. I’ll also share my never ending quest for inner peace which led me to yoga, mindfulness, ancient wisdom traditions, and positive psychology. Turns out I just needed freedom to find peace. I’ll weave all these ideas and experiences as we sit in my garden. Plants may guide the conversation and I will highlight how magnificent our time with the Earth can potentially be.
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