Finding The Inner Wilderness

I love the wilderness of Northern Ontario: white birch trees, slender slivers of light amongst dark evergreens; the massive granite shoulders of the precambrian shield; the sound of the loons calling out from lake to lake; what those of us who grew up there call “the bush.” For many years I took people into the wilderness to do solo ceremonies of fasting and prayer- vision quests. I take myself there each summer for restoration of body and soul. For me, the bush hits the reset button on my nervous system, reminds me on a visceral level of how I belong in this world.

But some recent health blips mean I may not be able to go to the wilderness this summer. So, I started wondering about what the wilderness offers me, exploring ways to provide myself with what I need in the city. Of course, it won’t be the same. The quiet vastness of a natural area largely uninhabited and minimally impacted by humans cannot be duplicated in a city of 2.6 million. And yet, it feels like a worthwhile quest- this looking inward for the wilderness that feeds me.

In the wilderness my body lets go in places where I did not know I was holding on. I feel my smallness in a good way, a way that makes it clear to the embodied soul/en-souled body I am just how crazy trying to “hold on” is in a vast reality of constant change. Laying on a sun-warmed rock I become a molecule of an infinite universe and every cell in my body feels, “Home,” on this mother from which I come.

In the city it’s easy to forget that the earth that I touch in the wilderness is here beneath me amidst the asphalt and the concrete. But it is, and all we have built- the skyscrapers and underground garages and subways- is a mico-thin layer on the vastness of the earth beneath us. When I remember this, I pay attention to all the places where my body is touching a surface- feet on floor or in the grass, butt in chair or on the ground, muscle and bones supported by a bed or beach sand- and explore letting go a little more into gravity. With just this gentle prompt my body unwinds, sinks more into the knowledge that wherever I am is here, and here is always on the earth I love.

In the wilderness I expand my ability to be with and be enlivened by the creative chaos around me: new seedlings sprout and are nourished by the decaying bodies of what was alive and now is dead or dying; some seedlings fall where the sunlight is insufficient and shrivel, while others thrive; wind and water and birds and animals unwittingly carry seeds to new locations, creating new possibilities for life and death.

Writing here in the city, I feel how the past is compost for the seeds of new stories, new ways of seeing. Some seedlings will remain in the “Unused bits” file on my desktop while others find their way into published work. The wilderness teaches me to allow and embrace the chaos necessary for both creative work and new growth in an old forest. Remembering this, I let go of trying to “organize” material that is still forming, shy away from the temptation to pretend to know where the writing will take me, what the book will be. An oak cannot be foreseen by simply looking at the acorn.

And still there is something else. The “wild” in wilderness- like the knowledge of belonging and the power of creative chaos- lives in me. It is what is untamed and uncensored, what is free from considerations about how I might be seen or heard (or read by) others. In other years, when I spent weeks alone in the bush in the summer, I forgot about how I looked, was surprised to see my sun-browned skin and bright eyes in the rear-view mirror of my car when I drove out to get supplies. I slept when I was tired and rose when I awoke- sometimes to view the moon shining on still water

It’s not always easy to find our natural rhythm in the city. And yet, the animal-self that has not lost contact with body-wisdom speaks to me. When I rise early and drop down into the pre-dawn hour, I find the end of a thread that guides me to eat and sleep and move and be still according to an internal rhythm that is older than electric lights and the sounds of traffic.

I will go to the wilderness again, when I am able. But I will not abandon the wilderness within me, even here in the city. I set aside time- days, weeks- to follow no schedule but the one my body and the impulse to write set. I cover my walls with the images and stories that come to me from dreams and daylight, writing amidst the delightful debris as I would on the shore of a lake, without trying to “tidy” or “organize” growth around me.

This summer, I rise before dawn while the city sleeps, greeting the pale light and birdsong that announce a new day. I stand on my small balcony and let the smoke of burning smudge- cedar, sage, sweet grass and lavender- remind me of ancient rituals that recognize the earth and call on the spirits of water, air, earth and fire. I put my hands to my heart and bow to the four directions here, amidst tall buildings, from the centre of the wilderness within.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer (c) 2013