Home is a story in an ancient forest...
on all the ways we already belong
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Coming home can look like all kinds of things:
It’s a mother’s hug after a long absence…
a lover’s touch bringing you home to your body.
It’s the smell of fruit slices baking, that reminds you of being home with your Granny.
It’s standing in the circle of beech trees near your childhood home, and finding the one inscribed with your and your friend’s initials that you carved into it when you were 12.
It’s meeting and recognising a soul on your travels who you feel you’ve known forever.
It’s looking in the mirror and smiling at the person looking back.
It’s the distant sound of bagpipes playing that reminds you of the home you left long ago.
Home is the violin music and the perfume that awakens memories of a special moment with a loved one.
Home is in the dreamtime where you connect and are shown deeper truths.
Home is the people, places and situations that remind you deep down, who you know yourself to be.
Home is touching the knowing that exists in perpetuity within you.
Home can mean hearing the Call of the Wild that guides you back to your instinctual self.
Home is the magnetising, in-alignment feeling of stepping towards an unknown future even when you’re scared.
Home is a story in an ancient forest that wakes you up…
Chapter fourteen, The Language of Nature - Language of the Feminine, p219.
"In 2005, I lived in Australia and had decided to go on a road trip from Sydney to Brisbane to visit a friend. After spending some time in Brisbane, we did some travelling together back down south meandering our way in and out the coast. My friend wanted to show me the Dorrigo rainforest, so we travelled through the small town of Bellingen and stopped by Dorrigo National Park. As we stood on the wooden deck overlooking this ancient forest, a well of emotion surged through me. Mid-conversation with my friend, I began to cry. It was an incredible feeling of heart-opening release. The raw and ancient energy of this magical rainforest ignited in me the memory of my origins. It returned me to the ‘knowing’ of who I really am on the deepest level. I stood there on the deck overlooking the forest and cried for a long time, unable to find words to describe how I felt. The memories that were released were the memories in my DNA, my ancestral heritage and the connection to our ancient and primal human lineage as well as to the Earth before humans even existed upon it."
Dorrigo rainforest has existed for millions of years on this planet. It’s part of the Gondwara Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area which is, “The most extensive strip of diverse rainforest anywhere on Earth”.[1] The forest is, “A link to the ancient, pre-human world”[2], which for me was an energetic link that unlocked cellular memories of my origins on the planet. Just as we entrain to other people, as discussed in chapter 5, Love and Relationships, we also entrain to our environments. To have such records of life on this planet is incredibly precious and so very powerful to help activate the ancient memories that lie within us all.
You might not be in a position to be able to travel to an ancient nature spot, but there are many ways to home that can awaken a remembering of home within.
WHY WE USE WRITING AS A TOOL TO WRITE OUR WAY HOME
Writing in and of itself, is a path ‘home’ regardless of whether we focus on the theme of home. Because we’re writing to connect with something. That something might be unknown in the moment of writing, or it might be deliberate. We may begin writing with one intention but are turned in a different direction mid-way to a golden nugget of emotion. What we write to connect with can be many things; to find a deeper truth, our essential nature, to access the vault of stories and memories that we contain that only arise when we begin, to discover and experience the energy of aliveness, spirit/god/the universe, other people, animals, our psyches and souls. We can write to connect with anything.
Writing can help us find our way home to ourselves, to the natural world, and to belonging.
BECOMING YOUR OWN MENTOR - Writing is a powerful, beautiful path to self-discovery. You are developing trust in your relationship with yourself, with where your writing takes you, with what it shows or reveals to you because it’s your pen on the page. You are leading the way. You hold the power. And you become your own mentor in the process.
There are just 8 days left to join my online creative writing workshop series, HOME & SANCTUARY at the early booking rate.
You might be wondering, WHAT HAPPENS IN A LIVE CLASS?
During our two-hour writing circles each week we’ll:
Arrive with a presencing meditation
Connect with others in the group
Explore, in-depth, the theme of the week through carefully curated writing prompts
Collaborate and co-create to expand imagination and possibility
Work with personal, reflective writing, journaling AND creative writing
Play with sensory and embodiment practices designed to support each weekly theme
Share our experiences, our writing (there’s no obligation to share), insights and discoveries
Create magic
With a dedicated online space to connect and share in between. And replays of each workshop available after.
The journey of the series is designed to deepen in layers. We begin with tangible, physical environments and spaces, then we unfold into our own bodies and selves as home, which then spills into our relationships with other people and finding home in community, cumulating in exploring our place in the universe, our interconnection with the energy/spirit/find your own word, of everything.
And in the process, you’ll create new stories, poetry, ideas for articles and uncover insights, touch on your own knowing, become your own mentor and (re)discover home in all the places that it already exists.
If you have any questions, are unsure about joining or need a payment plan to make it easier, reply to this email to ask…
Love for the weekend,
Jane x
[1] http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/Dorrigo-National-Park
[2] As above.
Image credit: myself - Aviemore, Scotland.