Category: Embodiment

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you from all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.

~John O’Donohue, For Presence, from “To Bless This Space Between Us”

Sometimes I forget what it is to be fully human. With all the consciousness, potential, diversity of emotions playing within, embodied physicality changing and shifting constantly, vulnerability that we sometimes push aside into a dark closet lest fear take the upper hand…..and the innate interconnected presence with everyone and everything.

It is in those moments of forgetfulness that wonder, courage, presence and joy may recede into the background.

is it possible to dive into the rich and vibrant colors of the dahlias in the image above, to remember the light of our own being within the candle flame in a time of life that presents challenges never navigated before, to breathe with the River Birch outside the window celebrating birdsong, squirrel antics and a myriad of smaller creatures that cannot be seen yet still hold an important part in the evolution and diversity of life unfolding.

The mantra of one woman here in the Asheville N. Carolina area who contributed greatly to the local community was “Don’t Postpone Joy”. The story that was told to me was of a woman who was intimately and generously involved in, and contributed to, many projects and causes in the local Asheville community. She was passionate and devoted to making a difference with her presence and within that found joy.

Joy of simply living fully within our own presence. Of making choices that align with heart and soul. Her vulnerability and challenge? Cancer – which eventually took her life.

Each line of John O”Donohue’s blessing “On Presence” asks us to receive fully all it is to be human until the last breath we take. I like to believe that is how he lived his too short life, taken suddenly from this physical embodiment without permission.

Perhaps in the remembering of what it is to live passionately, even within the challenges we all face and the wounding we have all incurred, we shall recapture the potential and possibility – the juiciness of being – to celebrate together in collaboration of what it is to be human.

“Elemental Musings” offers postings by a nature lover and elder in transition in the Blue Ridge Mountain area of North Western N. Carolina, in addition to postings by the Wildly Free Elder community.

Re-Posted by Gaye Abbott, 9/16/21, Natural Passages Consulting.from WildlyFreeElder

We ask that you reference Wildly Free Elder if you wish to pass this on…and thank you for doing so!

EARTH ROOTS – Living An Embodied Life

a-1-1(Written1/21/2018 and Revised 5/8/2020)

Written more than 2 years ago now this piece surfaced as I was looking through my writings.  Though the current pandemic has changed some of this dynamic I observed then, the time is now ripe to NOT go back to this mindless rootlessness that so many live in their daily lives.

After a week away house-sitting for my oldest son in Sacramento I arrived back in my home sanctuary overlooking Wolf Creek in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.  I sat next to the creek where the water coursed down rocks to reflect on what I had experienced in the middle of the city in my time away. My reflections then….

There I found the sidewalks and streets most often paved over burying any connection with the surface of the earth.  Noise and lack of kindness abounding in the disconnection to what gives us life.

Though trees lined the streets, yards contained flowers and other plant life, and a few parks were sprinkled here and there (often with paved pathways), most often I observed city people staying to the man-made surfaces and transportation with cell phones in their hands, technology all around, rubber soled shoes blocking the earth energies and noise everywhere.

Watching life versus living life.

Disconnection to the earth, to others, and actually to themselves.  A disembodiment so profoundly present that the energy was wildly chaotic – over stimulation blasting nervous systems.

Sadly, my strong sense was that many have gone numb to even sensing this change in their bodies and minds.

Yet, we are interdependent with the very elements that create and sustain us.  The elements that we cannot live without. The elements we have taken for granted.  The elements that have been relegated to other.

I understand more clearly now why there is a revival of creating city and roof top gardens and making parks more available to every day use and recreation.  A hunger for connection to something vibrantly alive, real – not virtual – energetically sustaining.

Beauty unfolding in front of us and within us.

Perhaps it was just me – a nature girl in the deepest parts of my being – but I am willing to bet those leading city based lives who don’t take time out to walk barefoot on the earth, wrap their arms around a tree, see shapes and colors come and go in the sky and clouds, place their nose close to flowers and herbs, talk to the animals and insects and generally touch home base on a daily basis are losing a significant part of being human.

I am speaking of Earth Roots here.  When we lose our roots – our deep innate connection to the skin of this planet –  we lose ourselves, it is just that simple.

Roots burrowing into the earth, activating deeper potential – beyond the normal, beyond the habits.  An energetic and heart awareness of something holding and grounding each one of us into our lives.

To a creative lifetime purpose we have come in with.

A purpose of being that has been lost somewhere amidst the scattered attention on meaningless distractions and transitory “things”.  Leading to deep inner sorrow, a sense of being “lost”, un-grounded, and dosed with habitual mediocrity.

Do we trust when we are off course?  How do we even know if we don’t have roots to ground us in our daily lives.  To give us someplace to come home to.  To navigate from like a GPS that is forever there for us without the technology.

Can we find our way “home” by our senses?

That natural way of being that hears the trees breathe, takes note of the wisdom the creek teaches as it flows over the obstacles in it’s path, completely enraptured with the exquisite softness of moss, in a state of awe and wonder watching the miracle of a bee next to the hummingbird, soothed by the song of a bird nearby, aware of earth energy that pours from the soles into the soul.

Collapsing down onto the Earth in praise that we, as humans, have been given these roots to wake up!

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Copyright by Gaye Abbott 5/8/20, Natural Passages Consulting

GAYE ABBOTT lives and thrives in Northern California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains where she communes with hummingbirds, flowers, plants and wild things.  Communing with nature is her favored activity along with ecstatic dance, Wisdom Healing Qigong at sunrise and sunset, volunteering in her community, laughing out loud and enjoying her family and friends with great appreciation and gratitude!