Your Senses: A Gateway into Relationship with Life
April has become one of my very favorite months since living in Portland.
It feels as though almost overnight, the Earth breaks open in rapture.
The trees, the plants all begin to showcase their magnificence.
What they’ve been dreaming through Winter finally emerges, and they shine their hearts forth with confidence and excitement. Each variety of bloom just as stunning as the next.
Do the flowers seem to get prettier and more awe-inspiring every year to you too?
I’ve been amazed by the scent of the daffodils this year.
And the sight of the camellias, laden with their bosoms of pink and red, alluring and sensual.
Not to mention the felt sense of Dogwood's regal, otherworldly, delicacy...
This time of year practically challenges us not to drop to our knees in wonder. Practically begs us to not weep at the feet of the Earth’s spectacular show, not to thank each flower we pass for their exquisite beauty.
I love Earth. I love her with a full and radiant heart.
I love how she invites us in to participate in this event of unfolding beauty, too.
I love how she entices us to become more fully embodied with our senses brimming.
“Receive this beauty with your eyes,” she says. “Drink in the alluring scents, the soft caress of the flowers and dew-ridden morning grass on your feet. Let the taste of the violet, the lilac, the rosemary flower awaken an ancestral longing in your body. Listen to the love-song between bee and flower and be transported into the sound of Universal Love.”
Our senses are a gateway into a strong relationship to our bodies. Engaging them intentionally guides us towards living a more present, tactile, and enamored way of life.
They are a portal not just into our selves, but into our embodied connection with Nature, into our felt experience of eco-somatic living. They are how we feel, sense, sniff, and deeply listen to our dialogue with the medicine of Earth.
Let yourself be led by your senses into deeper relationship with yourself and the Earth. No matter what season you're in, there is plenty for your sensory body to feast upon.
Perhaps go on a neighborhood stroll with your senses turned up, and your mind turned down.
See if you can bask in every sense your precious body knows.
Open your heart and sing back gratitude to all that’s given so generously.
For more ways to engage with Nature in an eco-somatic way, check out my Sacred Seasons Guidebooks and The Sacred Seasons Inner Well for embodied exploration of how you engage with the forces of Nature.
