Fraud
The value most humans put on material things and unreasonable social standards have been something I’ve been working tirelessly to condition out of myself. I’ve never felt honest trying to feign interest in the things the people around me focused and feasted on, but it never felt foreign to do so either. The conditioning was so deep that it felt natural even though a buried, rooted knowing in me poked at my thoughts and tugged at my heart to warn me of the fraud I was playing by.
Scars
I crave the mountains. I crave the trees, grass, and streams. For as long as I can remember, I’ve found myself clinging onto any mention or piece of nature in the things I consumed; the movies I watched, the music I listened to, the sad hours I spent scrolling on my phone while the guilt loomed. The guilt of my failure to oblige my natural instincts to connect with the outside world always tapped in the back of my mind, as if with a single, sharp talon, slightly scraping as it pulled away to tap once again. Those scars haven’t fully healed, as though they remain to open back up when I’m found mistakenly being pulled back into the disconnected life I’m trying to run from.
Abundance
I refuse to view the synchronicities that followed my steps toward change as coincidence. As my eyes opened to the realities of the world, as I finally felt that I steered myself onto the right path, at last, the abundance flowed in. I found love I never believed existed and someone who shares the same dreams I have. I found the truth and validity in myself that I longed for before. The world started to splay out in front of me in a way I could finally read. My attunement to people and things I witnessed was foreignly clear. So many things that never had before, just made sense. I became okay with the fact that I don’t, and never will know close to a sliver of what this world has to offer, or the reasoning behind any of it. But I’d open myself up to whatever was in my reach; whatever was there, offered to me.
Dreams
Since I was a young girl, I wished to live in nature, away from the busyness of the world. Eating food grown from my own home and taking early morning swims in a nearby river. I dreamed of a stream running through my yard and endless trees surrounding me just beyond it. My house, small and full of the few things I need or that bring me joy, nestled right in a cozy spot in the vast land. As I got older, I lost sight of that wish and nearly forgot it entirely. For the most part, our twisted society deems a life like that as foolish and unrealistic. Have we really run so far from the Earth-based lives humans once lived that a natural life seems a far-reach? Are we that engulfed in greed, status, and materialistic desires?
Purpose
I found purpose and direction in embracing the Earth’s ground that the humans built our advanced worlds upon. I found sanctuary in touching the grass and the mud. I made true friends with the other creatures that share this Earth with us and swore myself to loving them wholly. I found understanding that the humans who live on this planet all find their purpose and passion in different things and that each of them must be honored and recognized, just as I would wish the same from them.
I may often be a “mess,” walking the natural path of uncertainty, but all of the world’s complexities put aside, nature has become my safe place; the home of the answers to my worries and the source of so much bliss, wonder, and love.