Re-wilding Part 1

Lately, I’ve been dreaming of caterpillars. In one dream, I am walking through tall grass down the alley behind my grandparents’ old house. Prairie grass towers over me as do sunflowers, grape leaves growing over the fence line, and tiny wildflowers poke out from the ditch. Above me, however, are milkweed pods about to burst. I know that monarch caterpillars will soon be swarming the milkweed leaves and I smile knowing that I helped plant these, or so my dream tells me.

In another dream, I press apart the leaves of a lush parsley plant and see tiny swallowtail caterpillars curled up in the leaves. They seem to be resting before they begin to indulge in eating the fragrant herb. “My little babies,” I say aloud to the sleeping caterpillars, and gently fold the leaves back so as to not disturb them.

Each morning that I wake up having a caterpillar dream, I feel a sense of longing for joy that is waiting to escape my heart if I simply let it. But, covering that joy is a web of grief that is tightly wound around my chest, my lungs, and even the small space between my shoulder blades. Intuitively, I sense that I am at a precipice of diving deep into my creative depths so as to discover more of who I am. I feel the pull to search out what inspires me and what I feel and know about my little place in this world. More specifically, I want to know what the land I now live on, the Piedmont of North Carolina, right on the edge of what geographers call The Slate Belt, has to teach me. With this desire to know is also a willingness to tap not just into my inner artist and writer, but also to reconnect with my sensuality.

The word “sensuality” in our Puritanical culture seems scary because many of us associate it with the taboo expression, feelings, ideas, and searching of sexuality. I’m getting braver to rely less on (and walk away from) the social constraints, pressures, and expectations our dis-eased culture has placed on me, a woman, and I’m beginning to turn towards trusting more my senses (hence, sensuality) and our Mother Earth. All the spoken and unspoken agreements I’ve made to stay small in this world so I can stay safe and protected seem fool-hearty and foolish. For me, I have gotten nothing from these agreements (save my privilege and naivete) except heightened neurotic tendencies and anxiety.

My body is tired. I’ve been feeling the weight of grief lately in my chest and torso. I notice that my breath catches at times as if it is trying to let out a cry or a deep sigh (or both) simply while I’m doing mundane chores. All the while, I have procrastinated or shied away from creative urges and impulses that I sense would be fun, light-hearted, joyful, or daring, meaningful, and mysterious. I also have noticed that I refuse to rest and push myself to do things I think will make me a good citizen, a good worker, a good wife, a good friend, a good daughter, a good stepmother, a good sister, a good aunt. Or, if I do rest, I chastise myself when I know there are dishes to be done, bathrooms to be cleaned, and more money to be made if I work a few extra hours at my job.

The masculine energy infused in our patriarchal system moves me at an unfathomable pace and my mind races along for the ride. It’s not until I throw on my t-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap and step into my rubber boots to walk to our shed and take out the pitchfork I use to churn my compost pile that I realize I can breathe easier. Yes, it’s the fresh air that first sets me at ease, but it’s also the late afternoon sun on my face and the rustle of the dried, brown oak leaves at my feet that tell my body its home.

Lately, I have stepped away from social media as a way to unplug from the clever, addicting, and sometimes toxic, food for my ego. I limit my news intake also because the amped up headlines only amp up my fears and tear away at my psyche. Instead, I finish putting the last of the rich compost on top of the wilted lettuce, spent flowers, and this morning’s coffee grounds. I notice the many acorns that have recently tumbled to the ground and are now scattered around the base of the compost pile and the trunks of the six oak trees in our backyard.

I pick one up and roll it around in my palm. I love its smooth feeling and the soft brown that reminds me of the color of a sweet doe in a meadow. I think to myself that maybe it would be fun to gather some acorns and display them in a glass jar or vase in my home as a way to remind me of the outdoors while I’m inside. I smile at the thought of the simple project and then unwittingly toss the acorn back to the ground. There will be time enough to gather them if I so choose, but what I really want to do is put my hands in the dirt.

I begin on my other project at the side of the house. I take the large hoe and till up the loosened soil and weeds I’ve been working on all summer long. I plan on making this a bed to display my ever increasing irises. An hour or more passes I suspect before I feel the sweat around my forehead and temples where my baseball cap has pushed down my unruly curls. My hands are caked with read clay and I survey the area around me and see withered dead nettles, crab grass, and wild sorrel in the crispy grass. My body feels strong. The ringing in my ears from my clenched jaw and sinus drainage has dropped to a low buzz instead of a high pitched ringing. The grief that has been pressing on me all week long has now dissipated. In the space of my backyard and in the span of a few hours, I feel more at ease in my body. My place is here. The time I am living in is now, not in my past, not in the unknown near future. I am like the doe in the meadow, the acorn on the ground, the spider in the web, and the beetle in the freshly tilled dirt. Wild again. And free.