Moments ago, before you started reading these words, other thoughts occupied your mind, your attention, and all the while, your lungs inhaled oxygen, your heart beat imperceptibly in your chest, you exhaled, and the cycle repeated.
You are the dreams of the forest.
The dreams imagined you and manifested you.
You are the dreams of the rivers, the mountains and of the sun.
You are the dream of the prairies, the grasses, the birds and the animals.
The only thing left up to you is your connection to them.
Tiokasin Ghosthorse, a member of the Cheyenne River Lakota Nation of South Dakota, spoke of the Earth’s dreams in the documentary film, The Eternal Song, which shares the voices of indigenous cultures around the world, imparting ancient and living wisdom and contrasting it with the destruction and pain of colonization.
What if the forests dreamt of you?
Now return your attention back to your breath, back to your beating heart, the inhale and the exhale, this automatic process that sustains us in this moment, and the next, and the moments after that.
And here we are now, in those moments.…
Breath filled our mother’s lungs, when we were inside of her, and her mother’s lungs, when she was inside her. Breath enables us to sing, speak, walk and dance. When we sleep, we breathe, and perhaps dream.
Trees and grasses (and our houseplants) breathe in the carbon dioxide exhaled from our lungs. They transform it into oxygen, which our lungs inhale, and then the cycle repeats, again and again.
This moment, and the next….
The rivers and the mountains, and the sun.…
The prairies, the grasses, the birds and the animals.…
Spring Equinox is upon us in a few weeks—equal light and dark—and all the while, we breathe, and maybe for some of us, there’s a slight catch in our breath, a slight holding as we eagerly anticipate, and dream about the Earth’s awakening from winter’s slumber.
Join me to awaken the trees, the grasses, the streams, rivers and sky in March’s forest bathing walk on Saturday, 3/28. We will gather at 9 am (location will be sent to registrants the Monday before) and for two hours, we will experience getting to know our dreaming Earth.
Nothing is required of you in this experience but to show up and be curious about this ancient and timeless connection. Perhaps there’s even something in you that needs a gentle waking up.
I look forward to spending time with you, and I feel grateful for being a part of Earth’s dreaming.
Until then,
