Belonging — Wild Grief | Grieving in Nature - Wilderness Hikes in the Pacific Northwest (Copy)

When I walk on the beach, in the woods, in a meadow or field, briskly letting my arms swing and my legs reach, that cross lateral action of my limbs moving engages my core muscles. This stimulus of these deep muscles brings me to the sensation of being in my center. But I am busy walking so may not be aware “I’m centered.” I might notice a feeling, a quality, that if I attended to it, I would say “ I feel like me, like I live in this body.”

We can feel so disconnected in our busy lives: from ourselves, from humanity. When moving quickly (at least mentally moving quickly from one thing to the next), I’m playing the game of ‘beat the clock.’ How far can I get on this list, this project, this housekeeping, so I can do something else.

When I turn to the woods, the trails, the stream, I come closer to a yearning, a yearning to belong.

Sometimes I walk slowly, my energy is low and I absently take in what is around me. When I walk alone there is no pull to talk about the news, the world, my personal dramas. Yes, I do talk internally for some time, letting all of that run from synapse to synapse. After a while I begin to notice I feel different. I notice what is around me, really around me, beneath my feet, above and beside me; what my eyes reach to in front of me and the sounds that make me turn my head in stillness and attention. On Wild Grief walks we begin with that silent walking; to land on the earth, to be with self, to slow the inner chatter; before we walk and speak together.

When I stop, listen, and feel into the space I have just moved through, I can curiously notice what has changed because of my presence. I can begin to feel that I am of the wild world, not just in it.

I, you, all creatures are nature; in the natural landscape we belong.

When we are grieving, we can lose that sense of “I belong.” The world seems strange: preoccupied with trivialities, indifferent to our pain. Our lives and our hearts have a gaping hole. When the one you love has left, your environment radically changes. How we belong, fit in, are a part of, is altered. It is new foreign territory to navigate; Who am I now? Where do I belong?

The trees and plants, mushrooms and flowers all let me know I belong. The birds and mammals that I see evidence of (and occasionally see) go about their existence with me, they notice me. I fit here, as they do. When I belong to the natural world, I belong to myself. And without conscious awareness things shift and re-adjust inside me. Every living thing is now living without the physical presence of the one who died; every living thing is adapting, to a world without them. I will adapt as well. I am and it hurts. The trees will wait; they have patience. The short lived insects will remind us of the present moment with a touch to our skin. The plants will bloom and die, reminding us of the larger cycles. The bird song will be sad and will be joyful. it is all the same, vitality, life longing to live and belonging where it lives.

No I don’t come back from every walk enlightened, over it, or whatever I think should be. But I come back more myself, feeling my pain more acutely or feeling glimmers of joy and hope or maybe feeling everything at the same time. Often it isn’t fully conscious but my deep being has been touched and I know I belong.

It’s not that I have been in nature, but I am nature.

So be longing. If you long for the one who has died, long in the woods, long next to rivers and streams, on the beach or the roadside. Nature keeps emerging everywhere and it is where you belong.

-Karen Kirsch, Wild Grief Board Member

Want support accessing and exploring this sense of belonging?

Check out Karen’s Recording of a Guided Belonging Grief Walk!