Welcome to this new feature; I thought it might be a better fit for us than Chat as a way of starting a conversation… it’s worth a try, anyway.
So in my last post to you I included a photo essay on living in the woods and getting closer to nature through learning new skills, ancestral skills, traditional ways of living. In the video, I called this ‘re-wilding ourselves’. One of the unexpected outcomes of this venture was how emotional it felt. Most of us inexplicably burst into tears at times. My friend Jenni, who was also there, said that we are born with the potential to be close to the land and nature, but that modern lifestyle tears us away from it, and so we are always in a state of grieving.
I have thought about this a lot. In my heart and body and being, I feel it to be true. I came away from Willow and Wild changed and restless. I never thought I would ever wild-camp again, or remove myself so utterly from a soft bed and hot showers, yet I fell into this wild way of living so easily.
I’m wondering if you have ever felt this way. Does going for a walk in nature feel healing to you? Does a walk under trees or beside water chase away your worries, or help you solve problems? Do you go camping? Do you practice any traditional skills, and if you do, why? How does it benefit you?
Please share your stories and comments below. I’m looking forward to sharing in your wisdom!
Grá mór, my friends!
Ali x
Communal cooking around the forest hearth, towels hung up nearby to dry after swimming in the river.
Really interesting reading these observations and comments.
I'm not a camper either, but I still vividly remember a summer in my twenties when I spent the summer travelling from place to place in Donegal, Ireland, teaching water safety and swimming to communities along the coastline of that county. Every Sunday evening I rocked up to somewhere else, often slept in tents, or wherever the organiser put me. 10 am I met the beginners, and the swimming lessons started, then the improvers, then in the evening the adults. They all lived within earshot of the majestic Atlantic, and had all sorts of different relationships with it: mostly they feared it, it drowned them, but it fed them too, it held their history, it cut them off from lots of things during winter storms, but it was the path they took to emigrate.
Every day, three times a day, for eight weeks, I brought people to the sea, and the sea to people. At the end of that time, as the Autumn came, I went home, found it difficult to sleep indoors again. So I get what you folk are saying about getting hooked on being outside.
Now I live in a country with no coastline at all, and just last year discovered another, completely different body of water which enchants me in a a totally different way. It's the river Rhine. Last year, with a small group of mainly women, we swam through the winter. The really beautiful thing about river swimming is the calm, unshakable message it delivers every time you slide in. If you slide in, face upstream, and open your arms, you can embrace and accept the flow of life coming towards you. Face downstream, and say a cheery goodby to all that's passed. You yourself are right in the middle, in the present, touched and supported by the flow. which takes no notice of you at all. The water comes and the water goes, but you are constant, you can look either way and both ways, and be part of all of it.
Then comes the complex interconnect: sun on the water, trees reflecting, clouds in the sky, me in the water, colours of the riverbank. That part can be very powerful if you are in the mood to really consider it. But you don't have to.
So I don't camp, but I learn from the river, and am incredibly grateful for the lessons.
As for swimming in the sea, well that's something else altogether.
Hi Catherine, its good to see you here! I absolutely love your thoughts on time and the river, thank you for sharing that, it's certainly going to stay with me. Like you, there is no coastline where I live. When I was camping in the woods I went every day into the river, but it was much smaller than your river. We have lots of lakes instead, they say in Cavan there is a lake for every day of the year. Are you from Donegal? My sons teach swimming, but not in the sea, in the pool. With regard to camping, I must admit that I took a folding camp bed with me, these old bones would not cope with sleeping on the ground! I suspect that had it been raining, I would not have enjoyed the out of doors life quite so much! 🤣🤣😄
Ali, I enjoyed your post about Willow and Wild thoroughly. I feel so connected to my roots through your writing, and privileged to join you on this journey. I love camping; I love my little 2-person tent; my sleeping pad, my body pillow, head pillow, and sleeping bag. I love coffee brewed over a flame and stories shared at night by the campfire. I'd love to have a sisterhood of campers, but I do have one good friend who travels to camp and kayak with me every year. We call ourselves the Slough Hags because we are both post-menopausal and sloughs are our best kept secret for kayaking. The plant medicines, birds, and beauty call us home. We find our way into marshy areas off of Lake Superior. I've always been connected to the Sacred through Nature, but find it even more nourishing in my 50s than ever before. I talk to birds and rocks like I'm a kid again. I'm a Water Walker in this part of the world. It's an Ojibwe traditional teaching. My own traditions are scattered, but I've learned from the kwe ( tribal women) that we can follow our Ancestors' path and pick up what was lost. Is that what we are doing? Is that the call? It feels like it to me. What you share is invaluable. Miigwech!
Charli... great to see you here! I'd love to know more about your role as a Water Walker and how you came to it. I love that you are able to engage with indigenous tradition where you live. I dont know if you read the comment left on Wild and Willow by my friend Jenni; she wrote that we are born with the connnection to land but that from birth modern living and culture severs us from it so that we live in a constant state of grief, which we cant understand or explain. I think many of us cailleachs are finding our way back to it, so to answer your question, yes, I think we are picking up what was lost and answering the call of our Ancestors. I don't know if its a true revival as such, I don't know if what is truly lost can ever be fully regained, but I think its more of a new interpretation... we are living in a liminal space with one foot in the modern and one in the traditional and we have to find a way to synthesise the two, for the good of the planet and all that lives on it. It seems such a small personal thing that we are doing, but every comment I read like yours makes me realise that we are actually part of something bigger. Thanks for getting in touch, and keep on doing what you're doing! 💕
Good to be here! I will seek Jenni's comment as I have always had that inexplicable grief. Often, I've thought of it as feeling without home or roots. Look up Grandma Josephine Water Walker online. A Water Walk is a ceremony and a Water Walker is a woman who does the work of the water (water is life and women life bearers; we are the containers). I have met some of the women who received teachings from Grandma Josephine and they have opened their traditions to us because they believe the World needs these teachings. We are at a crossroads between traditional ways of Nature and the modern ways of technology. Exactly as you say -- we are in this liminal space, seeking to synthesize and reconnect to sacred teachings. The Anishinaabe (the local Tribe of Ojibwe) teach that our work is to speak for the water who has no voice. I think this is also a time for Dreamers to teach the language of the heart through tending living dream images. Sharon Blackie calls it "Dream Weaving." We can find what is lost in Dreams, we can learn from our Ancestors this way. The Anishinaabe also speak of "blood memory" which is a phenomenon happening among Indigenous Peoples. Thus, I'm overjoyed to find a connection to my Indigenous roots. Yes, we are part of something bigger, whole, and beautiful! We'll all keep on expanding our heart wisdom. Thank you for a place of Sisterhood!
I will certainly look up Grandma Josephine! I love this idea of water as life (which is fundamentally true, of course) and women the containers and life bearers, becoming the voice of water... we have a connection with women and water here in Ireland, too, it is my topic for December's newsletter. I have often had feelings like you describe, of un-belonging, and attributed it to a nomadic lifestyle without roots, which I think comes down also to Jenni's idea of our severing from the land at birth, because wherever I have tried to settle, I still felt like I didn't fit in. I feel now that I am getting closer to the earth, and that feels comfortable, like acceptance. Something strange about dreams; A few years ago I had a series of death dreams, they were frightening, but I interpreted them as a sign of rebirth. After that, I have had no dreams until this past week. I tracked my sleep with a smart watch, and it showed I was having very little REM sleep. I don't know if they are accurate in any way. The dreams have been a strange jumble of images, like confused or garbled speech. I know nothing about dreams, but perhaps it is all part of the journey I am on. By blood memory, do the Anishinaabe mean collective memory? Thank you for sharing your beautiful wisdom here... all these years of knowing you and I realise I've never really 'known' you.
All these years, Ali, and I'm not sure I've "known" me either! I was struck (and continue to be in awe) how we both seemed to veer onto the Hag's Path. I'm so drawn to your Cailleach Project and how your writing that used to feel "familiar" to me now feels like a beacon. So, I'm here! Walking with you. Basking in your insights and experiences. I believe this is how we transform once we enter the gates known as menopause. We find others in transformation. I created a reminder on my yearly vision board in January that reads, "Sisterhood: the only thing stronger than magic." Though the archetype of the crone/hag/cailleach/elder, often depicts wise women in solitude, our true magic is derived from gathering and sharing and living in beauty and purpose. We share and learn.
Ah, Dreams! Interesting about the REM connection. "The medicine of the Dreamtime is the Dreamtime" (Renee Coleman, "Icons of a Dreaming Heart"). I always seem to be working or "in school" in the vague Dreams. Even garbled Dream images can be tended in the waking world because they are living. It's very similar to how we reach within to write. We can reach into those Dreams and let the "character" or "setting" or "story" animate. It's mindblowing the serendipity that follows when we regularly tend Dreams. The Sacred is talking to us. It took me until last year to understand I've always been a Dreamer. I had huge epiphanies around Dreams last year and now I'm a candidate for level one certification in Dream Tending & Deep Imagination. Your death Dreams are powerful transformation images. Dream tending is a Jungian pursuit of depth psychology. I'm getting my toes wet! Any time you want to tend Dreams among those of us gathering with you, it's a great way to connect and build community. Especially among Hags!
Yes, blood memory is awakening to the collective. I believe we can have "groups" within the collective, such as tribal or cultural groups. But kind of cool to consider that these groups are waking up together. Maybe that has always been. But here we are. Showing up. Ready to recall.
I look forward to your post in December about women and water! And I'm joyous to re-wild with you and those your project calls to be here. I want to heal that severing from the land at birth, too. I'm in Ojibwe lands, so I honor Ojibwe as my land, sea and sky ancestors. I want to learn more about my Irish, Scots, Welsh, and English roots, as well. Aanii (Anishinaabe for acknowledging the light I see in you). Is there a similar Gaelic word or phrase?
It would take a lot of words to answer all of your questions in the depth they probably deserve, so I will be brief. I love being among the trees, or at the coast, or beside a creek or river or lake. I have a backyard garden shaded by a massive Monterey cypress tree, where I plants, a mix of native and non, as well as medicinal and culinary herbs. I use the culinary herbs in cooking and make tinctures and teas etc. with the rest.
I don't like camping. I wish I did, but I am a very sensitive sleeper and have a hard time resting outside the familiar environs of my bed and bedroom, though that might change if I adapted. But I also have fibromyalgia, so a night or two of terrible sleep sends me into a flare, and I have so much pain in my arms and legs most days that a back-to-the-land lifestyle would be inaccessible for me, even though my nervous system would love the quiet and the slower pace.
Hi Beth, sounds to me like you are already deeply connected with the land if you are growing plants for medicinal and culinary purposes! I'm sorry to hear about your fibromyalgia, do your tinctures and teas help with that? I hope you take time out to relax under that amazing Cypress tree in your garden. My garden is full of grey willow, they all planted themselves after we moved it, it was just a mud patch before that. Although they are apparrently no good for weaving, I love them because they bring so much movement and grace to the garden. This autumn, when we cut them back, I am going to try to weave with them, or at least strip some bark for weaving. Whereabouts in the world are you located?
For the most part, the plant medicine I make and use doesn't address fibro stuff, which is too bad, but it's hard to find much of anything that helps. I'm in San Francisco!
Beth, I'm wishing you well in San Francisco. Strangely enough, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary reached Lake Superior around 2 am last night (August 21) and a mist has shrouded the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan ever since. When I look at the weather radar and the massive arc from your location to mine, the Great Lady Superior consumes the rain. Not a drop has yet fallen. I've never seen this weather pattern before. It has me mesmerized. I hope you are dry and safe.
Oh... have you been affected by Hurricane Hillary? I hope you're keeping safe! Its a shame your plant medicine cant help with your fibromyalgia, have you ever tried Reiki?
Really interesting reading these observations and comments.
I'm not a camper either, but I still vividly remember a summer in my twenties when I spent the summer travelling from place to place in Donegal, Ireland, teaching water safety and swimming to communities along the coastline of that county. Every Sunday evening I rocked up to somewhere else, often slept in tents, or wherever the organiser put me. 10 am I met the beginners, and the swimming lessons started, then the improvers, then in the evening the adults. They all lived within earshot of the majestic Atlantic, and had all sorts of different relationships with it: mostly they feared it, it drowned them, but it fed them too, it held their history, it cut them off from lots of things during winter storms, but it was the path they took to emigrate.
Every day, three times a day, for eight weeks, I brought people to the sea, and the sea to people. At the end of that time, as the Autumn came, I went home, found it difficult to sleep indoors again. So I get what you folk are saying about getting hooked on being outside.
Now I live in a country with no coastline at all, and just last year discovered another, completely different body of water which enchants me in a a totally different way. It's the river Rhine. Last year, with a small group of mainly women, we swam through the winter. The really beautiful thing about river swimming is the calm, unshakable message it delivers every time you slide in. If you slide in, face upstream, and open your arms, you can embrace and accept the flow of life coming towards you. Face downstream, and say a cheery goodby to all that's passed. You yourself are right in the middle, in the present, touched and supported by the flow. which takes no notice of you at all. The water comes and the water goes, but you are constant, you can look either way and both ways, and be part of all of it.
Then comes the complex interconnect: sun on the water, trees reflecting, clouds in the sky, me in the water, colours of the riverbank. That part can be very powerful if you are in the mood to really consider it. But you don't have to.
So I don't camp, but I learn from the river, and am incredibly grateful for the lessons.
As for swimming in the sea, well that's something else altogether.
Hi Catherine, its good to see you here! I absolutely love your thoughts on time and the river, thank you for sharing that, it's certainly going to stay with me. Like you, there is no coastline where I live. When I was camping in the woods I went every day into the river, but it was much smaller than your river. We have lots of lakes instead, they say in Cavan there is a lake for every day of the year. Are you from Donegal? My sons teach swimming, but not in the sea, in the pool. With regard to camping, I must admit that I took a folding camp bed with me, these old bones would not cope with sleeping on the ground! I suspect that had it been raining, I would not have enjoyed the out of doors life quite so much! 🤣🤣😄
Ali, I enjoyed your post about Willow and Wild thoroughly. I feel so connected to my roots through your writing, and privileged to join you on this journey. I love camping; I love my little 2-person tent; my sleeping pad, my body pillow, head pillow, and sleeping bag. I love coffee brewed over a flame and stories shared at night by the campfire. I'd love to have a sisterhood of campers, but I do have one good friend who travels to camp and kayak with me every year. We call ourselves the Slough Hags because we are both post-menopausal and sloughs are our best kept secret for kayaking. The plant medicines, birds, and beauty call us home. We find our way into marshy areas off of Lake Superior. I've always been connected to the Sacred through Nature, but find it even more nourishing in my 50s than ever before. I talk to birds and rocks like I'm a kid again. I'm a Water Walker in this part of the world. It's an Ojibwe traditional teaching. My own traditions are scattered, but I've learned from the kwe ( tribal women) that we can follow our Ancestors' path and pick up what was lost. Is that what we are doing? Is that the call? It feels like it to me. What you share is invaluable. Miigwech!
Charli... great to see you here! I'd love to know more about your role as a Water Walker and how you came to it. I love that you are able to engage with indigenous tradition where you live. I dont know if you read the comment left on Wild and Willow by my friend Jenni; she wrote that we are born with the connnection to land but that from birth modern living and culture severs us from it so that we live in a constant state of grief, which we cant understand or explain. I think many of us cailleachs are finding our way back to it, so to answer your question, yes, I think we are picking up what was lost and answering the call of our Ancestors. I don't know if its a true revival as such, I don't know if what is truly lost can ever be fully regained, but I think its more of a new interpretation... we are living in a liminal space with one foot in the modern and one in the traditional and we have to find a way to synthesise the two, for the good of the planet and all that lives on it. It seems such a small personal thing that we are doing, but every comment I read like yours makes me realise that we are actually part of something bigger. Thanks for getting in touch, and keep on doing what you're doing! 💕
Good to be here! I will seek Jenni's comment as I have always had that inexplicable grief. Often, I've thought of it as feeling without home or roots. Look up Grandma Josephine Water Walker online. A Water Walk is a ceremony and a Water Walker is a woman who does the work of the water (water is life and women life bearers; we are the containers). I have met some of the women who received teachings from Grandma Josephine and they have opened their traditions to us because they believe the World needs these teachings. We are at a crossroads between traditional ways of Nature and the modern ways of technology. Exactly as you say -- we are in this liminal space, seeking to synthesize and reconnect to sacred teachings. The Anishinaabe (the local Tribe of Ojibwe) teach that our work is to speak for the water who has no voice. I think this is also a time for Dreamers to teach the language of the heart through tending living dream images. Sharon Blackie calls it "Dream Weaving." We can find what is lost in Dreams, we can learn from our Ancestors this way. The Anishinaabe also speak of "blood memory" which is a phenomenon happening among Indigenous Peoples. Thus, I'm overjoyed to find a connection to my Indigenous roots. Yes, we are part of something bigger, whole, and beautiful! We'll all keep on expanding our heart wisdom. Thank you for a place of Sisterhood!
I will certainly look up Grandma Josephine! I love this idea of water as life (which is fundamentally true, of course) and women the containers and life bearers, becoming the voice of water... we have a connection with women and water here in Ireland, too, it is my topic for December's newsletter. I have often had feelings like you describe, of un-belonging, and attributed it to a nomadic lifestyle without roots, which I think comes down also to Jenni's idea of our severing from the land at birth, because wherever I have tried to settle, I still felt like I didn't fit in. I feel now that I am getting closer to the earth, and that feels comfortable, like acceptance. Something strange about dreams; A few years ago I had a series of death dreams, they were frightening, but I interpreted them as a sign of rebirth. After that, I have had no dreams until this past week. I tracked my sleep with a smart watch, and it showed I was having very little REM sleep. I don't know if they are accurate in any way. The dreams have been a strange jumble of images, like confused or garbled speech. I know nothing about dreams, but perhaps it is all part of the journey I am on. By blood memory, do the Anishinaabe mean collective memory? Thank you for sharing your beautiful wisdom here... all these years of knowing you and I realise I've never really 'known' you.
All these years, Ali, and I'm not sure I've "known" me either! I was struck (and continue to be in awe) how we both seemed to veer onto the Hag's Path. I'm so drawn to your Cailleach Project and how your writing that used to feel "familiar" to me now feels like a beacon. So, I'm here! Walking with you. Basking in your insights and experiences. I believe this is how we transform once we enter the gates known as menopause. We find others in transformation. I created a reminder on my yearly vision board in January that reads, "Sisterhood: the only thing stronger than magic." Though the archetype of the crone/hag/cailleach/elder, often depicts wise women in solitude, our true magic is derived from gathering and sharing and living in beauty and purpose. We share and learn.
Ah, Dreams! Interesting about the REM connection. "The medicine of the Dreamtime is the Dreamtime" (Renee Coleman, "Icons of a Dreaming Heart"). I always seem to be working or "in school" in the vague Dreams. Even garbled Dream images can be tended in the waking world because they are living. It's very similar to how we reach within to write. We can reach into those Dreams and let the "character" or "setting" or "story" animate. It's mindblowing the serendipity that follows when we regularly tend Dreams. The Sacred is talking to us. It took me until last year to understand I've always been a Dreamer. I had huge epiphanies around Dreams last year and now I'm a candidate for level one certification in Dream Tending & Deep Imagination. Your death Dreams are powerful transformation images. Dream tending is a Jungian pursuit of depth psychology. I'm getting my toes wet! Any time you want to tend Dreams among those of us gathering with you, it's a great way to connect and build community. Especially among Hags!
Yes, blood memory is awakening to the collective. I believe we can have "groups" within the collective, such as tribal or cultural groups. But kind of cool to consider that these groups are waking up together. Maybe that has always been. But here we are. Showing up. Ready to recall.
I look forward to your post in December about women and water! And I'm joyous to re-wild with you and those your project calls to be here. I want to heal that severing from the land at birth, too. I'm in Ojibwe lands, so I honor Ojibwe as my land, sea and sky ancestors. I want to learn more about my Irish, Scots, Welsh, and English roots, as well. Aanii (Anishinaabe for acknowledging the light I see in you). Is there a similar Gaelic word or phrase?
It would take a lot of words to answer all of your questions in the depth they probably deserve, so I will be brief. I love being among the trees, or at the coast, or beside a creek or river or lake. I have a backyard garden shaded by a massive Monterey cypress tree, where I plants, a mix of native and non, as well as medicinal and culinary herbs. I use the culinary herbs in cooking and make tinctures and teas etc. with the rest.
I don't like camping. I wish I did, but I am a very sensitive sleeper and have a hard time resting outside the familiar environs of my bed and bedroom, though that might change if I adapted. But I also have fibromyalgia, so a night or two of terrible sleep sends me into a flare, and I have so much pain in my arms and legs most days that a back-to-the-land lifestyle would be inaccessible for me, even though my nervous system would love the quiet and the slower pace.
Hi Beth, sounds to me like you are already deeply connected with the land if you are growing plants for medicinal and culinary purposes! I'm sorry to hear about your fibromyalgia, do your tinctures and teas help with that? I hope you take time out to relax under that amazing Cypress tree in your garden. My garden is full of grey willow, they all planted themselves after we moved it, it was just a mud patch before that. Although they are apparrently no good for weaving, I love them because they bring so much movement and grace to the garden. This autumn, when we cut them back, I am going to try to weave with them, or at least strip some bark for weaving. Whereabouts in the world are you located?
For the most part, the plant medicine I make and use doesn't address fibro stuff, which is too bad, but it's hard to find much of anything that helps. I'm in San Francisco!
Beth, I'm wishing you well in San Francisco. Strangely enough, the remnants of Hurricane Hilary reached Lake Superior around 2 am last night (August 21) and a mist has shrouded the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan ever since. When I look at the weather radar and the massive arc from your location to mine, the Great Lady Superior consumes the rain. Not a drop has yet fallen. I've never seen this weather pattern before. It has me mesmerized. I hope you are dry and safe.
Oh... have you been affected by Hurricane Hillary? I hope you're keeping safe! Its a shame your plant medicine cant help with your fibromyalgia, have you ever tried Reiki?