Dear Friends,
This weekend I hosted the third annual Women in the Woods campout in the Pecos Wilderness amongst the towering lodgepole pines and aspens barely touched by autumn's kiss, along the small but strong Rio Santa Barbara, her flow constant and steady, holding us in her current song at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
I have been through many changes these last few years, including starting a business teaching online courses that I've lately felt uncertain about my interest in continuing. I feel increasingly pulled away from connecting online and more and more drawn to being with people in person. I keep asking, “What isn't AI?” and find myself wanting to build with my hands, form poetry circles at the library, join neighborhood associations, and drum in circles with women.
We drummed under the full moon around the fire, journeyed, sang, called in our dreams for the future. We shared meals. Forest bathing, we noticed how in nature everything is in balance and how balance is a tenuous state that always requires readjusting. The seasons act as a means of recalibration, an opportunity to release what is no longer needed and start anew. We built nature altars as offerings to the waters, beavers, fairies, trees, children and ancestors. We breathed deeply our bodies into alignment.
In the woods, we women remember our bodies, drop into the ancient time, the primordial movement. In our broken hearts and our questioning minds, we feel the breadth of existence and begin to unravel the modern world from our fastened fascia, just a bit.
My dream is to be part of the 20th annual Women in the Woods campout where every one of us is teaching and collaborating. Perhaps it is on that big piece of land I dream about buying one day. Perhaps it's a week long instead of a weekend. I can't know what the world will be like in 17 years, but what I do know is that the same big moon will shine her face down on us like a balm and the same nurturing earth will reach up to hold and support us.
May you find time to soak in the woods this week.
Take it easy,
Johanna