On the Summer Solstice: Lessons From Nature

What if I let the memories decompose? Released my grip on them? Allowed my hands to surrender to the dead weight of them, allowed the weight to sift through the cracks in my fingers like cracks of light. What if I let them go?

What if I surrendered to the cycle of myself as true and heart felt as Mother Nature; knew with every part of my being that I am as cyclical as the seasons and have the deep embedded knowledge as every leaf and bud has, that allows them to die down only to bloom again and again? They know the bloom is more beautiful because of the fallow.

Between you and me and the wildflower seeds, I have decided to rewild myself. What was a wasteland, scorched earth and burnt grass has wild poppies thinking about shining their cardamom red hues, and daisies - seeds have blown over on the breeze. My earth is regenerating. My Hope, perennial.

Today I have taken my wasteland, the cracked and arid earth and sketched it out with the colours it holds and the heat it keeps. I asked myself, how does it feel to lie down here?

What does the earth feel like?

It’s warm. And it’s knowing. It’s wise and it’s free. It lives, even though it doesn’t look alive, it breathes even though it seems dead. It holds and it holds and it asks for our stories. The tepid ones, the terrible ones, the terrifying ones. It asks for them to hold them for us so we don’t have to. So we can give the earth the stories we can’t say and the stories we can’t stop saying. In the quiet earth, you’ll hear the words, let them go, let them go.

Let them all go. The dead leaves, the mulch, the bitterness and regret, the faltering thoughts that keep you from sleep; take them and dig them into the earth. Chop and aerate, allow the worms to do their thing.

What if I let the past year and a half settle into the ground? Let it decompose. It would still matter. It would still be matter. But it would be different. A different shape and a different smell.

It would belong to the earth and She could use it all, every tiny microbe of truth and pain, to nourish the earth beneath us now. To pave the way for other plants to grow. What was a wasteland is really fallow earth, and between you, me, the wildflower seeds and the Alder tree, I am rewilding myself. I’ll meet you there, on the breeze.

Katie Murray is a published writer, poet and founder of Love of Literacy www.loveofliteracy.co.uk. Katie is resident writer for Skin Elixir, publishing two blogs per month. Katie writes poignantly of her recovery with lobular breast cancer. It is an absolute honour to call Katie a great friend and wonderful that she shares her words of healing and power with us all on here.

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