Summer Slowly Departs

Summer slowly departs; cicadas’ rhythmic thrum is fading. The bright crisp choir of crickets’ song accompanies us through early autumn days.  Forest’s light ~ always filtered by the swell of foliate waves ~ saturates every sense.  We are dazzled by this light whose meaning is refracted and articulated with each step.

 This earth-meaning originates within the body of earth Herself. It precedes constructs of the human mind…is delivered through the intelligence of sound, vision, scent, touch. Step outside the door with me and walk into Original Essence.

Meaning radiates,

inherent in particle,

wave, chemical collaboration.

This gift is grace that

holds me unceasingly in its thrall.

Each day my heart asks

what is the meaning of

  galaxies of wildflowers

shining in emerald orbit;

landscapes printed into lavender

            turkey-tail mushrooms;

pebbles radiant in evening light;

wine berry’s barb,

wood thrush’s flute?

what does black fly show me

washing her front legs as carefully

as I brush my hair?

I listen, while White Branch Creek explains,

uttering psalms through Paleozoic ferns,

then turn to the nations of birds;

the chorus of goldfinches

in treetop aviaries, who

repeat their infinite canon.

I ask the breezes who rustle

ever-responsive leaves

            slender wild cherry

            beech’s pleated skirts

            red bud’s green heart

“What news? 

Of what seagoing affairs

do you tell

with your plankton-born air?”

Sight, sound, touch, smell

usher the living earth

directly inside my skin.

They are living transformations.

Chrysalides within my soul

they return to life’s primordial ooze,

evolve gossamer wings,

and I arise into sacred meaning.

From my book A Litany of Wild Graces ~ Meditation on Sacred Ecology

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Where you’ll find Nesting Circles of Belonging:

*inspiration for families

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Photo Nicolas Pratlong

Visit my Substack Rewilding the Human Heart!

https://sharifaoppenheimer.substack.com/p/rewilding-the-human-heart

We will explore watersheds, forest lands, savannahs, coral reefs, farmlands,

healing herbs and more.  Let’s travel together.

Subscribe for free and invite your friends! 

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Join Me With My New Substack!

Hello Wild Graces Friends,

This last month has brought an unexpected journey into my life: my Face Book and Instagram accounts were hacked and I have spent many hours and dollars righting the wrong. Living in those technological trenches, with daily explosions landing close-by, gave me hours to contemplate not only repair of the current situation, but how to move forward.

I follow a number of writers on Substack and always appreciate its straight-forward simplicity.  No bells and whistles, no ads, no promotions, no tangled web of Meta communications.  Simply the thoughts of writers whose work I admire that arrive not too often in my inbox! You can see where this line of thought is leading: I have paused my Instagram and Face Book accounts and created a Substack called

Rewilding the Human Heart

 A journey of reunion with the living earth.

Explore outer terrain and inner landscapes with me.

Please follow this link, subscribe and forward it

to your friends, family and colleagues who would be interested in my work!

https://sharifaoppenheimer.substack.com/p/rewilding-the-human-heart

 I hope you will join me there!  All subscriptions will be free.  Although Substack has built into its system an encouragement to upgrade with each post, you can ignore it!   It feels to me, given my recent experiences, that Substack is a more grounded container than the circus ~ with its inherent privacy dangers ~ that is social media.

 The following is a taste of what you will find there

“Over the millennia humans have learned tangible ways of fostering relationship with each other and the more-than-human world.  Our lives were spent observing the myriad ways plants, insects, birds, and other animals communicate. The gifts of song, movement, breath and blessing are lessons humans have learned from our other-than-human kin. I call these ways of communicating technologies of relationship. We will employ these technologies ~ these embodied languages ~ here within Rewilding the Human Heart.

Song is earth’s first language, articulated by wind in treetops; by water rushing over stones and dropping into clear pools; by birdsong at dawn, autumn crickets, geese flying in formation; by coyote whom we call the song dog and vixen’s song of love. Like our ancient ancestors around the fire at the cave’s edge, we too can discover the magic of song as we embed ourselves more deeply into our own immediate pocket of the emerald earth. As we walk our favorite trail or sit in the twilit back yard, allow song to arise from your listening heart.  Offer this simple song as a gift to these other-than-human relatives who surround you.

Movement, like song, is a primal language spoken by countless beings.  Certainly, we humans speak through movement too.  Neuroscience, as well as our own experience, shows that rhythmic, continuous movement soothes the soul.  Outer harmonious movements bring harmony to interior body rhythms; here we find comfort and rest. Dance has spoken volumes since the dawn of creation. Think of the bird-of-paradise’s elegant courting dance or the playful grooming, chasing, bumping and tumbling of coyote mates. David Abram, the celebrated cultural ecologist and geophilosopher, encourages us to dance with the wild, a depth ecology movement and arts practice which he calls Place Dancing.  As we settle more deeply into relationship with our earth-elders, let’s playfully move the way they do.  Stand up and allow the breezes to ruffle your hair, spread your wings and feel the lift of wind, feel that your bones are filled with air.”

I will continue to send you this blog from the Wild Graces website ~ to share with you images, poems and inspirations.  My intention in Rewilding the Human Heart is to explore more hands-on, embodied ways to deepen our relationships with the Elements of Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Ether as well as the Realms of Nature ~ Mineral, Plant, Animal, Human and Unseen Beings. We will put into practice many artistic, ritualistic and celebratory ways to give honor and thanks.  Please join me and invite your friends to enjoy the festivities!

With Delight, Sharifa

As always, please forward this blog to your circle of friends. The link to subscribe is at the bottom of this page:

https://www.sharifaoppenheimer.org

Photo by Aron Katz on Unsplash

Deepening Kinship with Nature

 What is the difference between nature appreciation and deep relationship with our more-than-human relations?  Here are clues: Court the poplar… Woo the waters… Propose to crickets… Wed earth’s timeless round.  To spend the month of July rewilding your own human heart click this link and join me in ancient ceremonies of Nature Worship. Classes begin soon!

https://lifewaysnorthamerica.org/workshops_training/kinship-with-nature-is-a-family-affair/

Pursuit

 April

   Court the poplar

   at water’s confluence:

  Speak the original language

            song, prayer, offerings

            wrapped in leaves

    Listen to arboreal speech.

     Slip inside the bark

     veins become phloem.

  Woman inside the wood

enchanted

is a wind harp

 July 

   Woo the waters:

Fingers trail amid

            crayfish

minnows

            flat green stones.

  Caress sand and silt;

they are twin sisters

  Star shine glitters in

               pre-eternal sand.

               Carbon’s combustive cycle

               deposits silk-spun silt.

 Electromagnetic signatures

are written in an elegant hand

  sand: tourmaline, jasper

  silt:   nitrogen, hydrogen

 October

  Propose to crickets:

  Their song pulses

            on a heartbeat

            echoes in cochlear spirals

            steadies the breath.

  Crickets are winter’s Persephone.

Too soon gone,

they grace the underworld.

 January

   Wed earth’s timeless round

  January’s silence cries

till frozen crystals fall

from opaque skies

and cardinals shine

as drops of blood

on a bridal hillside.

Poem from my book A Litany of Wild Graces

https://www.sharifaoppenheimer.org/sharifas-books

Free Image from Unsplash

REWILDING THE HUMAN HEART

Come Rewild Your Heart With Me!

Would you like to deepen your Kinship with Nature and rewild your own heart?  Would you like to share this with your family as well?  Join me as I teach a five-week Kinship with Nature course through LifeWays during July!  This course is designed for all adults, yet includes an added focus on family. We’ll explore earth, water, fire, air, minerals, plants, animals and the invisible worlds.   We will be engaged with song, movement, stories, breathwork, scientific understandings, Jungian explorations, inner inquiry, hands-on activities and more. I hope you will join me!  For more info and to register: https://lifewaysnorthamerica.org/workshops_training/kinship-with-nature-is-a-family-affair/

Here are thoughts to inspire your participation.  The following is from my blog a few years ago:

“Today the children and I returned to the garden playground!  Last autumn, after the Harvest Festival, the children and their parents came to school for a Saturday picnic, to “put the garden to bed”.  But now in the spring we return to the garden, the song of the stream and the graceful poplars that shade us.

It is such a gift to teach these young souls, here in the generous arms of Nature.  The children develop intimate relations with the insect and animal world, from the army of worms they unearth ~ and re-earth ~ to the song of the wood-thrush they hear and the footprints of the raccoon in the mud beside the creek.

Original peoples pray by intoning “All My Relations.”  The children, also, talk of the great family of Nature: our best friends the Rain Fairies, their mother The Grandmother Rain Cloud,  Brother Wind, Father Sun, Mother Earth.  These children have the foundation laid for a life lived experiencing humanity as part of a great seamless Unified Being.  This is preparation for the only future we can sustain.  This is our one hope, and they bring their up- springing joy to it!”

And here is a bit of science: You, the adult, are crucial to the child’s Nature Connection:

“Researchers analyzed data from children and their parent/guardian to investigate factors associated with children’s nature connectedness. Of all variables considered, including frequency of nature visits, an adult with high nature connectedness in the same household was the strongest predictor of children’s nature connectedness. The study highlights the vital role parents/guardians play in nurturing children’s nature connectedness and calls for policies and programs that support nature connectedness among adults who are influential in children’s lives.

A study investigating the role of early childhood educators in outdoor learning considered how teachers in Norway engaged young children in foraging and gardening activities. Researchers found that teachers’ roles centered upon leading with enthusiasm and curiosity, following children’s interests and encouraging exploration. Teachers’ own engagement and enthusiasm for adventurous outdoor experiences inspired children’s engagement and enthusiasm. The research affirms that teachers are important role models in engaging children in nature-based learning.[i]”

Come experience the difference between nature appreciation, which can involve distanced concepts, and a deep “skin to skin” relationship with our other than human siblings.

I hope to take this journey with you!

With Green Blessings,

Sharifa

[i] https://www.childrenandnature.org/resources/research-digest-nature-mentors-and-role-models/

Animalia

It is an early spring this year. Crocuses and daffodils bloom in the chill mornings while forsythia buds swell; they are yellow flags in the warm late afternoon sun.  Bluebirds inspect their house beside the rose arbor and goldfinches empty the feeders by midafternoon.  Today a sparrow and I entered a poignant conversation between bodies.  Tentative, trusting, waiting, hoping….

I.

She hears a small thud

against the window.

Sparrow huddles,

breath coming fast,

blinks as the woman

bends to hold her.

No flutter of wings

quieter still

inside the basket.

The woman pulls

soft flannel close

steps back inside.

II.

Forest animals

she bows to by day

return to her

under moonlight. 

They inhabit her dreams

            She holds a wedding

            bouquet of living snakes

            Bees deposit honey

            into her lap

            Birdsong becomes

            elixir in a crystal vial

            A stag with diamond antlers

            stands in shallow creek water

Her house of dreams

is a living bestiary

herds, packs, flocks, schools

species, times, seasons, eons

are waves on the sea

rising, merging, rearranging

patterns of furred, finned

 feathered bodies

surfacing and receding

III.

When humans stood to walk

face forward, gaze level

the underside

~ belly, womb, heart ~

were exposed

vulnerable for the first time.

Rolling over

wolves submit

with a lowered head

tail tucked

underbelly soft and visible.

The woman rounds

her body, bends low

forehead on the ground

to bow bare

before the Sacred.

IV.

One sparrow

the weight of feathers

and a heartbeat

launches into flight

from a basket rim.

From my book A Litany of Wild Graces: Meditations on Sacred Ecology.  For Nature Inspirations to arrive in your inbox, scroll down to Subscribe.  And click on the Books tab to order your own copy.

Photo by Anastasiya Romanova on Unsplash

Become New Again

Now it is the time of Imbolc, an ancient Celtic feast that celebrates new life stirring underground. As seeds roll over in their winter sleep it is incumbent upon us as well, to awaken to our highest human ideals.  In these pre-springtime days let’s feel- into the crucial question “who can we become,” as a solution to our global crisis?  The earth is calling us to become new again!  

Importantly, it is not simply what we do, but also who we are as we act.  Let us learn new and ancient ways of being human, in right relationship with all life.  This consciousness will arc out in resonant fields and work in conjunction with all the good actions that must be done.

Together let’s pick up the primordial thread of Oneness and ~ through meditations, dreams, ceremony, through honor and gratitude ~ explore our biological-spiritual roots in the cosmos.   Let’s carry this thread of the sacred into the future.  We do this for our children, our children’s children and to the seventh generation.  

We bring with us not only the traditional wisdom regained through right relationship with all our fellow earthlings, but also the rich treasures our new science offers.  The ancient knowledge and new science converge at this time as a fresh chapter arising within the very old love story of earth and cosmos.  In collaboration with Gaia, we can help speak wholeness into being.

From my book A Litany of Wild Graces.  For earth inspirations to arrive in your inbox, scroll down and SUBSCRIBE!   https://www.sharifaoppenheimer.org

Only Love is Strong Enough

Only Love is Strong Enough

We walk into a New Year which is filled with the terrors created by the prevailing Story of Domination and Exploitation.  Yet the very ancient seeds of healing and wholeness, which have lain dormant for centuries, are stirring underground.  These ever-new, ever-eternal energies are too subtle to be caught in the web, the glare of news media and social media….yet they are powerfully awakening and a chorus of voices is singing this new birth into being.

“Wild, uninhibited love is the single force powerful enough to send us head over heels, out of our minds and into our bodies; to bring us home to our senses. The enchantments of the senses ~ the same magic used by the flower who seduces a honey bee to carry pollen for his petalled love ~ hope to entice you to love the world in ways you have forgotten.  Carry this breath of devotion into the world….

To become bellows

that blow the spark of love,

kindling human hearts.

To set ablaze a love-fire

that burns out dead wood

~ domination, greed, exploitation ~

and leaves fertilizing ash.

To impregnate minds,

and midwife the birthing

of the new

To love the world is to walk the path of restoration and regeneration: a radical new-and-ancient relationship that sustains the one-being we have always been.   And now we become again.” **

Let’s begin the New Year with Martin Shaw’s words ringing in our hearts:

“What we need is a great, powerful, tremulous falling back in love with our old, ancient, primordial Beloved, which is the Earth herself.”

 With Love, Sharifa

 ** From my book A Litany of Wild Graces; click on the Books tab to order.

New Year Wishes

Winter Forest

It is quiet and slow in the winter forest, at the dawn of this New Year.  Stop and breathe for a moment.  Join me as I walk the Winter Labyrinth; she is wearing her subtle colors and the song of the wind is low, sweet. I pause, reach down and….

For more poems, order A Litany of Wild Graces at https://bookshop.org.

Winter ~ Slow ~ Quiet

In winter dawn’s pure

shadowless light

            mountain’s north face

shapes emerge, recede.

Her slow pace stops

she bends

holds in her palm

the smooth

flat hip bone

            last winter’s venison

weathered to a richly

embroidered surface.

She sees synaptic deltas

of her mind

reflected in bone’s

fractalline calcium terrain.

Fingertips trace

its ivory in

ever repeating

diminishing

patterns.

She gazes soft, open.

Its infinite living form

refracts outward

visible in forest’s

fine tapestry

            stone, mycelium, bark

Her branching

veins, arteries

are reiterated

in bare winter’s

intricate, eloquent limbs

in reindeer moss

etched by crystals of frost

and velvet lichen

grown chocolate brown

on walnut trunk’s

north side.

We honor the Animal Realm, as we approach Solstice.

#15 As we approach Solstice, this week we honor the Animal Realm.

A medieval principle of kinship invites us to imagine that all of nature….as well as we humans, feels rising anticipation for the return of the light. In the time preceding Solstice, week by week, each of the realms is honored and recognized as kin. In this vein, I offer you ~ week by week ~ a poem honoring mineral, plant, animal and human. These are from my book A Litany of Wild Graces. Click on the Books tab to order!

Animal

Wide cretaceous wingspan
heron descends in majesty
steps high
with ancient grace
through autumn’s garden stream.
Cool intense gaze
studies creek-bank
stream bed
plucks a
crayfish midstream
an elegant Asian woman
she reaches with chopsticks
to extract a plump water chestnut.
Woman moored at the window
a slight quiver trembles between
shoulder blades
as bird ascends
cruising
with slow deep wing beats.

Coyote prints in mud
bear scat amid birdseed
possum’s marsupial parenthood:
we bow to
their warm blood
salute the sun-being
who walks across
his blue arch
raying out beneficence
generosity.
The father of all incandescence
brings light
by the gift of fire.
Our limbs are warm
hearts ablaze
free.

Photo by Pixnio

Nature's realms, and we humans, settle-in during mid-winter. We all wait for the Solstice.

A medieval principle of kinship invites us to imagine that all of nature….as well as we humans here in the temperate northern hemisphere…. is settled deeply into midwinter. As we wait, we feel rising anticipation for the return of the light and the coming of springtime warmth. In the time preceding Solstice, week by week, each of the realms is honored and recognized as kin, as we wait together. In this vein, I offer you ~ week by week ~ a poem honoring mineral, plant, animal and human. These are from my book A Litany of Wild Graces. If you’d like to hear these poems, go to the Sacred Earth Thread’s videos. If you have young children, look for stories of the realms of nature on the Family Life Thread ‘s videos. I hope these offerings bring you warmth and light.

Mineral

Minerals are stardust
coalesced in deep space

messengers of light

shot from Sagittarius’ bow.

Luminous arrows travel

through a new sun’s orbit.

Pulled by love’s gravity
they shape the intelligence of light

into Appalachia’s igneous core.

Electromagnetic signatures ray invisibly

from caves’ palpable dark.

Woman-in-mountain is our sister

breasts twin peaks
waist a deep valley
hips rising smooth

long thigh bone a treeless ridge.

Her timeless gaze
illumines evening’s blue ridge.

Her minerals tumble
through our blood
like stones
carried in highland freshets

come to rest for a time
in our shoulder blades, ribs

then flow on
to nourish sacred ground.