Who owns the rainbow? Who owns the clouds, the lakes, the trees, the autumnal leaves on a grapevine falling gently off an estate wall? You see, an animal won’t understand the concept of land ownership, for instance. A frog will come back to the same wintering pond but won’t ask us for permission to hibernate on our allotment plot. It will simply choose a safe spot to do so. If we “own” the rights to the plot, we claim the right to all Nature inhabiting it, but the frog – quite frankly – doesn’t care.
Yesterday evening, my nine-year-old dog, Poppy, required a small surgery to stitch up a deep surface wound. It turns out our park hawthorn bushes are sharper than anticipated – she caught her back while running after her precious tennis ball.
Q: What is your resilience, and what would you expect and need from the environment and collective to safely grow, heal, and move through trauma?
Q: Where would you like to move from here? If I have a direction in mind, how can I get there with what I have available and what support do I also need on the journey?
Q: Have you experienced positive growth in your sense of spirituality after traumatic experiences?
Q: Can you think of that sense of solidity, inner strength or maybe even lightness in how you approach new challenges learning from past adversity in your life?
Q: Have you experienced new discoveries, new paths, and new ways of healing when dealing with challenges and traumas of life?
I hope this autumnal weekend is soft for you. I spent it with fellow Nature practitioners and with my family – exploring the fourth currency of our times: trust (there’s also time, money and energy). Even now, in mid-October, Nature trusts us with its bounty, opening new flowers and bearing fruit in our gardens. I walk between our garden and allotment, admiring new lavender buds, opening roses and cherry tomatoes still shaping up on our plot. This must mean a soft, warm autumn ahead of us, but I also wonder: do we deserve this trust?
Q: Have you experienced improvement in your relationships, in how you relate to people around you when managing recovery from traumatic experiences or even just reflecting on those?