Finding Connection Through The Wild

Image: Nevada City, N. Caliornia, Bare Feet in Snow

“We can’t change the world, but we can change how we live in it.”

Grant Hine – Ecotherapist and Guide

Grant Hine, Ecotherapist and Guide starts this short video off by saying “just to walk on this earth is a miracle”. It indeed is.

While living in Vermont for 3 years, with frequent snow storms during the Winter, my bare feet found their way to the snow that lay outside my door just for the fun of it. To experience my lifelong intimate connection with nature in yet another form.

I will never forget that first experience and how it felt to connect the soles of my feet with the frozen water element in the form of snow. It was different from when I would walk on the earth barefoot in the Spring or Summer feeling the energy of nature move up through my body with the warmth of the day embracing me, and certainly different from walking on the sometimes very hot sand of Southern California beaches.

After the first initial exclamations of feeling the cold I sunk into walking in snow like I was made for it. Delight washed over me and though alone I cried out into the natural world “this Southern California girl goes barefoot anywhere!.”

Walking back into the house after this first bare foot snow adventure I realized the experience wasn’t over with yet. The tingling up through my body as my feet woke up to the sensation of warmth actually woke all of me in celebration. I felt wildly alive!

Celebration of embodied life in the moment with the natural world as companion and guide. It had always been that way my entire life.

The intimate connection, love of nature and all life flowing from it was a grounded anchor for a shy girl who always loved hugging trees, watching pollywogs turn into frogs, hiking trails where no one else had been, sitting by water and writing poetry, collecting shells on the beach, riding the waves into shore with absolute joy and abandon, and dropping into deeper states of peace sitting by a stream or river capturing the sound of its flowing within.

I always knew that I was never alone within the embrace of nature for it nourished and built the inner strength necessary to navigate life as a human woman. It still does and always will.

Take time to watch this short Green Renaissance video with Grant Hine as your guide. Perhaps you may resonate as deeply as I did….