Our deepest wound is our separation from nature. Our greatest fear is that we can never find our way home.
Women feel the pull to reconnect to the natural world, to heal the separation that they feel between themselves and nature. But there is a problem.
Those of us brought up within Western worldview have existed so long in a state of separation from nature that we’re not really sure what reconnection looks like or how to do it. When many of us try certain paths, we find ourselves left flat, even if we initially think it is the path to our true selves and our true home. We sadly learn that the path we chose didn’t really offer the connection we sought. Most of these paths are anthropocentric, meaning they focus on humans. How can a path that centers on humans ever lead us to connection to the rest of nature?
What we need as women is to learn a new way. Many women are drawn to “Native spirituality,” going to sweat lodges and on vision quests. There really isn’t such a thing though as “Native spirituality” because there are many different Native Nations that exist, with different beliefs, customs and rituals.
The path that we, as women, are seeking is actually rooted in Indigenous worldview, not specific cultural practices and rituals. Indigenous worldview is more encompassing and pervasive. It provides the foundation upon which the rest of life is built because it teaches relationship and reciprocity in a way never experienced within Western worldview. In Indigenous worldview, the separation — that huge wall that is erected by Western worldview between humans and nature — does not exist. The wall must come down because this healing can only happen from the natural world itself. The natural world wants to reconnect with us.
Those of us who were raised and entrenched within Western worldview must learn a new way so that we can hear the voice of the natural world reaching out to us. This path begins with mindfulness, nature, and Indigenous worldview. Tapestry Institute provides the beginning steps of this path, through the power and presence of the horse, in our Horse Ibachakali Program.
by Jo L. Belasco, Tapestry Institute, shared with permission.
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