Embrace Childlikeness

Mother Earth Practices for Summer

Okay, I know. How exactly are we supposed to become childlike when the weight of being an adult in a world-on-fire is the reality right now, day in, day out?

Recently I recorded a really, truly beautiful podcast episode with a friend of mine (I’ll share it when it’s out!) and we talked about the importance of ancestral healing, no matter who we are.

I came back to this reality, which I write and speak about so much: to connect to ourselves, our bodies, minds hearts, we have to connect back to Mother Earth, and when we do that, we heal ourselves and our relationship with others.

And in doing that, we heal our relationship to our child selves.

When we work through healing, it ripples into the generations before us and future generations who come after us.

Think of time like this:

In math-y terms, its an ellipse, but in spiritual-grounding terms, its the meta, cyclical timeline, with ancestors at the left end, us in the middle somewhere, and future generations at the other end. And always, always, we are working a loop, and so our healing and our trauma extends back and forth across the perimeter, connecting us all.

So, what does this have to do with embracing childlikeness?

Here is something I know to be true: when I am curious and kind, I become softer to the world and the creatures around me, and when that childlikeness happens, it actually leads me to becoming a more integrated, kind adult.

Again, look at the loop above, and place some other labels there, curiosity on the left end, childlikeness in the middle, maturity on the other end. When we embrace childlikeness, we are flooded with curiosity, and as we embrace that, we actually become more mature in ways we perhaps weren’t expecting.

And all of this, all of it is centered around our relationship to the earth.

Photo by Darrell Cassell on Unsplash

Photo by Tanner Boriack on Unsplash

Remember, we are in this series of Mother Earth Practices for Summer:

1. Practicing holistic connection

2. Letting your relationship with Mother Earth drive your politics, social dynamics & beliefs, and not the other way around

3. Grounding yourself in practices of sustainability

4. Embracing childlikeness

5. Infusing spirituality into your daily life in respectful ways through Indigenous wisdom and earth-based care

I think if we really stop and pause, even for just five minutes, we know what childlikeness looks like. We know the treasures that curiosity brings us.

Our challenge is to disrupt the daily status quo of rush, stress, and fear to embrace the gifts of slowing down, playing, and embracing joy when and where we can.

So if you need to, make a plan for the coming weeks (even for the coming fall season!).

Put moments of play and rest into your calendar, or make a fun meal once a week, watch a movie you love just for the fun of it, buy some modeling clay for those quiet moments, go on a bike ride, start a new hobby, go for nature walks, buy a coloring book—there are so many options.

The point is that we make room for new ways of being, for ways to explore our sacred relationship with ourselves and the world around us.

Today, I invite you into a poetry practice centered around this theme (and please share your poem in the comments if you’d like!).

The prompt is curious care.

Photo by Savannah Bennett on Unsplash

I am the go-go-go type, the one
who loves a good checklist, the one
who sits at the computer
as if it's the most important
thing I'll ever do, that romantic
notion of a thoughtful writer
crushing it in the publishing world.

But then it hits me, that fine line
between energy and anxiety, and
I realize too late that I've crossed it,
too many emails written, not enough
deep breaths, never any grounding.

So, I get up and leave the room,
escape the house, go find a quiet spot
under an old oak tree and let myself
go, go, go, to the deepest well of curious care.

I close my eyes, and I see myself, only
it's me years ago, running through fields,
watching grasshoppers dance, my arms
full of only what the world can give.
When did the to-do list take away
this vision of myself, held to the
heart of Mother Earth?

I cherish her for a moment, and
several deep breaths later, return
to the world of work and adulthood,
this time a little more sure of myself,
sure of the world that holds me and
calls me home, home, always home.

---

Friends,

Thank you so much for subscribing to The Liminality Journal.

On Thursday, August 22nd, I’m holding a workshop on Sacred Grief and Sacred Imagining, and I’d love for you to come if you have the space and resources.

It’s important to hold ceremony or ritual for ourselves in the spirit of kinship to keep us connected to Mother Earth and each other. So we are going to practice this through an awareness of sacred grief and sacred imagination through holding space, writing poetry, and sharing with one another what we are processing. Please bring a journal/something to write with or a laptop/tablet.

Hope you can join us!

Click here for more info

And a special thanks to the Chautauqua Institution for hosting me for their Interfaith Lecturer Series. I spoke on how we can become caring resistors by caring for ourselves, one another and Mother Earth.

More soon!

Photo by SEAN SMITH of the Chautauqua Daily