Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
—Kahlil Gibran

Several years ago, I was spending some days and nights fasting alone in the wilderness as I often do to mark a transition, celebrate an important event or simply to reconnect. I spent many hours on a large rock in the middle of the Sespe River in Los Padres National Forest. I was situated in a quiet spot where the water flowed gently downstream. On the side of an adjacent rock I noticed the carcass of a creature I did not recognize. I had seen these carcasses before and often wondered to whom they belonged.

As I was studying the carcass, all of a sudden, out emerged a slippery slimy pale insect that stood intently on its now abandoned dwelling. I watched as slowly a tail began to unfurl, and then from the top of its body, four wings gracefully expanded becoming more and more beautiful as they reached their full span, delicately glistening in the morning sun, shiny wet like a newborn baby. All the while, the body of this marvelous creature was changing color as it absorbed the light of the sun, turning from a pale hue to a deep, rich, ruddy red. Ah! I have witnessed the birth of a dragonfly!

My mind becomes involved, as minds tend to do, and I wonder to myself... how does this being know how to take its first flight? What is the source of that primal impulse we call instinct"? What is that inner voice that says NOW? With the sycamore trees shaking their leaves in the breeze, clouds floating in the blue sky, and the rush of water around me, I sit in stillness and wait. A bee, buzzing around my naked body, heads toward the water, and as if on cue, bumps directly into the dragonfly. Without hesitation, the beautiful newborn creature is aloft, in perfect flight over the river and the mountains and me below. It has entered its new life.

Throughout the years since this experience, I often recall the dragonfly and the bee. Recently, after years of talking about wanting to tend bees, a beekeeper friend offered me one of his hives on long-term loan. In the days that followed my decision to enter into this relationship with the bees, I was stung twice on two separate occasions. The bees are preparing me, I thought, and catalyzing some changes in my life. A few days ago, I got my first beehive.

For years, I had a deeply seated belief that I must do everything myself, independently, that I must find the inner knowing on my own. In a sense, we do have to come to our own spiritual and psychological understandings, but we do not do it alone as an isolated being. Quite the contrary, rather than "alone," we are "all one," which, though cliche, speaks to our interdependence with all things. The experience I witnessed with the bee and the dragonfly helped me realize that sometimes an impulse comes from outside of what we call the self. Joanna Macy, beloved teacher, Buddhist scholar and activist says of the self, "entities are ever-changing, because they participate in and are subject to relationships in a world constituted by relationships" (1991a). Macy also points out that contemporary science reveals "there is no logical or scientific basis for construing one part of the experienced world as "me" and the rest as "other"" (1991b).

Much of our dysfunction and dis-ease stems from an inaccurate view of ourselves. We have lost contact with our divine nature and mostly identify with a limited and distorted view of ourselves, often as unworthy. We live in a fastpaced world, disconnected from the wisdom of our ancestors who were likely much more aware of being imbedded in a web of relationships, where everything has its place. Native peoples the world over understand this reciprocity, that we are interconnected and in relationship with all that is within and surrounds us. When we are in the flow of life, open and present to each moment unfolding, we are informed and affected by everything in existence. We make so much out of our own minds and thoughts and construct of self, that it is easy to forget we are a part of this rich fabric of life. I awoke from a dream a few days ago with the following words running through my head: "The magic has always been here, it was just hard to see through the delusion, the collusion of the mind with the mundane." In many native traditions, the dragonfly represents magic.

Somewhat like my dragonfly friend, I too am opening my wings in my work and taking flight. In addition to my new private practice, I am now running groups for young women where they can explore their authentic self-expression and sense of place in the world.

This past spring, in collaboration with Wilderness Youth Project, a local nonprofit organization, NikiAnne Feinberg and I held a weekly 2-hour circle for nine adolescent girls. The group met for two months with the girls coming together to express themselves, learn about trust and support, uncover their gifts, develop sensory and nature awareness practices and explore relationships and other relevant topics. In June, we spent 5 days camping in the Cuyama Valley, leaving technology behind, creating time to slow down and connect more deeply and ceremonially mark their individual transitions during a 24-hour wilderness fast.

The girls returned from their "alone" time empowered by their experience, invigorated by profound new understandings regarding their place in the world and inspired to continue weaving our world into one of beauty, justice, peace and sustainability. One young woman celebrated her newfound love of the night, filled with stars. Another really got that she is an animal rotating around the sun. There were tears shed and laughter shared as these young women courageously explored what it means to be at home on earth. It is liberating to remember that we are never alone. Serving as guides to others on the journey of healing and selfawareness necessitates our personal dedication to look honestly at ourselves and to remember that what we know, we love, and what we love, we care for.

It is therefore essential for us to know ourselves and our world intimately. It takes slowing down, stillness, mindfulness, and sensory awareness to meet each part of ourselves, each tear, bee, blade of grass, curve of cheek, tone of voice, each particular story with kind attention. This takes practice. James Hillman is a voice for approaching our lives and work with a curiosity and openheartedness when he says, "Since the cut between self and the natural world is arbitrary, we can make it at the skin or we can take it as far out as you like"to the deep oceans and distant stars. But the cut is far less important than the recognition of uncertainty about making the cut at all. This uncertainty opens the mind to wonder again, allowing fresh considerations to enter the therapeutic equation" (1995, p. xix).

We also sometimes need to be reminded. Vietnamese Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh poetically describes the world in which we live, the play of consciousness, and helps re-mind us.

Inside is made of outside. When we touch our own skin, We touch the water, heat, air And earth that are within us.

At the same time, we know That these elements also exist Outside our bodies.

Touching deeply, We realize that The sun is also our heart.

References

Hillman, J. (1995). Introduction. In M.E. Gomes, A.D. Kanner, & T. Roszak (Eds.), Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth, healing the mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

Macy, J. (1991a). Mutual causality in Buddhism and general systems theory. New York: State University of New York. p. 107.

Macy, J. (1991b). World as lover, world as self. Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press. p. 188.

Nhat Hanh, T. (2004). 2004 Calander. By Brush Dance. San Rafael, CA.

Alexis Slutzky, MFT, is in private practice in Santa Barbara working with groups and individuals. Her program for teen girls, Weaving Our World, runs through Wilderness Youth Project. She incorporates mindfulness, somatic awareness, dream work, nature practices and compassion in her work. She is dedicated to a world of beauty, justice, peace and sustainability. Alexis can be reached at (805) 453-6585 and alexisslutzky@yahoo. com.