Into the Wild? 

Back around the time I started dreaming into my next album (the one just released!), I also started taking selfies in nature (this one’s from 2013 😮). I really just wanted to post beautiful nature pictures, but it seemed they didn’t get any attention unless I put myself in the frame 😂 I titled the series “into the wild,” which now holds a bit of irony for me…

See, there’s a reason the album is called “from the wild,“ and not “into…”

Because as soon as I started the journey back into the natural world, it came clear that I belonged. there. all. along.

So instead of making a big fuss about going on adventures to exotic & epic places, I simply started developing relationship wherever I was—with the birds, the bugs, the herbs, the trees, the tides… I realized they were my friends in this community I had always been part of, but had forgotten my place in…

I’m still learning to speak with these beings, and to understand all the ways I might help them thrive. But they have become my world, rather than just backdrops and background noise for the human experience.

It is these beings—the tumultuous undertow, the raindrops hitting swaying trees, the predator-prey chase through the forest, the rising moon pulling the tides of our blood, the evening aeronautics and cacophony of birdcalls—that I sing to and have endeavored to sing for and From.

This snippet of a poem from Adyashanti says it well:

“You are like a forest dweller
looking for the forest.
What am I to do?

 

Listen friend
each crackling leaf beneath your feet
is a personal invitation
to come to your senses.”

Indeed, may we return to our senses so we might open our eyes and ears and hearts to the real world we already live amongst … that is blessing us with its beauties and voices every day, even in the city! 🌳🌇🐦

May we make friends with our other-than-human kin, and find ourselves ever more at home here, on our planet earth, so we all might continue to thrive.