The last two years, I have been searching for a new home together with my family. It was quite a journey, through several countries, through paradise and hell. At last our new home showed up, just 75 kilometers from where we live presently. My quest for this place was driven by the desire for more space and nature around me, for a life connected to the earth and lived with simplicity.

 

We had to face many restrictions, in finances, energy and distances. We had to let go of cherished images, and the limits we met sometimes seemed to suffocate the dream. The feeling of being stuck made me turn inside. I asked myself, what is this desire for nature really about, a desire so strong that it fills my eyes with tears?

Tuning into my desire for nature, I realized that I felt split from the earth, from my true nature. What else could I be searching for in nature than for who I really am? This separation from my essence let the desire for a home surrounded by nature become painful.

How could nature not be ‘good enough’?

I had always enjoyed being in nature immensely, but still its beauty often seemed to be something outside myself. I did not feel that it is my own essence that I rejoice in when being in nature, that I am nature. The moment I touched this separation, the limits in myself and in my quest exploded. There is no good reason why I should deprive myself from wholeness, from joy. Just because of some vague, imprinted idea of ‘not being good enough’, of having to become better and working hard, which lifts the breath from its basis in the body, from its home on earth. This idea is the root of the ego, of the part of ourselves that has learned that it is NOT nature. But how could something so breathtaking, amazing, beautiful as nature, as your own nature, possibly not be ‘good enough’?

Nature’s creativity is my own creativity

When I grew up, I learned to be somewhat ashamed when I marveled at flowers. I thought this was petty, when there are so many huge problems on this planet. A few decades later, I realize that with this shame I cut myself from my very roots. I feel that for me there’s nothing more important to do than rejoicing in the magnolia’s and the peony’s coming out every year. By allowing all the amazement and joy in the ever-changing play of nature, I become aligned to the cosmic creativity, which is also my own.

Creativity is deep communication

Creativity is nothing else than deep communication with everything: my feet receive the freshness of the wet grass in the morning. The chick waggling out of her shed moves her head and neck, and I nod back, receiving the light with her. A glimpse of blue sky between the clouds lets me burst into space. The grasses in the wind wave at me and the bark of a tree opens its eyes and pores to let me in. The bees resonate in the warm humming of my own being. I feel part of an immense, crazy creation I will never understand but which I am. I feel utterly creative even if I do nothing at all. And I don’t have to fight my ego in this moment, there’s no reason for shame. My personality with its qualities and defaults is as the foam on the waves of the ocean of life. Not bad, also nothing special, just part of the playing of life with its unique beauty.

Trust and resilience

At this moment I am back at home, feeling the heart-beat of my mother, the earth. And right now my trust is reconnected, trust that everything that is really necessary will be provided at the right moment. Joy fills me, without any special reason, with the light of the day rising and falling, with every plant I meet, with the playfulness of the wind. Something like resilience arises: when being a home, I can allow to feel a bit more of the trouble the planet is in.