Inner-Wilderness.com

I got a wild hair some years ago living back in D.C. and decided I was going to spend the whole summer barefoot- an experiment in “back to nature”, urban style. Of course, there were places I wasn’t allowed to go without shoes, but amazingly there were not as many of them as one might think. I just carried a pair of flip-flops in my backpack for when they were needed.

The experiment was weird and painful at first— a nuisance that slowed me down— but I quickly got some “toughness going” and then it became an amazing reawakening of something that was primal. My feet became a major source of information, like foreign correspondents who send in constant reports from the field. We’re so used to getting all our primary sensory information only via our head senses. It really is something to be in constant touch with all the varied textures of human-made and natural textures and temperatures throughout the day under your feet.

Recently I read in Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine (June ’09) about barefooters who hike the Appalachian Trail. The article in the magazine reports there is a new Barefoot Hikers of Virginia group based out of Lynchburg. Amazingly, you can even check out a book all about it, The Barefoot Hiker, by Richard Franzine.

It’s true that at first, barefooting, can cause muscle soreness and you have to strengthen your bare soles. And you have to walk a bit differently— no shuffling, for example— to keep from stubbing toes. But being barefoot certainly aids in walking more quietly, and reportedly reduces stress on knees and back from being a more natural posture.

Now I don’t expect many people will be in a position to radically abandon footwear, but, perhaps a little bit of your time outdoors barefoot is feasible? And I don’t just mean in the backyard. Next time you are able to take a wilderness walk, I challenge you to take your hiking boots off for part of it. Plan to go very slowly. Allow yourself to get dirt and mud on and between your toes. Be gentle stepping though leaves where you can’t see what’s underneath. And for your first try, barefoot somewhere where the terrain isn’t too rocky.

You’re one step closer to forging a stronger connection with the natural world! I know from experience that these visceral experiences can reawaken something enticingly primal which can lead to other observations that take you inward. Pay close attention to what the earth tells you through your feet. When the earth talks to us, we want to be ready to listen. Brave soles/Brave souls?

The rains this spring have made for some dramatic changes in the local landscape, turning the Valley into a rainforest full of bugs! I’ll be the first to admit, the biting flies are starting to dissuade me from a wilderness walk. Which means it is time to review my insect repellent options.

I am looking to discover the “inner fly of me”, and I am getting some insights into myself by contemplating what parts of me are buzzing around my head, distracting me from how I want to be right now in the world. I want to listen to the message of these irritating inner flies, so they will feel heard—and hopefully go elsewhere— I also want to deal with these outer flies and get them to leave, too!

Cranberry’s Grocery and Eatery, www.goCranberrys.com, in downtown Staunton is a great local shop for supplying us with what we all will need along the lines of natural insect repellent. There may be a place in the world for DEET, but I’d recommend trying something more natural first. Cranberry’s carries two products: one by Janet’s Garden (a local product) and also a Burt’s Bees product.

Or, you can make your own. To make your own, first do a small skin patch test of a diluted oil to see if you have any reaction. If after a day you have not, add a couple of drops of an essential oil to at least 1-2 oz. of water or witch hazel in a spritzer bottle. Or a base can be olive oil, another neutral commercial lotion or a neutral hair conditioner that you add the essential oil drops to. Spritzers are nice because you can spritz your clothes and hair. Lotions and oils last longer on skin.

Essential oils should never be applied full strength and all the following recommendations are for topical use only. Avoid doing obviously risky things like spraying the oils into your eyes or other sensitive spots.

What oils are good for a combination of flies and mosquitoes? Try: oil of citronella, catnip, cedarwood, peppermint, or lavender. Or some combo. Citronella, cedarwood and peppermint oils have the added benefit of being useful against ticks.

Let’s try to take advantage of experiencing the wonderful changes of our flora and fauna that these unusual spring rains have brought. Don’t let the bugs drive you back inside!

photo by Karla Souder

What superpower would you want? The ability to fly? Wallcrawling? Telekinesis? The superpower most animals seem to want is invisibility! It’s what keeps them alive to see another day. Can you see the animal in this picture?

Invisibility isn’t just about not being seen, but is also about not being smelled or heard. Think of the scentless fawn who can safely hide “invisibly” in the tall grass while it’s mother is away. Or think of the soundless walkers—those from the feline families who “invisibly” sneak up behind their prey.

To increase the feeling of truly being a part of the natural world one benefits dramatically by thinking in terms of senses and invisibility, because that is the way the animal kingdom functions. It is easy to see how if we learn how to be more invisible to animals we will be able to see and experience much more in the wild than ever before.

That’s what practicing visibility does for us. But, what does it do to us? The very act of practicing being invisible in nature, even if one is really bad at it, is that the practice itself shifts one into a non-ordinary state of ego consciousness. So even if you are sneaking around, trying to be all invisible and every single bird, mammal, amphibian and everyone else can hear, see and smell you coming a mile away, it still is of benefit to you to do it!

Just the experience of a non-ordinary state of consciousness in nature helps our psyches. How? Clearly, practicing invisibility through silent walking, natural camouflage and expanded sensory perception is NOT like eating hallucinogenic mushrooms to expand one’s consciousness, or any other sort of dramatic chemical or otherwise induced state of altered consciousness. That’s not what we’re talking about. Instead, we’re talking about a subtle shift towards a non-ordinary state of consciousness which can allow our unconscious to become a bit more accessible to our normal waking ego consciousness—somewhat like in the way we have communications with lesser known parts of ourselves when we dream at night.

Another shift is that nature runs on “nature time” which is far different than 21st century human timeframes. When we practice invisibility, we naturally slow down to a speed more like animals use. That puts our bodies and psyches even more in synch with the environment around us. We learn to move when the wind rustles the leaves, and to stand still when the other sounds are still, so as to blend in.

When you believe you are invisible and you do the things that support that—like silent walking, slowing down, attention to how you look and smell– you become truly a part of that ecosystem for the time you are there, rather than the clumsy visitor— the tourist— just passing through. Your psyche can tell the difference. Something in you reawakens. And you’ll know it when you feel it.

Perhaps this change towards an intensely tuned, slowed, outward physical behavior and inward psychic behavior takes us back to our childhood experiences. Human children are instinctively and passionately drawn to hiding games (being invisible) because, just like bobcat kittens or any wildlife youngster, they sense their vulnerability. Rescue trackers who seek to find lost outdoorsman— adult or children— report time and again that lost people often have the seemingly irrational urge to hide, making the rescuer’s job that much harder. I and others can attest that after awhile of practicing invisibility out in the woods, one gets strong urges to hide, for example, if one hears a car coming. I think it is because this shift in consciousness harkens our psyches back to a different time and way of being, and manifests a latent prehistorical behavior in us back to the surface.

Invisibility, a superpower? A latent skill waiting to be rekindled? A door to the unconscious psyche? There’s one way to find out! Come, learn some of the outer skills of invisibility and see for yourself. And the animal in the picture- a Whitetail Deer, facing left, head down.

July 4th, I enjoyed meeting some of our FaceBook fans, and book group members as well as others at The Sacred Circle’s first year anniversary celebration in Staunton. We set up a table with lots of found nature stuff that prompted some great stories and discussions about people’s experiences in the woods and everyone got to see Carey’s new store layout!

photo by Karla Souder

Are you considering a new path in life? Or looking for a more meaningful experience? Learn how to use nature as a mirror for your own self discovery. Find out how to interpret the natural metaphors in your dreams to more clearly hear your own inner voice.

This week we are celebrating over 100 fans on Facebook! To thank you for your amazing support, we are offering $25 discounts to all our fans for our upcoming workshops beginning this Saturday, July 11 and running through Saturday, August 1.

Working Deeply with Nature to Explore Ourselves teaches you how to relate to the natural world as early native cultures may have done.

Animals Connecting Us to Our Deeper Selves teaches you how relating to wild animals can lead to your personal growth.

Join us for a workshop this month in the Shenandoah Valley at one of our two retreat locations especially chosen for their beautiful, natural settings. Brethren Woods Camp and Retreat Center is located at the base of Massanutten mountain in Keezletown, Virginia; and The Growing Center at Belle Grae is located on an ecologically planned, park-like city block of Staunton, Virginia.

To receive your fan discount, simply write “Facebook Fan” on your registration check and subtract $25 from the cost.

Look forward to seeing you at the workshops. – Kate

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Our unconscious minds speak to us through images. These images can come to us in our nightly dreams, but also can come to use through real objects and scenes in nature that evoke emotional responses in us. In this way, we can say that nature acts as a mirror for our internal selves.

For example, a man and a woman take a walk in the woods and see a gnarled tree trunk with bare branches. On the tip of one branch hangs a solitary leaf. Let’s say that for both persons, the image creates a little tug on his or her heartstring. The image is the same for both people but the meaning may be different.

After exploring the feelings about the images for a bit, the woman may connect that the “meaning” of that image is really of her grief about her own aging, symbolized by the gnarled body of a tree trunk and the memory of younger “leaves” of yesterday. For the man, a similar self-analysis reveals the “meaning” of the image to be a symbol of his own inability to let go of a past relationship- symbolized by the hanging-on by the tree long after the leaf should have naturally been let go.

We project our personal meanings and stories onto images we encounter in nature. At night in our dreams,  our unconscious parts of ourselves speak back to us in images, as well. You may have heard of a psychological test called the Rorschach Inkblot Test. Taught today in up to 80% of graduate psychology programs, it has been around now since the 1920’s.

In that test, a person is instructed to report what images are seen in random inkblot images. Meaning can be derived from interpreting the images “seen.” It is much the same  when we lie on our backs, look at the sky and tell stories about what we see in the clouds. It is also how humans have come to we came to make stories out of the star constellations. As a species, we attribute meaning to nature images. And some of the meaning and images express our deep personal stories. Humans have done this throughout history.

Why nature images and not urban images, for example? Nature images are important as mirror our projections because our human experience with nature goes back 40,000 years. Post-industrial revolution images only go back 200-300 years. The experiences that have shaped our DNA throughout our evolution have been saturated since the beginning of time in nature images, even if now in the 21rst century we are more insulated from the wilds.

Images of the natural world shaped our human experience and crafted our human instinctive response. Rare is the person who has a sudden encounter with a snake in the grass just ahead and doesn’t jump back out of instinct. That snake produces a real psychological and physical effect even for people generally not afraid of snakes. Nature images have deep meaning that runs across the human culture and is embedded in our unconscious.

So we have the opportunity to use nature to explore the deep meanings it holds for our individual selves—not just as an intellectual curiosity, but as a highly personal tool of self-exploration. Through using both real nature images and our nightly dreams, we can enter onto an alternative path of deep psychological self-discovery.

photo by Karla Souder

Everyone who stops by gets a $25-OFF discount coupon for the July-August Nature and Psyche workshops!

We’ll have lots of book recommendations on hand for you that tie into the nature-education movement, and that will also help you create new ways to identify with the natural world.

Hope to see you there! — Kate