Landscape diaries | That which is ancient and full of memory
I’m rereading the book by John O’Donohue, Walking on the Pastures of Wonder in conversation with John Quinn. It’s a potent story about our indistinguishable relationship with landscape. I love this one line, ‘landscape is ancient and has a memory far beyond any human.’
I’d originally come across the book while on a retreat in Umbria Italy, a landscape that is as ancient as it is breathtaking. It’s expansive and rugged, wild yet well tended. The countryside reflects a continuous conversation between people, animal, and earth. The conversation and poems between the two men continue to move me now just as it did then when I was searching for solace and direction. It reminds me that being connected in some capacity to landscape enables a returning, a settling down, a feeling of utter familiarity with who we are on a cellular level.
The challenge I’ve found with Ayurveda
When I completed my training as an Ayurvedic Practitioner one of the biggest hurdles I confronted when I began my professional practice was how to convey the depth and importance of this relationship we have with our surroundings. It was almost so obvious it was overlooked. Or one was convinced that it had no impact at all. Though we exist in nature and are made up of all the same elements the truth that we are affected by the same forces goes unrecognized. It sits concealed just beyond awareness.
What I often saw and experienced was the practices and principles of Ayurveda being shared or explained almost as if one was taking a class in history or science. Here is the history. Here are the facts. The focus was on what it is, a flood of inputs and information, rather than how or why it’s relevant.
At its core, Ayurveda is rooted in the life generating force of nature and consequently can be experienced in countless ways. Nature has an inherent knowingness of being. You and I have this too. My experience in learning Ayurveda was simply a coming home to the power you and I have to sense, know, and heal ourselves. It’s an inside job. However over the centuries we’ve forgotten the role we play. We’ve become disconnected from the landscape and the landscape of the body.
There are a thousand paths to the sea
Landscape has become a distant place. It’s what we walk upon, tame or fear rather than being what we emerged from. There are many ways in which one can tap into this kind of resonance and flow.
Forest bathing – just take a walk outside and be fully present without any distractions
Gardening
Movement – yoga, archery, martial arts, dance, playing music, swimming, hiking, etc.
Artistic craft – wood, steel, floral, paint, sculpture, textiles, etc.
Mechanics
Hospitality
Cooking
Media
As an expression of nature, we are intrinsically connected to it, so seeking out ways to commingle with landscape will affect a sense of ease and well-being. The undercurrent of health, meaning how vibrant and well we feel, is directly related to the dynamic, shape-shifting ability to be fully present with all our senses in each moment.
The relationship we have with landscape and what it has the potential to ignite is incredibly transformative. The irony is that there are many ways in which the landscape speaks. I could go on and on, because really everything we do has an opportunity to light us up and reconnect us with the nature of who we are and the community in which we’re apart. Only through experiencing something do we begin to know it.
How I speak with the landscape
I just so happened to consider gardening a revelatory act. I find that it’s a great medium through which I can remember as well as share. I like that it’s tangible and satiates my curiosity. I like that there are universal systems and principles at play that can be applied elsewhere. The garden, by no coincidence, is the very source of my material for cooking, herbal foraging, and floral artistry. I’m co-creating the landscape in which I reside.
How does the landscape speak to you?
If gardening, floral art, and design is something you’re interested in exploring – connect with me!