The Poetry of Place
Poetry is an act of exaltation. An invitation into the medicine of enchantment and a catalyst for deeper relationship with Self and with Earth. I have come to know the Earth and my place within it more intimately through the practice of embodied poetics. The mountains continue to dream me in poetry. The land pulls me deeper into my heart’s music and inspires the herbal offerings that have come to life through Artemisia Atara Apothecary. The Earth guides me towards true communion and asks for my continued courtship by way of my human creativity. The land is speaking, and I feel the irrevocably human impulse to listen.
I have the honor of teaching Embodied Poetics: A Land-Based Invitation to the Poet Within at this year’s Botanica Festival of Plants. In preparing for this upcoming workshop, I have been reflecting on my relationship to place and on my sense of belonging—both to myself and to the Earth. The Earth body invites all of us into the fullness of our sentience—the raw and unfiltered essence of our humanity—through our creative collaboration. Most essential to this collaboration is our ability to notice. Through noticing, we begin to greet the world with our senses, recognizing the physical body and somatic experience as an integral part of our creative expression, poetic practice, and basic human aliveness.
Co-Authoring With The Land
By inviting the land into our poetry, we open to her elegant prose made evident in the turning of the seasons, the dancing of the elements, the medicine of her blooms, and the whispers she bestows upon our souls—in growth, as in decay. When we invite ourselves to be subsumed in the body of Earth, we become more intimate with the heart of Self—the place from which all poetry flows. When we see poetry as a form of participatory ritual, we open to the Numinous and allow our creative expression to be an act of co-creation with the land that nurtures us. This serves as a way-finding process, revealing a core truth that lives in every cell of our bodies—that our bodies are not separate from the Earth’s body. We are intimately woven with the body of Earth.
for when the elk return
a sliver of moon
speaks in whispers of stars
on gradations of blossoming lavender sky
a shimmer of Mercury
winks the western horizon
Venus
still wearing her veil of mystery
is but a promised flicker
just beyond the crest of the Wolf
billowing storm clouds
dance above
a herd of elk at twilight
graceful wanderers who know intimately
the shapes of this forest
the curvature of Indian Peaks
their foraging caress
quilting
the land with devotion
let me know
the peaks and curves and ebbing tides
of my own body
like the elk know
this mountain
let me graze in sunlight
be Light
be Wholeness
in the body
of a woman
Poetry Lives In Every Body
In my work with clients, the nature-based ritual practices we explore often inspire poems, songs, and other creative gestures towards the Infinite. This reveals the intimate link between embodied presence and creative expression. Many among us believe we are not artists, but the Earth reveals the quintessential artistry in everyone and everything. We need look no further than the soil beneath our feet, the flittering of hummingbird wings, the holy scent of night-blooming jasmine, the ocean breeze, the mountain’s teeth, to see that we are woven with poetry. We are the mirrored perfection of Life’s sacred song, and we can honor in exaltation the gifts we are offered from the Earth by drawing our attention to them and creating from a place of Love.
As humans, we have been gifted the sacred opportunity to create, and we are invited to do so in a way that necessarily includes the Earth. She asks us to listen deeply. To notice from a place of wonder, curiosity and care. She implores us to write, paint, sing, dance, or otherwise use our animal body in service of our mutual flourishing.
If you would like to explore the poetic form as a means of reweaving the body of Self with the body of Earth, I invite you to join us at this year’s Botanica Festival of Plants where I will be teaching Embodied Poetics: A Land-Based Invitation to the Poet Within at 10am on June 22nd. And if you are curious about working with the medicine of enchantment and embodying your unique poetic voice with tailored personal guidance and support from the plants, you are invited to schedule an introductory call.
♡
You are a song the Earth sings to herself.
Your body is the living canvas she seeks to adorn with her truth.
May your wovenness with the Earth’s stories and with all sentient beings guide your creative expression, empower your voice, and allow you to be a vessel for beauty in this world.
