This is my religion

How Nature teaches me to open my heart (when I'm ready for it)

In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze –

Amen!

~ Emily Dickinson

I deeply love Nature. I love it so much, in fact, that bird song brings me to tears. 🪶 Once, when I was watching a scene in a movie, a chorus of birds angelically sang out as the sun rose, their melodies heralding in the start of a new day. In an instant, a deep, uncontrollable joy welled up in my heart, and I thought to myself birds are like little angels sent to earth to sing to us and make everything more beautiful.🕊️

I immediately began sobbing. I can be a real weirdo sometimes. 😂

I love Nature so much that trees, plants, flowers, and animals show up in my dreams sometimes just to say hi or have some tea. I love Nature so much I spent this year’s Valentine’s Day with a 300 year-old oak tree I call Grandfather Oak. It was the best Valentine’s Day I’ve had in a really long time.

Nature 🌲 feels like the closest thing I have to religion. I have felt its grounding support more times than I can count. I visit my “tree elders” often. Sometimes I’ll sit and have tea with them. Sometimes, I’ll sit and sing with them. And sometimes, when I feel a sadness burning inside of me that seems impossible to bear on my own, these trees are the only beings I want to be around. At this point in my life, whenever I’m deep in grief, it’s just a reflexive response to go visit them — there’s no real thought process involved anymore.

Music 🎶 feels like the closest thing I have to prayer. I have a teacher in Peru who holds plant medicine ceremonies in the rainforest and teaches his students how to sing ‘icaros.’ For those unfamiliar with the concept, the most basic way to think of an icaro is as a prayer song. With these prayer songs, you can connect to the nature around you, and the healing energy of nature flows through you as you sing. In a way, it feels as if all of the sounds and songs that flow through me are like icaros, whether or not they’ve actually received that honorific.

My teacher is part of an ancient group of people indigenous to the Amazon rainforest in Peru, known as the Shipibo. In his traditional Shipibo language, he will call forth the healing energy of the plants and trees around him. Of these plant spirits, the particular energy that I feel most connected with is a beautiful, delicate, vibrantly pink flower called Bobinsana (she is often affectionately associated with the mermaid spirit, Sirenita). 🌸

Bobinsana has shown up in most of the plant medicine ceremonies I’ve attended — the first time we met, we played in the river, and she told me we were going to become best buddies and have lots of fun together. 💖 Sirenita’s playful energy helps the younger, traumatized parts of myself move through intense feelings. She’ll sit with me as the feelings move and then joyfully play in nature with me as the feelings pass. Sometimes, at random moments throughout the day, her energy will just appear and I’ll think of her fondly and miss her.

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🌲 🪶 🕊️ 🌸 🌈 🌀 🌊 🐚 💫 ☀️ 🪻 💖 🪷 🧚 🌷 🌼 🌻 🍄 🌱 🌿 🪵 🐋 🕸️ ✨

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I often sing to Bobinsana, though lately, as I’ve been moving through different phases of grief, the songs haven’t been coming as easily. She hasn’t been showing up as often.

…until a few weeks ago.

It seems Bobinsana reappeared right when my grief had moved enough that my heart felt safe being open again. Grief is a bitch, and the mourning process is an incredibly vulnerable state to be in. I’ve found it’s a necessary part of the process to build some walls around your heart and provide yourself with the time and space necessary to hold yourself while you grieve. If you let in everyone else’s energy willy nilly as you mourn, you can overwhelm your system and impede the process.

Sirenita’s energy came in stops and starts, when the breeze would slowly blow through the grass and trees, when the sound of flowing water caught my ear. It was as if she was quietly calling, “Eeeeeeeeeerrin! Eeeeeeeeeerrrin! Let’s go plaaaaaay!”

I was recently having a parts session, working with a part I call “Polka Dots” who often fears she isn’t enough. I was helping myself move through the grief of a lost romantic partnership, and in that moment, my therapist encouraged me to pendulate between feeling the sorrow in my heart, and feeling a neutral, more comfortable feeling in the bottoms of my feet. As I was moving back and forth through this in a soothing way, it suddenly hit me — it would feel so great to sing a Bobinsana icaro right now. So I did ….

Little mermaid of the waters
Little mermaid of the waters

Little mermaid, all powerful
Little Mermaid Spirit

(you can listen to full song in the video above, but that’s the gist of it).

It was simple and beautiful. ✨

As I sang, my voice sounded different than usual — the song felt as if it were literally coming from my heart. And slowly but surely, the music and Bobinsana’s energy helped me to move from a state of grief to a state of love. As my therapist wisely suggested, if you sit with any emotion long enough, eventually it all leads to love.

She pointed out the fortuitous timing of Bobinsana’s reappearance — I had finally processed enough of my grief that my heart felt safe to open again, and there she was patiently waiting for me. Nature never pushes. Nature takes her time. And when it’s warm enough and the water is plentiful and the soil is fertile — then, and only then, will the flower bloom. 🌸

So, I’ll keep sitting with the plants and singing and praying. And eventually all of this grief will move into love. And eventually my heart will be able to bloom…when it’s ready. This is my religion.

In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze –

Amen!

Note: The icaro here is an adaptation of ‘Icaro For Honoring the Mermaid’ as sung by Edith Maribel Murayari Flores on the album ‘Woven Songs of the Amazon II.’