Thank you for this. I love how you take the elements of nature to communicate on a cellular level. Reading how you process the animal/mineral and spiritual is something literally every human being should read (and eventually understand). 🙏🏻
Thank you so much, Mark! Sometimes I think about how we each bring a particular lens to the world—especially if you’re highly trained in a discipline (as we both are)—and wonder about what it is we’re each taking from a certain street scene or moment or glimpse through a window.
That's why I love substack. So many wonderful perspectives. Of course we will each resonate more with some than others but that's what makes it all so wonderful. The beauty is in the finding, learning and growing.
I've been focusing quite a bit these past weeks on healthy anger. Not bottling up my feelings and thoughts but instead sharing and feeling them in a healthy way. This article is timely and I like the idea of thinking about anger moving through my system and coming out the other end in a transformed way.
I’m so glad to hear this was helpful, Sophie. Anger can certainly be a powerful motivator—particularly when it’s clean anger—and can lead to powerful growth when properly transformed. Thanks for being here!
This really speaks to where I am right now. I’ve realised that insight alone doesn’t shift anything if it never lands in my body. I can understand my emotions mentally, but unless they move through breath, movement, presence - they just circle.
Embodiment feels less like expression and more like containment. When I stay with sensation instead of escaping into explanation, something actually transforms.
Practices of doing and being have been the only medicine that makes that shift real.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m so glad to hear this resonated for you. I love this: When I stay with sensation instead of escaping into explanation, something actually transforms. This is where the ineffable happens. I happened to have skied my brains out yesterday (I live in a ski town and it we got snow!) and it reminded me that when you are that present in your body, your thoughts and emotions can do nothing other than transmute.
This: "There can be no renewal without decomposition, no decomposition without renewal." That is such a powerful metaphor for now, and honestly, for any time in our lives. Thank you, Wendy, for the reminder to let the too-much-sensory-information these days bring into my life move through my body in a way that it can compost into something useful. In a way that my energy and my ability to shine my light will be renewed. Blessings to you.
Thank you, Susan! I skied my brains out today, and as I think about what you’ve written, when I push myself physically, I know my body’s doing that kind of work. For a few hours, there’s literally no space for all the atrocities. I feel renewed. I do hope that on a more macro scale, our nation is making way for renewal. Wishing that composting and renewal brings you lots of light. 🩷
A beautiful lesson and metaphor, Wendy! I think it was that piece on Sacred Rage that was the first one of yours that I read. Thank you for bringing your knowledge of science and the natural world to bear on these questions on how we live our lives.
Awww…thank you, Ramya! I’m so glad it’s resonating for you. It’s funny the lenses we bring to the world…this just happens to be the one I’m most steeped in.
Thank you for this. I love how you take the elements of nature to communicate on a cellular level. Reading how you process the animal/mineral and spiritual is something literally every human being should read (and eventually understand). 🙏🏻
Thank you so much, Mark! Sometimes I think about how we each bring a particular lens to the world—especially if you’re highly trained in a discipline (as we both are)—and wonder about what it is we’re each taking from a certain street scene or moment or glimpse through a window.
That's why I love substack. So many wonderful perspectives. Of course we will each resonate more with some than others but that's what makes it all so wonderful. The beauty is in the finding, learning and growing.
💯To the finding, learning, and growing!
Deep rest when tired. Composting the need to always be “on.”
Yeessss!! And, doing it in style right now, I’d say :).
I've been focusing quite a bit these past weeks on healthy anger. Not bottling up my feelings and thoughts but instead sharing and feeling them in a healthy way. This article is timely and I like the idea of thinking about anger moving through my system and coming out the other end in a transformed way.
I’m so glad to hear this was helpful, Sophie. Anger can certainly be a powerful motivator—particularly when it’s clean anger—and can lead to powerful growth when properly transformed. Thanks for being here!
I absolutely love this framing, and right now we have lots to compost!
Thank you, Linnea. Indeed, the compost bin is overflowing!
This really speaks to where I am right now. I’ve realised that insight alone doesn’t shift anything if it never lands in my body. I can understand my emotions mentally, but unless they move through breath, movement, presence - they just circle.
Embodiment feels less like expression and more like containment. When I stay with sensation instead of escaping into explanation, something actually transforms.
Practices of doing and being have been the only medicine that makes that shift real.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m so glad to hear this resonated for you. I love this: When I stay with sensation instead of escaping into explanation, something actually transforms. This is where the ineffable happens. I happened to have skied my brains out yesterday (I live in a ski town and it we got snow!) and it reminded me that when you are that present in your body, your thoughts and emotions can do nothing other than transmute.
This: "There can be no renewal without decomposition, no decomposition without renewal." That is such a powerful metaphor for now, and honestly, for any time in our lives. Thank you, Wendy, for the reminder to let the too-much-sensory-information these days bring into my life move through my body in a way that it can compost into something useful. In a way that my energy and my ability to shine my light will be renewed. Blessings to you.
Thank you, Susan! I skied my brains out today, and as I think about what you’ve written, when I push myself physically, I know my body’s doing that kind of work. For a few hours, there’s literally no space for all the atrocities. I feel renewed. I do hope that on a more macro scale, our nation is making way for renewal. Wishing that composting and renewal brings you lots of light. 🩷
A beautiful lesson and metaphor, Wendy! I think it was that piece on Sacred Rage that was the first one of yours that I read. Thank you for bringing your knowledge of science and the natural world to bear on these questions on how we live our lives.
Awww…thank you, Ramya! I’m so glad it’s resonating for you. It’s funny the lenses we bring to the world…this just happens to be the one I’m most steeped in.
I love the framework of decomposition and renewal. Seems like a productive way to hold these trying times.