The Energy and Spirit of Place

May it wrap its loving arms around you...

Beaver Lodge - my nearest neighbor to the South

It’s something I ruminate about a lot.

The importance of Place.

Finding the Place that feeds our soul.

You know it when you feel it.

You know it when you see it.

Sometimes, you know it when you hear it.

The Energy and Spirit of Place.

The first time I stepped out of my car, hopeful that this would be my new home, I had good goosebumps. I felt the energy of the land envelop me.

I remember being cognizant of the healing that would be happening here.

It felt clear of negativity.

It felt alive. Yet calm.

Happy.

Cared for.

Magical.

After just one night of sleeping here, I felt at home.

The Spirit of this house and the land she sits on had welcomed me with open arms.

Eliot Cowan spoke about Place in his book, “Plant Spirit Medicine:”

…place is more than an incidental backdrop: place has spirit, personality, and sacred purpose. Place is the starring actor in every drama, and without the star, the show can’t go on.

The ancestors knew that some places produce strife and others produce peace. Some are good for hunting, others for growing crops. There are places to give birth and places to bury the dead. Settlements will flourish in some places, while others become sanctuaries for prayer and retreat.

The modern view is very different. We treat places as real estate, mere commodities for sale, to be used by the owners for any purpose they wish. But when owners’ desires do not agree with the spirit of the place, the results can be failed enterprise, illness, and even death. — Eliot Cowan

Last week, I walked across the road to the Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary. I hadn’t seen the sun in days. It had been rainy and foggy and, sadly, without snow. I put on my rain boots and walked over to the entrance of the Sanctuary and out onto the viewing platform in the middle of the marsh.

Atwood Brook, which many of you might recognize from my probably-too-numerous photos on Instagram, normally looks like a snaking river, but all the rain spilled out into the marsh in every direction.

I wanted to say hello to the residents of the Beaver Lodge - my closest neighbors to the south.

You might remember my post “On Finding a Home,” where I told you about my moving mantra in 2020:

I shared my daydreams about being able to walk out my door into the woods with mountains all around me. I fantasized about living near a lake, a river, or even a stream nearby.

The first time I walked out onto the viewing platform and saw that, indeed, I was now living surrounded by Trees and Water, cradled in the Mountains, I cried.

You can’t see the Mountains in the photo above because of the fog, but they’re there on all four sides.

One of the things I can’t help noticing is the beauty in Nature - the reflections, the Earth tones, the shapes - even on the drabbest of days.

The quiet stillness that is Winter is a lesson for us humans.

This made me smile:

@animamundiherbals on Instagram

Yesterday, I returned to the Wildlife Sanctuary with a friend. The Mountains had returned. Proof that I am indeed cradled in them, along with the Trees.

I’ve been absent from here for a while and was wondering where my writing mojo had gone.

Side note: did you know that mojo means magic?? That’s a post for another day…

Mostly, this post has been cooking for so long because I can’t seem to stay inside long enough to write it. I mentioned that in my last post, and nothing has changed.

I have been busy, aimlessly wandering.

In the woods.

For hours on end.

I started writing this during the first week of December. On a Monday morning, I woke up early feeling kind of blue and then fell back asleep until 7 am. I groggily looked outside and gasped.

SNOW!!!

The first thing I saw was the massive White Pines with snow clinging to them.

I’ve learned that this spectacular sight can be fleeting due to wind or rising temperatures, so I ran downstairs, not wanting to stop for tea or anything else. I threw on my coat, hat, and boots, grabbed my phone (Well, can we just call it a camera?), and went outside.

I could barely see the path entrance into the woods next to my falling-down but adorable shed. Trust me, I always knock before opening that door.

Behind the shed and hovering over it stands the Owen Tree. A massive White Pine named after a dear friend who is wise beyond his years and a fellow Nature-loving creative.

Do you know that feeling - when creative energy surges through you? I used to feel it a lot when I was lost in a painting reverie. Now, it seems to happen mostly when I’m writing or looking through the lens of a camera (yes, these days mostly an iPhone.)

My whole body was vibrating, and I noticed that I was holding my breath. I let out an exhale and must have taken 100 photos in just a few minutes. And then I just stood there, taking it all in. I couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if I tried.

That creative energy is, to me, the most healing energy there is. And when it’s happening in Nature, it’s a hundredfold more potent (according to my non-scientific right-brained estimate.)

All kidding aside, no pill could make me feel the way I did that week.

We had five whole days of snow-capped Trees, beautiful moody skies interspersed with sunlight making unexpected appearances, and capping the Trees with golden light.

It felt wrong being inside with that light falling on the Trees.

I heard the Pond calling me.

I kept making a deal with myself - a quick walk in the woods, and then I’ll write.

But, every morning, that quick walk turned into 2 1/2 hours. I barely noticed the cold (I have learned the art of proper warm dressing.)

One morning, I went off in search of fallen Birch Trees to gather bark for lighting my woodstove and ended up visiting Gone-Away Pond.

The only sound I could hear was the water rushing in the nearby stream and the occasional whoosh when snow would fall from a branch.

When I wandered down one of the paths behind the Pond, I found myself in a wintery scene right out of Camelot.

The Path was blocked by drooping Beech Trees every few yards or so, laden with snow. I gingerly made my way through, careful not to break any branches.

And the Mountains…oh my!

A friend commented on the beauty of the snow in my photos, but that she was glad it was me and not her.

This is where I will say:

My Place may not be Your Place.

I haven’t always been this much of a country hermit. My story of Place has taken many different roads, as I imagine yours might have also.

Or perhaps, you’re that person who has lived in the same Place, even the same home, for all of your life and is content.

When we’re born, we don’t have much of a choice where we land. Or do we? I can’t say for sure. I landed in a humble neighborhood in Detroit, bursting with kids. It was the 50’s.

That lawn! It looks like green carpeting. My health-conscious, inquiring mind wants to know what chemicals kept it looking that way. :(

We did have a beautiful American Elm tree that sadly didn’t make it into the photograph. She was my first Tree Love and Tree Loss.

Michigan was my Place for almost 50 years of my life. I liked living in a state that looked like a mitten.

I loved Michigan winters, where the snow sometimes covered the cars, and they didn’t plow the neighborhood streets. So, everyone was forced to stay at home and build snow forts and snowmen. We shoveled off the ice rink at the park at the end of our street and got out our ice skates.

My time in Michigan was spent growing up and raising a family. We didn’t stray too far from our state, and for most of that part of my life, vacations were spent in Northern Michigan.

Up North was like another world to me. The scent of Pine has been one of my most enduring memories from childhood (and beyond). My parents would rent a cottage on a lake for just one week in the summer, and my then-husband and I continued the tradition.

It was one precious week out of the year.

That’s how I became such a lake-lover.

And yet, I can remember traveling up there and seeing houses on the country roads. I would think to myself, “I could NEVER live here - unless I were on a lake.” Too boring!

And now, here I am, in this Place, living on a country road. Wandering in the woods.

Time and circumstance change us and our need for Place.

When I moved to NYC at almost fifty, it was like another Universe. But it became my Place, and I loved living there for many years. A lot of healing happened for me in spite of the concrete, the noise, and the overabundance of people. I loved the diversity.

When I would return from a trip and cross over the Brooklyn Bridge into downtown Manhattan, I felt myself relax into being back home.

Until the energy no longer suited me. Rather than filling me up, it began to deplete me. I started to feel the heaviness and darkness of the place. It made me sad.

At one point, I was convinced I was going to move to western North Carolina. I wanted to live in Appalachia. The mountains called to me.

I’d been studying energy healing for a while and was a lot more aware of my own energy, as well as the energy of Place.

It’s just as important to recognize the not-so-nice energy in a place.

I ended up visiting the Asheville area three times. On visit number two, I even found a cute little house to rent on the edge of the Pisgah National Forest.

It had a babbling brook that I could hear from the kitchen door.

A forest.

Bears.

It seemed perfect. I went home and gave notice to my landlord that I’d be moving out. I returned to North Carolina one last time to finalize my move.

The strangest thing happened. The entire time I was down there, I could literally feel my third and fourth chakras doing some weird kind of energy thing. It felt like they were opening, closing, opening, closing.

When I walked into the house, I got a massive headache from the outgassing of building materials. I learned that the house had been built after a fire burned down the one it replaced.

As much as I wanted to move there (oh, those mountains!), my intuition, my gut was screaming, “No!” And so I returned to NYC and called my landlord to tell him I was staying.

That was 2012. Two years later, on a Sunday morning, I woke up and heard The Voice say, “Go look in Jersey City!” I argued with that voice.

“No! What about Brooklyn? Upstate NY?The Berkshires?” But, in just one day, I’d found an apartment in a building teeming with fellow artists, literally across the river from my NYC apartment. I’d only planned on staying a couple of years but ended up living there for six.

It wasn’t until I was in my fifties and had my first astrology reading that I learned about all the Taurus in my chart. Taurus is an Earth sign. A lover of Nature, of home, and of beauty.

Our astrology chart can give clues to how we view Place. For some, it may not seem that important or a factor in their happiness.

But, it resonates deeply with me.

And then there’s travel.

What is travel but an experience of the energy and the Spirit of Place?

Just today, a friend said she was envious of my daily walks in the woods. I hope that those of you who would like to find a new Place to call home can at least travel (even locally) to find the peace and calm that Nature brings us. For many years, that’s what I had to do.

My Sagittarius sun had her burst of travel in my 50s and 60s, but my Taurus seems to want to keep me grounded in the here and now. Other than returning to the place of my birth to visit family, there are only two places that my soul truly yearns to return to.

Scotland and Ireland.

When I first visited Scotland in May of 2015, I felt her energy and Spirit so deeply that I cried when I returned to the US. I felt homesick for Scotland. A country I’d only just met but felt immediately at home.

And Ireland, well, one of my favorite soul sisters in the world, lives there. She showed me the Spirit of Ireland like no one else could have. She drove me around from forest to forest, sharing our love of trees.

It’s where I met Jack.

And now, in my 7th decade of life, I find myself so content living a life of solitude that it shocks me sometimes.

My daily wanderings keep introducing me to more and more Tree friends.

The Merlin Tree

Grandfather Pine

Rock friends.

Streams and Ponds.

I’ve learned so much from my new Nature family.

To be present (don’t step in that hidey hole!)

To really look and listen. There are treasures everywhere.

I thought about taking this Quartz crystal home with me, but I’m pretty sure a Chipmunk lives in the rock wall where I found it. He needs good vibes, too.

I’m learning to open to the healing that my Nature family endlessly and generously offers me during my wandering. I can feel it happening. Like I’m plugged into something so much greater than myself.

My favorite video on Instagram last year made me smile.
(@carrie_radford via @tamsenfadak)

Cold weather has returned, and Gone-Away Pond has started to freeze again. The other day, I visited her and was taking a video when I heard a sound in Nature that I’d never heard before! Make sure the sound is on and have a listen!

If a Whale had come up through the ice, I wouldn’t have been surprised! Have you ever heard this sound before?

Who knew that I would land somewhere and fall hopelessly in love with a Pond?

And a Stream.

Rocks and Trees.

Bears and Coyotes and Wild Turkeys.

All of December, I was pining for more snow. Our early December snowfall had long ago disappeared.

My daughter, knowing how much I love winter and was missing snow, sent me her copy from childhood of “The Long Winter” by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Written in 1940, I’d read the autobiographical series myself as a young girl. This particular book tells of a winter of blizzards that lasted for six months in the 1800s in the Dakota territory. The hardships Laura and her family endured are truly remarkable.

I feel like I conjured the winter storm that will be upon us here tonight after reading the book. I know lots of people will be dreading it, but I, for one, will be ready to wander the woods in the white magic, with no cars to dirty its beauty.

Not a day goes by that I don’t thank the Universe for my good fortune of living in the Energy and Spirit of this Place.

I wish the same for each and every one of you. We all deserve to be living in our happy Place.

I think I’m living proof that if you dream it

If you say it out loud over and over again

You will find your special Place. Perhaps you already have.

I’m so relieved to have finally finished this very long post. I doubt that you were waiting with bated breath for another email from The Quaking Poplar 🌳. But, if by chance you were, I apologize for taking so long.

@animamundiherbals on Instagram

Much Love,
Barbara

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