The Healing Love of Nature

I’ve wanted to write about Love and Nature for a while now, but was stumped. I remembered how nature has been a healer for me. I smiled at the story of my close friend whose first date with her now husband was a bologna sandwich picnic lake in a state park. I’m still perplexed by how much I despise winter days, but as a child loved late night winter walks up the unpaved, dark, country roads of my grandmother’s rural Mississippi home. Camping is my favorite stress reliever. When I’m focused on building a fire, steadying my flashlight on a path, or staying warm in a tent with hot cocoa, the rest of the world melts away. With all this love of nature, you’d think writing about LOVE and NATURE would, well…come naturally! Ok, ok, forgive the play on words, but you get my drift, right?

Well, LJL fam, we’ve been pretty open and clear with one another, and right now, I’d argue that we’re in a little bit of a funk…and not the Bootsy Collins kind either. In fact, I wish I was ON Collins, Boulevard, that is.

Maybe the sun and salty air of South Beach would pull me out of this funk. Unfortunately, I’m suffering like the rest of the mainland, from this Arctic Blast that just won’t quit.

Chandra Kamaria and I often marvel at the brilliant, beautiful, productive, well educated, articulate and genuine brothers we’ve collected as friends, over the years…while faced with the stark reality that the other side of the bed is warmed only by our laptops. Is this the conundrum we face? Knowing, interacting with, loving and supporting our male counterparts, exclusive of that “ultimate love connection” we’re all taught to desire as women? It can’t be, it simply can’t be. We, like you dear readers, hold ourselves in high regard. We know that we operate in our worlds from positions of power and privilege, and have vowed to never abuse that power, but to definitely use it to uplift, mentor, support and serve. But the basis of all of this is love. Love begets Hope.

Hope is what Mother Nature gives us at every moment. In the fire and the seed, she destroys and gives life. Despite our darkest nights, the sun rises to greet us at each new day. Though our skies can pour lightning, thunder, rain, snow and ice, birds still honor their natural desire to fly through them. As the hauntingly accurate multimedia artist/poetress Alixa of PoeTree reminds us, in her poem Being Human, nature never questions its existence. She wonders if the insecurities of humans are evident in nature, and when we consider the ridiculousness of it all, it makes us understand, have new reverence and respect for both nature and ourselves.


Despite the trials, despite making the “right” decisions, love can be wrenching, it can make us question ourselves, but if we return to our source, if we return to nature, we can regain our hope, and remain open to the possibilities…I know I’ll be stargazing tonight, despite the measly 39 degrees we’ve been promised here in the Lone Star State…I need to know, to see and hold strong to “the possibilities.”
Are you with me? Can we all take some time and let nature renew us, and our hope?