A Natural Connection

By Christina Rose, featuring Lynette Two Bulls

There is a tremendous sense of history in Connecticut. I live near one of the oldest colonial cities where everything is still so intact that the veil between centuries falls away. Streets are lined with lovely or decrepit Victorian homes and it is easy to envision women in long black, bustled, skirts and wide bonnets chatting on the porches of grand homes or the wives of mill workers drying laundry behind their apartment buildings built more than a century ago.

The land for the city was donated in the 1600s to the colonists by Uncas, a Mohegan chief who maintained a powerful working relationship with the European newcomers as well as the surrounding tribes. In the 1800s, Norwich experienced an incredible industrial boom, creating some of the largest mills in the country.

I turn around and the veil drops in a different way. I see a magnificent landscape of rolling mountains, wooded areas lush with wildlife and birdsong, rushing rivers and wandering streams; Connecticut at its most beautiful. 

Reality awakens me. Those rivers and streams were poisoned by those sprawling mills. Those hills, now paved, are long and winding streets, crowded with cars. Highway exits run through blasted rock formations. Trees torn down, housing developments; bridges pass over streams littered with shopping carts and plastic trash. 

I think back over the centuries and consider what else has changed about American life. Well, stress for sure. We have tighter schedules, more pressing business matters, traffic, deadlines, and if we are lucky, a two-day weekend to enjoy life. Maybe we can squeeze in a walk or maybe we just get chores done, happy to work in the garden or plow snow, just to be outside. 

We know nature is beautiful, we know we feel good in it. Exercise is healthy, the sun gives us our vitamin D, the key to happiness. But what else do we get from nature?

Beauty. Wonder. Expansive minds that open to starry night skies. We wander quiet woods, sit at waters edge and enjoy the quiet lapping on the shores of rivers and streams, lakes and bays. Our imagination stops, unable to comprehend the vast oceans, thrill at the power of crashing waves, ocean waters that would eat you up in a second and never even spit you out. Feed the fishes. 

Awe. The poets of the past knew it. Of the Top Ten poets of all time, many were  famous naturalists. The youngest one is in her 90s. 

Western culture has always appreciated the divine inspiration of nature. Remington’s paintings of Montana sunrises and Ansel Adams landscapes, photographed under a full moon. They are loaded with awe.

Today, so much poetry is about angst. So many paintings express chaos. When was the last time you heard a song like “America the Beautiful?” A modern one? 

The lack of nature reflected in popular culture is a very important mirror of our times. For certain, plenty of artists still express beauty, but they are not the mainstream’s rock stars they were 150 years ago.

While living in California, at least two hundred children passed through my life. Most were from the 145 international families that I worked with, and of course, the kids in my community who visited me daily and always invited me on their adventures.

I assumed my role as a child trainee. They reminded me how to laugh easily, to stop and look at weird things washed up on the beach and go eewwwwww or suck in my breath and exclaim Wowwwwwww! What’s that?! Look out for the wave! Climb those rocks! Ride that bike (me too) as fast as you can! Bake! Paint! Make play-dough build blocks spin slide swing, teach a four year old to garden and watch his attention to nature grow like the seeds he planted. Take a ten year old on a walk and have him scream in delight because he saw a real, actual butterfly. 

Wait, what? 

For many children in day care, it may be ten years into a child’s life before he sees a real, actual butterfly. That’s a long time to wait and honestly, can you think of all of the other wonders he has missed out on? And if we are depriving our children of the wonder of nature, what will ground them when they get older? 

For a year or two, I was lucky enough to attend several presentations by the founders of Yellowbird Lifeways Center, Lynette Two Bulls, Lakota, Executive Director, and Philip Whiteman, Traditional Chief, Northern Cheyenne. Yellowbird is a non-profit resource on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Montana. You can read more about their work here: https://www.yellowbirdlifeways.org/

They often speak about the importance of connection, which comes naturally to them through their culture. This may seem off topic at first, but you’ll see.

“Our circular way of life is spirit based, or love based” Lynette explained.  “Mind, body, spirit. It’s all connected and in our ways we knew that.”

“In our indigenous ways, we are all connected. When we are born we are sacred and holy, closest to spirit, this place of origin, so when we are born we are connected to that.”

“We are not born into sin, we are born into connectedness. We came from the other side, through our parents, to have this sacred experience. As we start to make our way through the circle of life, we start forgetting that. 

“We go to school, and as adolescents, we forget we are connected to everything. The linear thinking begins to be imprinted in childhood and is absorbed in adolescence,” Lynette said.

Linear thinking is that which sees a beginning and an end to life, rather than the circular way, the revolving of cycles throughout life and earth.

“The education system really separates us from the spirit,” Lynette said. “The arts are so important. Music, that’s where we say healing lies. The right brain is circular, holistic, that’s where you are connected to spirit. So, if you look at all those things, music, flute music how soothing that is; that is connecting us to that place.”

In America, when schools experience budget cuts, the arts programs are usually the first thing to go. For many, the arts are considered too frivolous to be a meaningful career.

But are they? Has America paved over all of our happy places? Have schools undermined our spirits by disconnecting us from the subjects we need most? 

Math could be taught to inspire insight into nature. Science could be taught to connect us to the stars.  They could be, if connectedness and beauty were the goals.

Lynette suggests, “People will go to the highest mountain and the greatest depths of the ocean in search of themselves, always asking what is my purpose because they are disconnected from center. When you can live your life to its fullest, in the present, those are the things that brings you back to center. That’s heaven on earth. We no longer have to be seeking everywhere because it’s right here.”

So, do yourself a favor. Make that trip to the tallest mountain or the gentlest stream often. Listen to music and maybe even pick up a paintbrush or write a poem. Support your spiritual center by getting outdoors in the beauty so that when you need that balance and centering, inspiration and awe, you know exactly how to find it. 

Out there is in here, in your heart. Keep it open to stay in touch with yourself. The modern world won’t give you that, but the earth— as it is, as it was, and ever will be — is a very important part of who we are. Connection is everything. 

More about Connections next week, assuming I don’t get distracted.

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To learn more about Yellowbird and their other program,  Medicine Wheel Model Training, visit https://www.yellowbirdlifeways.org/  They are doing life changing work and I highly recommend their programs.