By ‘her’ I mean the earth, our mother. I hadn’t realised until I visited Hinewai Reserve on Banks Peninsula last week that under the surface I’d felt a kind of mistrust of the earth, after all the shaking we’ve been having in the last six months. And it manifested as a kind of tension. Many of our local walking tracks above Lyttelton have been closed for danger of rock falls. And I just haven’t been getting the normal sort of exercise by biking to work, as I’ve been working from home mostly since the earthquake.
But walking among the forest and hearing the birds singing grounded me in an unexpected way. I felt centred and present in the moment, breathing the clean cool air, listening to the lovely forest noises and enjoying the light playing on the leaves. I could look around at the trees and have the sense of renewal and the cyclic nature of life. Even after an earthquake, the forest can look and feel the same. The trees bend and sway and keep growing.
written by Jodi Rees
written by Jodi Rees
I know what you mean about feeling 'upset' with mother earth. She destroys all these buildings we've put up with just a shrug. It reminds us of our place in the big picture I suppose. For me, a view over the ocean and of the big sky always puts me back to centre. Yes, Nature keeps going and we can take strength from that.
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