Today is my 32nd birthday. Since last night I stay on my own in a wooden cabin in the forest, for the following nights, with books, hot drinks and a live performance by squirrels and birds. One of my fairy god mothers (the owner of the cabin) left me cake, trappist beer and a stack of wood to make a cosy fire. After I took a photograph of my coffee and a squirrel, ironically (?) I saw this art on someone’s social media feed and had to laugh:
Today is also -apparently- Blue Monday. After hearing the epic song by New Order 🎶 on the radio, a sport coach is giving advice how to improve your health, because your body is your temple. You should maintain it “to slow down ageing”.
A couple of times, people told me they are confused when I start talking about f.e. where I have lived. “Wait… you are not 23, aren’t you?”
Like a forest 🌳 has elements and processes which are 100 years old; some 32 years, other only one day, I exist of different ages.
Also, what is age? Is it a mark how your body is supposed to look? Or the signal announcing the rules you should start to apply to impede the decay of your body/temple? (Or marry, start pension savings plans…)
I do not treat my body as a temple.
I drink alcohol and herbal tea.
I eat pizza and fresh veggies.
There are periods I do not wash my hair for days and then there are evenings I spent hours on my make-up, hairstyle and clothes.
I eat food that has been on the floor and eat sterilized food.
I have periods I hike/bicycle/paddle a lot and then there are periods I sleep a lot.
I do not follow strict rules, but I like to read, discuss and experience diets like Keto and lifestyle choices like intermittent fasting or pilates, often only for some months, and then I go to a new phase, taking the seeds with me.
Some days ago I read a quote by Beau Taplin and I kept it in my digital diary:
“Listen to me,
your body is not a temple.
Temples can be destroyed and desecrated.
Your body is a forest
— thick canopies of maple trees
and sweet scented wildflowers sprouting in the underwood.
You will grow back,
over and over,
no matter how badly you are devastated.”
A forest knows processes of decay within her. When something happens to you or to the rest of nature you are connected with (sometimes abruptly, like a death, sometimes a slow threat like climate change effects)… and decay and loss seem to be central, it’s difficult … at the moment. How to cope with grief for losses to your body, relationships, disappointments, shame… and how to cope with grief for pain of other energy forms you are connected with?
Happily each forest is part of a web and can find solace and grounding when she connects. She remembers that there are also processes of becoming and love happening in that same forest.
I am a forest and will adapt to the new always changing world around me. I do not need rules, just the skill to observe and a pocket full of seeds. 🌳
Stories from the Wood Wide Web 