REVERB13 (Day 2): Nourishing my soul through loving and being in my local environment on the Georgia coast

NURTURING SOUL IN MY LOCAL ENVIRONMENT. Being out and about in the nature of my state of Georgia allows me to connect with my EARTHINESS and TRUTHINESS. We all need the chance to gain perspective on our lives. That is, to ask these questions: Who am I? Where am I? How am I doing? What is next? Seeing up close (here in the marsh) and then looking out (past the Pleistocene stand of trees) at all that exists before the distant horizon (the shore, ocean, and sky). Feeling the BREADTH of my SOUL in conjunction with nature, nurtures me. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

Hallelujah for NOURISHING OUR SOULS! For the second day of reflection during the month of December with Kat McNally in Reverb13, I was asked to explore how I had NURTURED MY SOUL this year.


There are numerous ways I could answer this question, but for now, I will take the closest answer to me and that is NATURED NOURISHED MY SOUL IN 2013.
  

NURTURING SOUL THROUGH SEEING THE SHADOWS. Nature has its own intrinsic value. It does not need to validate its existence through what it provides to humanity. Each one of us, also, has our own worth, which we do not need to brand and bring to the market place. Instead, we can nourish our SOULS by reflecting on and understanding the intriguing NATURAL WONDERS outside of us. For instance, look at the SHADOWS in this photo. What an exciting phenomenon! In psychology, we give shadows symbolic significance, representing the underbelly of who we are, something almost sinister if unacknowledged. Yet, these shadows are also an intrinsic part of LIFE--they can be neutral, offered like fruits to feed our SOULS! Reflecting on my SHADOWS has enriched me much this year. I love that I am here in this photo, a part of NATURE.  (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

NURTURING SOUL IN THE SKY.  Watching cloud formations shift and change allows me to expand out beyond myself, just like looking out at distant horizons that I mentioned in the first photo. Observing the quiet melody of shape shifting forms allows me to BE more and to FEEL more. NATURE nourishes me, feeding my imagination, connecting me to sky magic and deep meditations. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

NURTURING SOUL IN REFLECTIONS. Nature gives us a simple way to enter reflection. Aren't you summoned to pause at a body of WATER that is mirroring the SKY and EARTH above and around it? Don't you suddenly see your life reflected for you to observe? I am, we are...simply a part of NATURE. This thought nourishes me. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

NURTURING SOUL IN EROSION.  Yes, we are constantly changing. Just like these Georgia barrier islands. Yet where sand erodes from one place, it accumulates somewhere else. Our SOULS too experience the shifting sands of time! It is our NATURE. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

NURTURING SOUL IN CLOUDY SUNSETS. Appreciating the beauty in the less glamorous sunsets nurtures me. While I long for the full range of yellows, oranges, and reds screaming in an intensely blue sky, I also marvel at the quietness that NATURE offers in its some times subtle moods. Just like all of us have our moments in the sunshine and then need to gather resources behind the clouds in quiet. (photo by Hallelujah Truth)

How have I nourished my SOUL in 201? MOVING and BEING open to what is next. LEANING into the NOW and HEARING the MESSAGE of the MOMENT:

“It is the movement through life that allows the artist’s inner nature to emerge into an authentic style. Plans and ambitions have to give way and follow the soul as it moves through the local environment. Images come to us through the simple events of daily life. As D.H. Lawrence said in Fantasia of the Unconscious, ‘Learn to walk in the sweetness of the possession of your own soul’ (1986, p. 147). Over and over again I discover and rediscover how it is in the unlikely and difficult aspects of a person’s life that fuel creation.”

--Shaun McNiff, “Attunement to the Archetypal,” Art as Medicine (1992)

 For me it is all about FLOW or “movement” as Shaun McNiff wrote about in this chapter about being attuned to the archetypal. I am interested in BEING AUTHENTIC and that authenticity emerges from simple events--especially being in nature. Who we are in our lives CAN BE or IS the FOUNDATION of our CREATIVE LIFE! Do you agree?

That's Coffee with Hallelujah. SOUL BLOG with me and tell me how you nurtured your soul during 2013.