“In Africa gods are thought to be themselves dancers, frequency waves and rhythms that are closer to the great rhythms and patterns than our local selves. To dance, then, is to pray, to meditate, to enter in communion with the larger dance, which is the universe. And because the universe dances, as the Ghanian Yoruba priest explains, ‘he who does not dance does not know’.”
- Jean Houston

Embodying Nature, Reviving Ourselves

The original version of this article was published in Conscious Dancer Magazine, Volume 1, Issue #3, Spring 2008 - revised Spring 2011

	Articles: See all Jamie McHugh articles

“Whenever we touch nature we get clean. People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods, or a bath in the sea. They shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying on the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.” - C.G. Jung, in Dream Analysis, 1928

We are elements of nature: our soma and psyche are reflections of the planet, with each intricately embedded in the other. Acknowledging this inter-dependent relationship between inner and outer ecosystems is key to any conversation about the future of the species and the planet. It is sometimes hard to hold a space for hope in our visioning, though, when we are barraged with all the doom and gloom statistics. When fear arises and takes hold, drowning out the music of our souls, it is natural to become overwhelmed, and move into denial and bargaining as a way to cope. The shutting down and tuning out dulls our senses, tightens our bodies and deadens our spirit.

Returning to a direct sensory encounter with the natural world, we can awaken a passion and connection that modulates and transforms the urge to contract. It is Eros, the love for our body and the body of the world, which supports and nourishes moving forward into positive action. As a somatic artist and movement therapist leading group retreats at Point Reyes National Seashore for the past 20 years, I have witnessed this in action. Leaving the modern world temporarily behind, we take the time to encounter the living dreamscape of our bodies and the natural environment in order to renew, regenerate and open the channels of communication.

How do we ignite Eros? There are two complementary approaches that I first differentiate and then weave together - the biological (somatic) and the imaginal (expressive). Breath, sound, touch, movement, and stillness are the five preverbal somatic languages of the organism. Nature can guide us from the inside out. One of the somatic pathways I use is based on the basic developmental movement patterns of infants: Yield, Push, Reach, Grasp and Pull.

Yielding into the sand, allowing my body to merge and be fully supported, leads me into pushing against it and feeling my boundaries and inner support, and then reaching out into space, to go where I want and getting what I want, bringing it to me and incorporating it.

What we did automatically as infants, we now consciously embody as adults - rocking, creeping crawling, rolling, etc. Basic movements in relationship to the environment help us re-calibrate our civilized bodies and come closer to our primal nature, returning us to the origins of our life with its beginner’s mind. From this spacious mind, we then bridge to an expressive and imaginal relationship with nature to explore and embody the qualities of sky, ocean, rock, and even other people. I use the following five activities as doorways into that process: Witness, Contact, Mirror, Respond and Rest.

With different qualities of touch, and different body parts, make contact with rock. Become what you perceive by physically mirroring (imitating) the solidity, the stability, and the hardness. Respond with movement, sound and stillness to both the input and output. Sometimes simply witness – be still and place your external focus on the environment long enough to be moved internally. And punctuate all of these explorations with rest, open attention, assimilation of experience and just being.

The somatic/ biological and the expressive/ imaginal come together as one dance, with the input of sensory encounters stimulating the output of our associations, feelings, and images. Alternating between eyes closed and open, the inner meets the outer, with everything becoming a resource for response. The burden of “being creative” falls away when we let go and follow the motor impulses and multiple inputs of all the senses, allowing freedom of expression without pre-determining the outcome. These embodied dream states, this active imagination in nature, evokes our original grace. We become 5 years old again, alive with basic openness, curiosity, and wonder - all essential elements for reviving love, igniting passion, and taking action from a place of mystery and with a lightness of being.

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Jamie McHugh.