Desert Therapy Walk 〜 Atlantis, Souss-Massaa, Morocco

Desert Therapy Walk in Souss-Massaa, Morocco ~ a play on the traditional forest therapy practice of Shinrin Yoku. Using the textures, smells, sounds and sights of the desert to evoke a deep experience of nature connection. We also added a storytelling/journaling component to the immersion and connected to the myth of the lost kingdom of Atlantis, told to be located in this land...

"A crystal temple gathered in honour of Atla(nti)s. Clear quartz and fossil, seabed and shore, flower, seed and veils of smoke. A home for the Spirit of the Atla-Ra. Atlantis, still glowing in the neural pathways of the berber mind, in the dust of shell and sandstone alike, and in the winding roots of the Argan tree. Released when the power of intention hit the grids of the Earth, fuelled with the fire of homeland’s wood.

The rocks lay scattered across the arid desertscapes, leaving ancient markings on her surface - but the true voice of Atlantis is heard in the inner realms - by the rushing of the blood, the bristles of the bone, from the moaning marrow of the muladhara to the saturated silence of the Sahasra. A deep listen tells of the subtle, divineful ways of its people and the Law of One. Living in the unobstructed flow of Her waving waters. Under soaring towers of bioluminous perception, sustaining long periods of peace, wisdom and harmony. Governing with the hydraulics of Grace, under the Science of the Sun, Moon and Stars, when the beings of the Earth realms were still looking to the Soul for Solutions.."

www.norwegiansage.com/foresttherapy

〜 P A S S I N G C O M P A S S I O N 〜

As we wake up to a reality where we can embody deeper and richer states of our higher essence, we also will also experience the the field around our heart centre becoming more open and vulnerable to the external environment. As our awareness begins shifting and traveling between the mind and the heart, allowing our decisions to be made from a place of heartfelt guidance and release of creative energy, we will also become more sensitive to the suffering of our local and global ecologies. Learning how to transmute the pains of separation and growth without letting ourselves be overwhelmed by them, will come with experience - but a key to escaping the thundering waves lies in our relative ability to extend authentic compassion to our surroundings.

Compassion can be seen as a bridge between our own heart and the multifaceted heart enveloping our own. When we make the connection, we plug into the larger web of inter-being, communicating to our surroundings that we are not a threat to its stability and balance, but rather an enrichment to its wholeness. Like children, the awakened heart longs to give and to share.. This said, not everyone is willing - or able to receive, as one being’s experience of unconditional love may not resonate with another's - and the inner child will experience rejection, causing a natural contraction. Our challenge lies in keeping the heart open despite external pressure, and leaning even more determined into the fear that comes with unfolding our petals..

Engaged compassion is a path to softening the process.. Whether this means cleaning a beach, cooking nourishing food to share, holding space for a stranger in need, providing a child with the right conditions for growth, or giving a nourishing bath to a street-dog, compassion cultivates resilient valves for the heart’s own opening. Just like a camera’s aperture refers to the opening of a lens diaphragm through which light passes, the same can be said of our hearts - the wider the openness of our ethereal diaphragm, the more light we have to work with.. And the less tense you will feel in your chest and upper back..

Compassion - with passion. Passion for wholeness, but more scientifically, of latin: com- (“together”) + pati (“to suffer”); acknowledging the deep wound of suffering in another, and adding your own heart-stream to theirs in order to comfort, soothe and ease the welling up of pain and separation from Nature, from Self, from Mother, from Womb, from Source. Pass.. Pass.. Extend..

Harvest Project - Source ‘R Us Art Exhibition

In November 2019, I held my first exhibition, co-created with three other talented artists and friends. For me, the exhibition became the manifested creation and culmination of my own heroine’s journey and ‘dark night of the soul’ - having begun as early as in 2009 and come together in a mosaic of healing arts. During the past decade, I had received notebooks upon notebooks of poetry, songs and imagery, symbolic mandalas and archetypal illustrations - so when the final practicum of forest therapy training with Association for Nature and Forest Therapy (ANFT) included a ‘harvest project’, it felt natural to weave all the strings together in a shimmering tapestry of impressions from my own Source. 

The Harvest Project became a journey to wholeness and a deep healing of my core wounds. While ecstatically roaming the forests of my childhood in newfound joy and wonder, my own paintings were made with a set of watercolours I got for my 9th birthday, and I painted them all in my cabin in Ula, Norway. The exhibition also included a market where I could display natural remedies and gift cards for forest therapy walks. 

2019 became the year I began harvesting medicinal plants that opened for me on walks along the nordic coastline, forests, roads and mountains. I make them, but they also make me.. Through the dialogue with the plants, I have restored a deeper connection with my inner and outer nature and learned to listen to my body and the symbiosis that is created in the meeting with the essence and life force of the wild plants.. Their beings reveal themselves to me when I am in flow with my organic surroundings, often during or after forest bathing. Each wild plant has a biological and psychological effect on the mind and body, and infuse our organisms with source codes of wholeness.. This year, I have made tinctures of Mugwort, Rose Root, Dandelion Root and Chaga - infused with amethyst and rose quartz.. Together, the tinctures make up a nordic medicine-kit that keeps me healthy, radiant and flowing through winter.

With its core focus on deep embodiment and rooted experience, the practice of forest therapy has revealed my innermost essence and medicine, and re-attuned me to my senses, the power of council and the dialogue between my inner and outer nature. From an eagle’s view, it seems that ‘rising rooted’ is not only possible, but a golden key to navigating and mitigating the core challenges of today’s planetary challenges - leading to my next journey - regenerative leadership. 

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The exhibition Source ‘R Us is a tribute to the sparkling light of the divine child; a result of the union of the masculine and feminine principles inside us. To our family, to our friends, to artistic rebellion and poetic wordplay. To letting go of expectations. To the unfolding of the world we want to live in - through each stroke of the brush and each act of compassionate co-creation. To innocent play and deep remembrance. And most of all a visual and sensory celebration of unconditional love, seen through the eyes and hands of the childlike soul.

We come together to evoke balance between primal wildness and healthy boundaries, the nourishing of our community with soft vulnerability over forced pressure, and to be seen in wholeness - honouring the individual and collective quest of doing the best we can with what we have. For after all, we all come from the same Source.

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Listening: Essential Wisdom for the Eco-Heroine's Journey

A collection of wisdom wells for nature connection and contemplation..

Chasing the Waterlilies at Stedsans in the Woods

When the Amazon is burning, it is good to know places like @stedsansinthewoods exist.. Pure lakes, waterlilies dancing and soft winds with messages from near and far.. Where the food is carefully harvested from the fields and forests, ripe with permaculture presence.. Where we can offer our fears and ecopsychological scars to the goddess of the woods and waters and come alive in her wild nature.

Enchanted by the colonies of amanita muscaria at my feet, I am breathing in the morning mist of moss and canopy aromas.. Stedsans caters to the senses ~ to the clean and authentic alchemy of essence.. A lifestyle lab, cultivating connection with nature..

“Stedsans is Danish for ‘sense of place/direction’. We interpret it as something with terroir, using your sences and which direction we need to go,” says founders Flemming and Mette, believing that the solution to almost any big problem is beautiful, well tasting and happy.. I seem to know less and less, but one thing I do know is that following the waterlilies is always a good idea.