There is the image of an experience that I hold inside of my mind when I think of Becoming Earth, I was on Vancouver Island.

It began when I had just invited my women friends, sisters to participate in an ancient ritual based on a practice from the aborigine women of Australia that I found to be exceptionally intimate and beautiful. We sat in a circle and painted our breasts with an ochre paint, then we danced together, moving with the music, connecting with the rhythm inside of us, in connection with the land…

After this… I deepened into “Becoming Earth” as I laid down on the moist floor of the rich, green woods. I asked to be covered in the moss, twigs, leaves and the waters of that land over my skin. I wore a red cape. (Red being an important colour for me, that unites me with a powerful creative force).

It was there, surrounded by all my companions of a Yearlong Soulcraft journey and the wild world that I felt held and I became aware of a deep peace of that union. There was something so organic and delicious about being enveloped by all of these green beings weighing down on my body. Even the smells were irresistible and soothing…as if somehow, something ancient in my cells remembered all these sensations and felt the importance of my wild body being clothed by the Earth.

Recalling this powerful time… I ponder more deeply… Becoming Earth, why though? Is it just about creating rituals? Is it about just spending time in the natural world? Well, yes, and….“Becoming Earth” translates symbolically and actually for me of a fundamental part of an evolutionary process of finding the authenticity within ourselves. It is an important part of the path of self-understanding.

We intrinsically came from the Earth, our bodies and minds have evolved with the wild natural world, our brains developed with the sounds of the wind in the trees and the songs of the birds with the dawn. We can also go as far as to define ourselves as the Human expression of the Earth. Becoming Earth is one way of understanding who we are. The Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World and the Earth is within us. Its light, its darkness, its power, its vulnerability, its beauty and its wildness. What an extraordinary adventure it is then, to discover ourselves in this way.

In these intense times for the Earth and everything that we are living today collectively, I believe that we are being called into a more tangible relationship with the planet. I certainly feel that this happened to me. For I believe, that one of the ways that we can comprehend who we are and our role and responsibility of being here together is by consciously sharing and taking care of our home, this place we share with all the wild ones.

By deepening into our individual processes of evolution in an integral way, accompanied by Becoming Earth we can find answers to the age-old existential questions, who am I? why was I born? where am I from? and where am I going?