A Place We Can All Call Home #belonging #connection #nature

On November 12, 2025 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections8 Comments

In dreams at night I explore belonging. Often, I return to school to discover the outcast searching for acceptance. In my quest for knowledge inside the confines of the walled classrooms I encounter the angst of rejection, over and over again. Belonging becomes possible only when I step outside and become immersed with nature. Here I am held, without inhibition, in the open arms of a mother-teacher who offers no judgement. Unconfined, I discover I am connected to the magic of existence.

Is this not true for all of us? Consider, for a moment, the irritable child struggle to learn inside a walled classroom who is then let outside to run and play without restraints, limitations, or conditions. If you can no longer remember that child as you, allow yourself to become that inner child. Step outside with wonder. Explore. Interact. Discover. Uncover. Open. When we find a safe place in nature to be ourselves, transformation occurs in a manner that brings us closer to the joy of belonging and acceptance.

Infinite possibilities for joy occur when nature is not a forced interaction, but an opportunity for individual exploration. Nature does not ask us for conformity, but for the space to expand and grow. In nature, the strange mingles with the expected. In nature, beauty and the beast coexist as equal partners, and hierarchy becomes a web of interdependence.

There is both science and metaphysics that come into play when we recognize our place of belonging to the natural world. In nature, our heart rates regulate to the mother-pulse of Earth, our emotions become more grounded, and our bodies destress. This is all scientific. We are of nature, and being intimately connected to nature is essential to our wellbeing.

Nature, though, also awakens a deeper sense of connection that moves into the metaphysical. It offers us an opportunity to explore the magic of wonder that expands beyond the sensory. When we open ourselves to the mysteries of the natural world, we realize we are infinite beings playing in a landscape of infinite dimensions. We look to the sky and find our origins. Beneath our feet, we feel our roots. Our breath weaves the air of life through our lungs and back out into the invisible expanse to find another body to nourish. Our mouths feed upon the cells of primordial life, and our bodies repurpose the nutrients into new growth. Sometimes, when we are still enough, we can observe the dance of the untethered spirit, reminding us of the temporary force of gravity. When we feel into the universal hum of life, we can feel the web of light that connects us, always.

Life Outside the Window #naturephotography #newengland #unity

On September 30, 2020October 25, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections11 Comments

It is raining here today. Thankfully. The water cools the heat that should have left by late September and covers the dirt in the empty stream beds. I have never seen such dryness where I live. The lake where we spend much of our summer has receded by feet from the shore. The sandy cove popular with swimmers, now a vast mudflat exposing the spindly legs of a dock that no boat can go near. It is surreal. It is so uncomfortable to observe, I could not take a photograph.

Each day brings a new challenge to face, asking us to learn how to live on the edge, and quite often inside the roiling elements of life. Too often, I find I am chasing after my breath and asking it to expand out of the constriction of my lungs. I go outside during these moments and lay on the good earth to sync my heartbeat back to the Mother. It is the best way I know how to live inside chaos.

The area where I live has become beloved in a way I never thought possible. A simple acre of land surrounding my home is somehow enough to show me the vast wonders of creation. Life contained, yet not contained. The birds come and go and so do the squirrels and the chipmunks. The trees stretching networks of roots too vast to comprehend the mystery of what it means to be rooted. We can move without moving, and with my belly pressed against the grounded life that deep stirring fills the ache of belonging.

Life has become a game of tension and release and I often wonder who is really controlling the bind. I wonder how far we need to go back to remember the vast connection that both binds us into division and frees us into unity? This juxtaposition of a truth that seems alien to our rights if you feed into the beliefs of the mind struggling for separation.

As I listen to the fall of rain and the birdsong of gratitude I am reminded of how false the hold is. The entangled mind that tunes into dissonance feeds a disease that spreads through all minds if the frequency is found and listened to long enough. Why boil the internal waters if what the body needs is a cooling into peace?

A Forest Walk and a Dream about Beauty #dreams #foresthealing #badgersymbolism #namaste

On April 27, 2020August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Reflections18 Comments

raindrop-1913347_1280 — Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

I have been thinking about ephemeral beauty and how we cling to form like raindrops to branches. Our lives, individual only for a millisecond in the great cosmos of time. One shimmering spark holding onto a momentary existence, and yet the soul sings an eternal symphony. We are born through the woven membrane of light. Released into density for a moment, we cling to existence to become defined by matter.

At night, my dreams show me the clutter of the brain and how it folds memories of lack and doubt until darkness lets them loose to run amok. Our minds form impossible fantasies and horrors we think could never be real until we open our eyes and see the world we have created.

As I released to slumber last night, Badger threw open the veil to stare me in the face. Fearless digger, unearthing what I may try to hide, Badger gave way to Owl before I was flung into the shadowland. It’s almost funny how we tumble restless to the surrender. Revisiting old haunts we thought we had exorcised in the landscape of dreams. Least we think we are watching reruns, familiar specters morph into new forms and find another curtain to tug open.

How exhausting it can be to tumble backwards when life holds you for a mere millisecond, urging you only to let go.

Yesterday, I walked into the woods nearby our home with my family and our two dogs. Zelda led the way, choosing a trail we had never taken together. Only Rosy, myself and Daisy, who passed more than five years ago, had ventured down it before.

Rosy trailing the pack just ahead of me. Zelda, somewhere up ahead with Alex.

The day was over-cast and windy. The clouds, eager to rain, darkened the trail littered with last year’s leaves. While we walked, I took in what the forest reveals before growth unfurls. There were more fallen trees than I cared to count, their bare trunks leaning on their neighbors. Others were already splintering into decay in their final resting places on their forest bed. Beach leaves lightened the ground, bleached by winter to the color of sand. They lent a light to the forest that was absent from above.

You can just make out Zelda here, between Ava and Alex.

As we walked, I found myself wondering about the hand that guides unseen. Perhaps Daisy had urged Zelda’s feet to take us off the beaten path we were used to traveling together. Perhaps not. It doesn’t really matter. What matters was that we were there now, individually and together. Each of us mindful of our own moments.

Me and Daisy 12/25/14. Less than two months before she passed back into light.

“There goes the camera,” my daughter, ahead of me, caught the sign at the same moment I did. She knew I would linger to take a photo. While I did, I found myself wondering how long the sign had been there. If somehow I had missed it walking the path years ago with Daisy and Rosy. Who had placed the sign, and when?

E5B37CE3-D8AA-41ED-8121-450FF72B2E44 — The Namaste Tree that caught my eye.

I don’t remember too much from my jumbled dreams last night. Perhaps it’s because I choose not to. There were travels with familiar people, and those who were not so familiar. There was lots of clutter and the feeling of being pulled into too many directions, through no will but my own. There was the feeling of tending more for other’s wants and need, while neglecting the self. Perhaps it is not so surprising that there is one scene, in particular, that lingers with me.

I am sitting on a bus filled with people, traveling to some forgotten destination. A woman sits beside me. My guide for the night. She looks with intention into my face, then presses her hand to my heart. “I see the beauty of the light that is you,” she tells me. Even though her words are genuine and almost urgent, I’m not sure I believe them. Yet, it’s enough. Enough to weave the darkness back to dawn.

The word “Namaste,” is Sanskrit in origin. It is a greeting of one being to another. A bowing to honor, often with hands joined at the palms above the heart, of the light that resides in the other, that is also in the self. It is a gesture of reverence and of unity, and through Namaste we are reminded of the tapestry of light that threads through all life.

I like to think we are being reminded of this thread right now as we reside individually, yet together, in our shared millisecond of life. Reminded that within each form resides the beauty of the light that finds a temporary home inside each heart. A beauty that perhaps radiates more readily in some than in others, but only because of the block of fear.

yoga-4849683_1280 — Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by 李磊瑜伽 from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

And then there was Peace

On February 19, 2015 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Memoir6 Comments

Hers was the only aura I saw without trying. Violet, like the energy of St. Germain, extending from the tips of her fur in soft flames. It was four years ago, and we were walking in the woods. I began our daily journey together distraught. My physical and emotional worlds were burning in a dark chasm I’ll call fear. It was February, that month that tests the limits of endurance. Within the span of a few short days, every heating system in my home and in my body went on overload. The ancient furnace in the basement stopped breathing warmth and started emitting the poisonous gas that silently consumes the oxygen of life. The wood stove followed suit, deciding to search down, rather than up, for air, filling the house in a matter of panicked seconds with thick gray smoke. Fearing flames, I rushed my children, coatless, outside with Daisy and called the fire department. Then, the pellet stove decided it wanted to play the same game, vomiting an over-abundance of fuel that caught a fire that decided to breath in, instead of out, filling the house, again, with gray, suffocating smoke.

Sometimes the world outside mirrors the world inside, testing our ability to heal and release to the point of near collapse. That February day, after I safely shuttled the kids on the bus to school, I desperately sought release. Daisy, my faithful companion and guide, calmly led the way to the forest. Although it would have been impossible for her not to feel the fires raging through me, she was the epitome of peace.

It was the walk of dreams, where time stands sentinel to bare witness. Sound disappeared into the blanket of snow and waited for me to emerge whole again. Yet, the air was electric, so alive I could feel each silent heartbeat I passed, and the Earth held me in reverence, as I walked her body in sorrow.

Each footstep brought with it a memory of the little girl afraid of forests and the secrets hidden in shadows. I wept memory to release her, and in my pure and open need, Nature held me in the full, unconditional embrace of love.

I can recall the moment my eyes turned down to gaze upon my guide and caught the purple fire of her aura. She had quietly, with the energy of pure love, led me along the path of peace until the forest outside replaced the fear-filled forest of memory.

This is the energy that filled the space when she passed 8 days ago. When her soul released from her tired body, peace took over, filling the sorrow that pervaded our home and bodies. My children stopped weeping and quietly entered the energy they saw mirrored on my face. In those moments after release, we were filled with the joy of her surrendering to pure love. “Can you feel it,” I asked them, “can you feel it in your heart.” “Yes,” they whispered as they clutched their hands to their chests. She was there already, always, our Daisy, restoring us to peace as she had some many times before.