WONDER

That witchy sense of touch

July 20, 2021 /

We go into Nature and LOOK and are enchanted. Yet there’s another way to glean Wonder from landscapes, one that is uncommonly spoken of or practiced. And a little witchy. 

The sense of touch.

Let’s go for a walk, right now, in your imagination, to see how this works. (Wonder and walks naturally hold hands, as you know.) Off you go, out a hidden portal of your home. See the canopied path leading to a forest like any other.  

Take off your shoes, for this is holy ground.

Set bare feet on the grit of earth.

As you go along, please know you may find yourself attempting to use descriptive words for what will come to pass. However, it’s most divine to Go Wordless. No vocabulary will be needed (on your part) for this imaginal experience. The point is to conjure sensations, not syllables.

Dip your head as you slip out of bright sunshine into the realm of what is emerald and sage-deep. This is you, bowing to the forest.

Pause. Feel the coolness on your skin. (Take your time with this.)

Press your palm against the flaked crevices of tree bark. (This is just the beginning.)

Graze the back of your hand along the velvet stockings of moss on exposed old-growth roots.

Allow the raspy tickle of a caterpillar’s crawl on your arm. Rub a ridged leaf against your cheek, next press it to the space between your eyes. It may happen that you intuit the wonder of wood breaching earth to stand inside a sky, to grow star-shaped hands to fall upon your head, autumn upon autumn.

Caress the perfect curvature of a river’s stone. Feel the sacred weight of it in your hand, how clean it is from rushing ice melts.

Do you understand? With touch comes closeness—a felt intimacy with Mother Nature.

Who notices when she’s being courted.

A fallen twig from a pine takes care to bump and prick beneath your fingertip. This is the braille of dryads, and as you read by touch you discover what the tree knows by heart:

Silence and birdsong and wind, the trifecta of primordial comfort.

A storm arrives. Tilt back your head and drift your eyes closed. Float your arms. Catch puddles of cloud; accept the thrumming patter of cloud-drops in your cupped hands. Become a chalice-goddess in the rain.

Push your toes into the mud.

A plant of spindly stems scratches. Breathe deep and ‘see’ the stems undergo a metamorphosis into gray-green tendrils of hair belonging to some tiny, wild creature straddling this world and the realm of Fae.

You may be surprised at this ability you have, at your age, to make-believe. Brace yourself. Images will flood your mind through the sense of touch, just as eagerly as through the sense of sight, if you come to the world as does a child.

Playfully.

Open, open, open. 

Know this:

Mother Nature wants to tell you stories any way she can, using every last one of your senses and all of the world. To this end she’ll cross any boundary because she knows no boundaries.

Imagine if we all welcomed her outreach efforts. She might just extend her beauty and story so deep inside our psyches that we all move in a synchronized dance to tend our blue and green and creatured Home. And, one another. Earthy, natural miracles might happen.

The other day in my back yard, of a sudden an unexpected and seemingly related-to-nothing image arrived inside my mind:

War submarines beaching themselves like whales upon shores. Stiff uniforms popped out of metal-lidded spouts to spray onto a lapping beach and become people, relaxed and natural people, strolling on sands of all colors and origin stories.

It remains mysterious to me how such images and meaning-making come out of nowhere, out of imagination, which is the sublime stuff of the heavens. Just remember the axiom goes like this:

As above, so below.

Tactile immersion in Mother Nature holds power to transport you into Wonder. Go on and try it. Make it a practice to be witchy in wild places by way of the wondrous, liminal threshold that is your skin.  

Much good will come of it.

 

 

“Touch comes before sight, before speech. It is the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth.”
~ Margaret Atwood

 

To remember Wonder by Cricket Baker’s new pieces arriving in your email about once a month, be sure to SUBSCRIBE.

Pretty please leave a comment to share any thoughts you have on this piece 🙂

featured image by Yvor Punchev

image of forest by Lukasz Szmigiel

32 Comments

  • Kimberley Rose

    July 23, 2021 at 8:13 am

    That was a Wonderful treat and a beautifully heightened sensory safari! Thank you ❤️

  • Maria

    July 22, 2021 at 12:39 am

    All the wild woodland creatures both feathered and furry are so beautiful to observe in the woods. Flowers, trees and fungi and amazing. ❤

  • Jacqueline Da Costa

    July 21, 2021 at 5:20 pm

    I am forever getting lost in my surroundings. Noticing patterns created by nature and sometimes by man. Learn to stand and stare if you cannot see it just pass me by because in that split second something will happen that never will happen again.

  • Beverly

    July 21, 2021 at 3:22 pm

    Truly wonderous, thank you.
    Most days I walk the forests and many trees are now friends. Touch is a lovely gift , and nature touches is in so many ways.
    Blessings to you.

      • Tia

        July 22, 2021 at 12:50 am

        Such sparkly bits of wonder you sprinkle along this forest path. As seeds or nuts would attract the creatures natural to those realms, what sort of fae ones are you drawing with the colorful twists of rhetoric you tease us with? Thank you for such gifts you proffer and the joys the give.

      • Cricket Baker

        July 22, 2021 at 9:16 am

        Tia, I love how you express yourself! xxxxx Oh, all kinds of mysterious fae ones; I’m especially fond of those who are tiny. And tree spirits, the dryads. You’re so very welcome, Tia 🙂

    • Colleen

      July 21, 2021 at 12:18 pm

      She touched me before I even left to go outside . She came to me as the wild and true mother. I was always hers as she mine . Both have felt the attack on us, to not be free,
      judgemental expression of what is allowed and not.Their fear of the wild which is the true, has left such a empty dark hole, that they can not escape. I am called. To the mountains , to the plains, to the sea , to the desert . Called by mother she awaits, my home is the eternal ever changing life that forever continues to be one.

  • Joanna

    July 21, 2021 at 10:27 am

    Lovely visualisation, its a walk I do most days as I am fortunate to have woods on my doorstep.it is a place where I feel most at ease
    More imaginary journeys please.
    Warmly Joanna🌻

      • Celeste Noel Sasloe

        July 21, 2021 at 12:53 pm

        This was a wonderful read and experience. It brought much calm and peace to my being. I’ve taken this journey both in mind and physically. Thank you for the reminder to gift myself more often with this much needed cleansing of my mind and soul, Celeste

  • Linda

    July 21, 2021 at 10:09 am

    I love this, Cricket! I walk in the woods behind my house and sometimes I do reach out and touch the trees, but I often don’t take the time to open up my mind, to imagine. So thank you for this beautiful reminder.

  • Flossy

    July 21, 2021 at 9:56 am

    Enchanting and thought provoking as always. Such images spilling into my mind – I could smell the earth on the magical journey we walked together.
    I need this little bit of wonder every month. Thank you. ✨😊✨

    • Cricket Baker

      July 21, 2021 at 10:51 am

      You are so welcome, Flossy! It makes me happy indeed to offer a bit of Wonder to you. And thank you for letting me know how you responded to this piece 🙂

      • Kate

        July 21, 2021 at 11:31 am

        I love this.
        When i ‘journey’, touch is my strongest sense.
        I have been frustrated in the past because I don’t ‘see’ like I’m in a movie.
        This piece affirms my strength!

  • Wendy Wyatt

    July 21, 2021 at 9:51 am

    Oh Cricket~ How I’ve missed your writing… and here bursts forth a beautiful and sage piece that feels like a sacred meditation!

    Thank you for sharing this jewel!. I wish it were audible so I could use it as a touchstone when the world binds me and wonder is lost to me!

    Essential earthly stuff here! Truly love it~ In my own imaginings, I dream of having a sanctuary in a mountain forest, where I host those seeking to reconnect with nature… This would be powerful medicine to use for a retreat there!

    💚💙🤎💝
    Wendy