Move Like a Cloud

Yesterday, I had the privilege of guiding a group of child and family therapists in a mini- ecotherapy retreat in a park in Los Altos. Generally speaking, I look forward to work, but yesterday I was especially excited.

When I arrived on site, I immediately looked around for familiar branches and quickly took note of oak, eucalyptus, redwood, and wild plum. When I see trees I know, I feel home, even if I don’t know a single human. Walking from the parking lot to the park, cleavers waved at me and dandelions smiled bright from their spot in the groundcover.

I gathered some flowers and branches to brighten the altar, and to ground it in place. I walked the perimeter of the park and collected sticky sappy pinecones and a hollow piece of park. By the time the therapists arrived, I felt present and ready.

I won’t go into detail for all the exercises we did, but I want to zoom in on a couple because they led to some beautiful shares.

In Ecotherapy, we talk a lot about reflection and mirrors. Like in traditional talk therapy, we’re interested in what we can see about ourselves by looking at an “other.” Only in Ecotherapy, that other is often beyond human. For the first exercise, which I learnt in my Ecopsychology training at the Holos Institute, participants are encouraged to shape their body into the form of a being or entity they see which is beyond human— a mountain, a tree, a branch, or even just a leaf— and notice what it feels like. As I prompted the therapists to look for something to “mirror,” I watched as these professionally dressed, always poised, so-called “grown-ups” twisted their faces toward the sun, lifted their chins, and waggled their arms while leaning off to the side. They pranced and hunched and swayed. They let themselves hang.

Later, in an exercise about exploring darkness, I watched as a sixty-something therapist crept through a field, toe first wearing an eye-covering because he wanted to challenge himself to meet his surroundings without his vision. I felt a sense of profound satisfaction watching these adult, seemingly “put together” people, relax and let the facades fall. Therapists, who are so used to holding space for others by being neutral, controlled, centered, let themselves… were letting loose and connecting with childhood memories and nostalgia. They spoke of remembering how it felt to be bored as a kid, or to wander in the fields and get lost. One woman shared, in our debrief, that she mirrored a cloud in our first exercise and felt an incredible sense of freedom. Just floating. We all tried it and truly, it felt nice to just dissolve, to drift.

My friends, we all need chances to let loose and break the “normal” patterns of life under capitalism. We need to break the stale and form new neuralpathways for how we can move, think, and relate. How else can we break free? How else are we supposed to heal? How else will we be able to meet the Earth, and our environment, in a new way?

I’m offering a half-day Ecotherapy Retreat on Saturday June 8th exploring these ideas. Please join us as we return to our innate sense of wonder, play, and possibility for new ways of being to emerge.

Until then… Be well, and don’t forget to try this activity next time you’re outside!