Naked In Eden Blog – Robin Easton

Return to the Wild Within – My Manifesto

Posted by Robin Easton

This last year I lost my balance, and it affected my health. This summer, to regain balance, I chose to spend less time online, less time visiting and commenting on blogs, and social networking, and more time with Nature. I planted and lovingly tended a vegetable garden that is now overflowing with squash, greens, beets, beans, corn, gourds, herbs, flowers, peppers, tomatoes, and more. Last summer was the first time in years that I went without a garden. It was not a “right” choice for me. You can read about that experience HERE.

“It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure.” ~ Joseph Campbell

I have stopped working online seven days a week. In doing so, I return to a part of myself that is so familiar. It feels like I’m “going home”. Since my time in the rainforests of Australia I’ve always had a strong sense of myself, my “right” path, a knowing of who I am and what I most value, more importantly, what keeps me healthy. However, somewhere in the last year I lost myself. How did this happen?

I’d stopped listening to my wild free heart. I stopped spending time with Nature every single day. I didn’t eat the way my body needs to eat. I lost sleep so I could get work done. I tried to reply to every comment, every email, respond to multiple online social networks, take umpteen phone calls, follow up on reviews of my book, watch my stats, join Google Analytics, write articles, take speaking engagements, do interviews, post on my blog each week, improve my website, and more.

Everyone around me appeared to cope with this routine, other authors and writers who were also promoting their work. Everywhere I turned I read that it was what one did if one was to be an author. I thought that it was only me who was not coping. I’ve since learned that many of my blogger/writer friends also are not coping. Now that bloggers have been online for several years, I see more and more articles written about digital burnout or “overwhelm”. One of the best articles I’ve read was written by Sandra Pawula. I also see more people taking back their lives, returning to a more balanced, grounded lifestyle. 

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Oddly, the higher my stats went, the lower my soul sank, and the more of me I lost. I started to feel that my life was no longer mine. I drifted away from my true self. The less I touched the living Earth, the more domesticated I became. The more domesticated I became the more out of balance I became.

I am a barefoot runner, walker, and hiker (sometimes even in winter). In summer I hike and jog on New Mexico’s hot, rocky terrain (you could fry an egg on it). I need the freedom of connecting to the Living Earth. I have to feel my intensely wild self to know who I am and to feel fully alive. For years I slept on the Living Earth or on the floor. Even today if I sleep in a bed my mattress is only one and half inches thick. I am a sun-gazer and eat very little food, light is my food. I love water, mud, wind, lightning, thunder, rain, cold, and hot. I thrive on keeping my senses and spirit awake, brilliantly untamed. I don’t drink alcohol, take drugs, eat junk food, watch TV, or play computer games. I use the computer for work, or processing photos, recording music, and film making.

To give up my wild self is to become domesticated. For me domestication results in unconsciousness, a loss of spirit and soul, eventual illness and death of the raw human animal within me. I am like the Tiger Sharks that die in captivity. I cannot take my conscious wild being, a female animal, and sit her in front of a computer for hours everyday, without movement, without the smells, sounds, and textures of the Living Earth, and expect her to be happy and healthy. I cannot tame my wild being and then expect her to produce the same wild vibrancy that Nature gives her, that compelled her to share her wild story. This fecund wildness sustains me, allows me to hear and speak with other wild beings, keeps me free-thinking and not fooled by illusion. My wildness allows me to dream music, have visions, and live in a total empathic state. It allows me to grow plants without plant food, heal those around me with touch, and see events that have yet to happen.

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake, a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of … and paths threaded with little flowers” ~ K. Mansfield

Sometimes what seems like a crisis can be a saving grace. It can stop us from heading down a path that’s an illusion, a non-path for us. There are many ways of viewing the world, my crisis has been a powerful guide back to my empowered self. The self that is mine alone. A self that is my sacred ground, and does not allow others to indiscriminately tread. I recognize who and what I am, and I respect that with the utmost care.

” …normal is not something to aspire to, it’s something to get away from.” ~ Neale Donald Walsch

I refuse to slide into unconsciousness, routine, and “normalization”. I refuse to be reigned in or governed by fear. I refuse to blindly run in a race that leads to “Nowhere”. I refuse to follow unspoken yet highly potent social rules. I refuse to be domesticated. I am an animal connected to the Living Earth. It’s easy to be unabashedly wild in the wild. But in my culture one has to be ruthlessly awake to be fully alive. Consciousness equals survival for any species, even humans.

“The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what doesn’t.” ~ Po Bronson

I am tired of “editing” my wildness, my honesty. I just want to be ME. For optimum health we must each be honest, at least with ourselves. I have returned to my daily barefoot walking, hiking, or running (in mud, over hot rocks, desert sand, and water). I have returned to mornings in the garden, getting to know crickets, birds, and plants, opening my heart to the cycles of life and death. I have returned to spending time talking with my wild friends: beavers, ravens, gopher snakes, deer, trees and rocks. I have returned to growing, freezing, pickling, and drying my own food. I have returned to daily meditations, and rest when needed, early to bed, early to rise. I have returned to creating healthy meals from scratch, eating food that I grow with love and gratitude for the life given. I have returned to creativity: composing music, film making, beading, writing, and more. I have stopped listening to those who want me to be something I am not.

I have walked in blessed desert rain without a raincoat, and felt my skin sigh from heavenly moisture. I have stood and hungrily breathed in the scent of pine and sage, longing for more. I have watched evening clouds change to pink feathers floating across the sky. I have pulled burrs from my bare feet and rejoiced that I am alive and able to touch the Blessed Earth. I have filmed distant lightning and felt the power of unleashed Consciousness.

I am questioning all that I do, all that I let into my life. I go whole days without being online to let my brain and body readjust to Earth’s pulse, a slower more integrated rhythm. I now know that I do not want to be on multiple social online networks. I do not want to live this way. It will kill me. I now know that I cannot respond to a hundred to two hundred emails a day. However, my heart is compelled, as always, to send intense love to all who touch my life. I am deeply grateful to have the most loving online friends. You encourage me to be ME. I love you immensely, and am a better person because of you.

“We are vibrational beings designed to be healthy and happy and live in harmony with nature. The further we distance ourselves from the natural world, including nature, natural foods, natural light and natural sounds, the more suffering and disease we experience.” ~ Dawn James

I want to spend my life, in constant communion with Nature, my Greater Self, my “God”. I want gentleness, peace, integrity, wind, rain, snow, sun, earth, and love in my life. I will no longer allow anything fear based to guide my life. I have looked death in the face this last year, and now my priorities are very clear. There is peace in letting go and remembering what I want and need. In remembering who I am.

Much Love,
Robin

PS: I have closed comments on this post.

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Excerpt: “Naked in Eden: My Adventure and Awakening in the Australian Rainforest”:
“I remembered my night-walk to Daintree River and the lady eaten by the crocodile. I began to glimpse the food chain through new eyes. I better understood why I wanted to know the creatures of the forest, especially the potentially deadly creatures. Like the python that ate the bushlark alive, and the flycatcher that ate the butterfly alive, I too wanted to eat life whole and alive. I salivated for the wild raw energy of the rainforest. A primordial memory of a life once lived in the food chain had awakened in me and lured me into the night. I wanted to know this long forgotten and unused part of myself still stored in my cells. I hungered on the most basic level to experience it, if only for a time. Instinctively I knew it would help me to heal. To know my ancient self would help me be more fully present in this current time. I would know my place with the rest of life on planet Earth. I would know myself as both human and animal. I would know my origins.” ~ Robin Easton

~ “NAKED IN EDEN” ~ Available on Amazon

Did you Enjoy reading Naked in Eden? Would love a review from you, HERE. If you’ve not yet read my Australian adventure book and would like to, you can order it on Amazon HERE. “Naked in Eden” is a spirited true-life Australian adventure story, filled with personal transformation. It is wonderfully life altering for adults, teens and tweens, and makes a memorable gift. Enjoy!

Thank you!

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This Site: © Robin Easton
Website: http://www.nakedineden.com
Blog: http://nakedineden.com/nakedinedenblog/

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