Today

Jolyn Hope Arisman

Jolyn Hope is a somatic story-weaver, movement and anatomy educator, mother and steward of Sacred Earth Retreat in the redwood forest of California.

It is my desire for these stories to open doorways of knowing, for you to better understand your physical form and give you new ways of understanding your body and its place in the world. It is my desire that they provide greater ease, and freedom of expression so that we might know ourselves (w)holy and share with grace.

In Preparation:

If you are able, take yourself into nature. Ideally listen to this on headphones or speaker. If going out into nature is a challenge, cozy up by a plant or gaze at a photo of an environment you really love, or simply use your imagination to conjure up a favorite environment real or imaginary.

Spirituality is the essence of who we are.

And any sacred practice brings us closer to knowing our true nature.

Nature can be a simple, accessible, direct vehicle for coming to know intimately our own divinity. And we have access to this intimate partner free from other human mitigation, interpretation or control.

To steep in our relations with environment is an act of decolonizing our relationship with nature. We learn to see nature as more than a collection of resources, but a community of relations.

How does it move your spirit

to become more attuned

to the natural environment around you?

Intimacy is a relationship, a proximity, a witnessing and a movement towards and in.

Within the gift of intimacy, you can give someone your full presence and you can bask in being seen.

Create the space to connect and know all the ways you are resourced by natural environments. How can we come more deeply into knowing ourselves by moving into deep knowing of the natural processes around us.

As a part of the relationship, You have your gifts and you are a participant in nature.

You are breathing with your environment and your environment is reciprocally breathing you in as well.

You impact and influence the natural system you inhabit.

You do this by walking the same path everyday or planting a seed

or maintaining a clearing for your own body to lie down in the shade.

You are a participant in creating the nurturing ecosystem you find yourself in.

How do you impact your environment and what gifts do you bring?

Allow the movement that arises

from your journey of encountering

take its own course.

How does your environment make invitations for you to move?

Are you inspired by a shape, a reputation, a color, a calling to give.

"Talking to plants is one way of talking directly to spirit."

-Rosemary Gladstar

Weekly Questions: What remains in the act of transmission? What gets lost? What gets lost consciously and what gets lost unconsciously? What’s at stake when transmitting a gesture, a movement, a dance?