I grew up in immigrant, urban culture.

Although my parents were eager for me to assimilate into American life, some of the old ways came with them. Nature was the enemy, as was almost anything from the outside.

Moths, bats, germs of any kind, spiders, Lady Bugs, mice were symbols of filth and disease.

The outside world – nature in particular – was something alien, a scourge, a sign of something alien.

Theirs was a culture that had been confined in narrow urban alleys and small villages for centuries. It was dangerous for anyone to go beyond their boundaries or near the woods. Beyond were all kinds of enemies, human and animal. Even the weather was the enemy.

Flowers were a luxury for the wealthy. Nature was to be kept at bay, swept up, rinsed and hidden from.

My grandmother witnessed her brother being pulled off a  wagon by wolves and dragged off into the forest. A cousin was caught in the woods by soldiers and slaughtered.

The only relatively safe place was locked inside a home, far from bears, wolves, and bugs.

Although I was to live in cities for the first 50 years of my life, I always yearned to be in nature, I always felt it calling to me, I knew I was broken in some way without it.

I bought a cabin in the hills and spent a year with my two Labs, Julius and Stanley, writing “Running To The Mountain,” I was in nature for most of a year.

I got lost in the woods, frightened by cows,  storms, unnerved by coyotes and invaded by bugs, birds, mice, and squirrels. It was lonely and frightening at times, beautiful and transforming at others. There, I began my search for spiritual life, I knew the natural world was essential for me to find one.

Moving into the country, close to nature was the wisest decision of my life in so many ways, even though it was to cost me my family and my sanity.

When Maria came into my life, I not only lived in nature but it became an integral and organic part of my life, and our life together. Maria often walks barefoot, pees in the woods talks to trees and flowers, listens to the owls, re-homes spiders, ladybugs and moths. She has studied microbes and is happy to live with them, takes spiders outside or leaves them alone, sees plants in a way I never have.

She is at home there, her soul rises there.

Almost every day, she walks in the woods or swims in a stream. It is who she is. I learned much from my time alone with her, and much more from my time with her. The natural world is no longer a stranger to me, but a sister.

Just as my family feared nature and kept it at bay, we accept nature and invite it inside. Our home is full of plants and flowers, bones from the woods, the shells of snails, rocks, and crystals.

We study animal tracks and listen to birds and talk to donkeys.

I am not as tied to nature as Maria is, it is still a learning experience for me. I love to walk, I love working with dogs, I love herding sheep, I never tire of looking out of our windows. I don’t kill bugs anymore, except for flies and mosquitoes. We don’t hide from storms, we sit out on the porch and watch them.

The winter pasture is as beautiful to me as a garden in June, the weather something to feel, not fear.

My whole understanding of nature is different, no longer detached or ignorant or fearful. This is what I wanted, this is what I found, this is what Maria helps me to accept and understand, and what has become a part of me as well.

I am changed, I will never be the same.

Sometimes, it makes me sad.

I wish I could sith with my mother by the Battenkill River and hold her hand and show her how to be still and peaceful. Don’t be afraid of life, Mom, breathe in here and accept what you can’t control. 

I wish I could take my grandmother’s hand and walk with her out into the woods, or out to our pond to look at the fish and snails, or under the trees in the deep forest to listen to them whisper and dance in the wind, to feel the moss under her feet.

Don’t be afraid of it, Grandma, it won’t hurt you, it will love you and bring you peace.

I will never live away from nature again, even if I can’t climb up trees like Maria. It is my home, my place, my community, my peace. I am blessed to share it with someone who has taken nature into her heart and soul. I have so much to learn, I have learned so much. I’ve found in nature a kind of peace I did not know existed. In those quiet winter storms, I first learn what it meant to be calm.

I don’t fear the bugs and animals, I learn so much from them. The trees are my gurus, my seers, and mystics.

The big lesson for me is that I was broken when I separated so completely from the animal world and from the natural world.  I think we all are. It is not natural to live so far from the animals and the forests.

It is not healthy, just look at the news.

That is our natural space and place in history, at least it’s mine. The animals are our partners, not our enemies, we have evolved and lived with them through the centuries. I have learned so much about them on the farm.

I talk to donkeys as easily and naturally as people, sometimes more so. Here, I’ve found much of my spiritual life, in their big brown eyes and acceptance.

Without the natural world, I drifted into stress and anxiety and confusion. Here, nature holds my hand and comforts me, it helps me to feel safe, not afraid.

I listen to the trees, they do know me, they do talk to me, and I’ve even learned how to hold a spider in the cup of my hands and help them find a safe place to live.

My grandmother would have shrieked and run from the room, looking for her broom.