Feeling insignificant is the best feeling in the world. It is on a par with freedom and there’s nothing more important to me in life than that. Experiencing the higher state of being insignificant is the ultimate state of being hidden, silenced, cloaked in, covered up and small, invisible, minute in the grand theatre of life. It is not the same as having no value. It is the opposite, a realisation that, in fact, you are part of everything, and everything is part of you.
I find this feeling in nature. In places open and expansive, where there’s no end to the edge of the earth and sea, and the skies are limitless, infinite, boundless all around. In such places one is closer to the divine within and without than anywhere else. The sacred solitude that one can participate in such places has a feeling of being completely naked, raw, and exposed, and it feels like the most natural way of being. Primal voice of the land is like the strike of divinity straight into your heart.
Feeling like a tiny speck in the mass of creation and all that it holds is a state that instantly calms, grounds, and clarifies the meaning of it all.
Have you ever been on an island where the quietude is so tangible it tastes sweet on your tongue? Th silence is deafening and immensely restorative. It feels like the elixir of all life combined, and you feel a part of it. Belonging to something bigger than yourself is a truly spiritual feeling that in mixed in all senses in just the right unity. Perfection.
Insignificance is freedom. It is simplicity and joy in knowing exactly who you are and where you fit. It is that place in the heart where everything exists, a place that calms and comforts you into being you, however you definite value for yourself as long as it makes you feel alive. It is not being something or someone. It is not about becoming someone or making something of yourself, it is being you and the perspective of being insignificant releases you and affirms your value like nothing else.
I find one true perspective in this wherever things feel difficult, uncertain, stagnant, or pointless. I turn within to that place where I exist and remind myself, as I often do with others, that we are worthy of life and creation simply because we are here. We are in life and participating even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. We are here and we are enough.
Primordial land is the monument to eternity. Jagged, raw, windswept into position of timelessness. Wild grasses and flowers scatter across the cliff tops and the land and sea are like the oldest companions of all elemental beauty. It doesn’t just tag at your heart and takes your breath away it consumes your soul.
With a single breath one transports into a place of deep belonging to the times long gone yet still running through your blood. It is a sort of remembrance for me. I know who I am there instantly. There are no barriers or limits, only recognition between the primal in me and the land. There’s no feeling like it.
I describe that feeling as merging with the core of something so familiar. Rocks are like tough thick lizard-like skin and breathe of the sea and mountains is like cells weaving together to form a being that can not be described, only felt from within.
It is a shape shifting experience one might say that is effortless there. It feels like wings and claws can grow out of the body and an animal-self comes home. Otherworldly place yet deeply grounding, which makes it a true manifestation of spirit on Earth type of experience. Heavenly, surreal yet so physically felt with all senses in perfect alignment that can be overwhelming. But the land holds you tight in its casing of rocks, plants and roaring water that you can’t help but become it.
Nature is the original intelligence, life-force, evolution and transformative realm that just is. I like working with nature as the most primary source of all intelligence grounded in the body, clarity of thinking and depth of feeling. Most of all it doesn’t seek to enslave, manipulate or control. It is of free will and choice and in not wanting anything from you essentially encourages sovereignty and that is priceless. It demonstrates and shows how things can unfold naturally when one is allowed to be and grow in a way one chooses. I admire all things nature for that.
Another aspect is simplicity and inclusive sense of all belonging together and working together. It doesn’t try to be something it is not and has no concern for whether you are for it or against. To me it is the most perfect example of how to live. It is all consciousness and it doesn’t have labels. It has clear, purposeful, intentional cycles of life and death. In its inclusiveness it is perfection.
As an elemental and intuitive witch and all around nature-based spiritual practitioner, I have learnt from nature starting from the ground up with studying the nature elements and the qualities of each, which like a mirror reflected back to me what my qualities are; those that are weaker and those that are distorted and where I am most balanced. It taught me that listening to your own elemental self will never lead us astray. It just wouldn’t make sense for that not to be true.
Another thing that I can’t live without and is like breathing to me is beauty and where else one can experience things more beautiful than in nature. My belief has been for a long time that beauty will save the world. In nature it is not all butterflies and flowers, however, it is about survival and predation, violence and death yet even in those manifestations there’s immense beauty. One only has to experience a storm and the devastation it can cause or get in contact with the poisonous and dangerous species yet so stunning. I don’t believe it is always a disguise I believe it is meant to be beautiful in all forms. We only have to see it for what it is and not for what it is not depending on what our mind would tell us is good for us or our needs. Beauty is everywhere and it only takes one moment of immersion into something beautiful, however minute, allows a possibility of being pulled back into our own beauty, because we are one with that in our combined elemental nature. Nature brings enchantment back into our hearts and that enchantment can bring such changes to how we live.
Many treat nature as God and it is easy to see why and it is not wrong, but what I most appreciate is that it doesn’t see itself as either above or below. It just is, being, flowing and morphing from one manifestation to another without any concern for an external human or any other influence. It doesn’t have that need or awareness of that being necessary. It is sovereign and it encourages us all to be. It calls for us to get in touch with our souls and return to self, to the original.
To understand what I mean one only has to connect to something nature-based, anything of what you consider nature and in time a sight develops, things become clear, parallels are drawn and lessons learnt. There’s no greater teacher than our natural world and it will remain my religion, solace, happiness and peace.
What we are experiencing is a crisis on many levels and what’s at the centre of it is a breakdown of the ‘whole’, a psycho-spiritual crisis of individual and collective. We are facing a long and dark night of the soul. When things no longer make sense, our minds race uncontrollably and feelings overwhelm our every day, fear-based behaviours flare out of control and our safety is compromised. When personal and collective fall away what and how transpersonal can help us get back to ourselves, get back ‘home’.
What are we left with? What else is there?
Transpersonal approach to psycho-spiritual work deals with the idea of human innate potential and bears witness to personal transformations through engaging with or experiencing something beyond ‘self’ when in crisis. Hope reawakens, inner potential begins to shine through and strength previously seemingly inaccessible comes back. As a therapist I have been privileged to be a witness to profound shifts in individuals when working in a transpersonal way. Working with life transitions and crisis is one of my favourite areas due to an openness and beauty of experience that can be had once transformation occurs through awareness, reflection and application. The beauty and resilience of the human spirit is profound. Transpersonal way of working for me, first and foremost, is an interconnectedness and the quality of being with another that holds the key to an effective recovery of all that matters.
When we are faced with crisis we can look at losing something as a way of gaining something else; an opportunity, a ‘welcomed’ surrender without resistance. In breaking down we break through. The crisis becomes a golden opportunity to self-actualise, a path towards what one always wanted to be. Crisis becomes a road ‘home’ towards inner wholeness.
How can transpersonal view help in a time of crisis? Transpersonal psychology ideas were birthed out of humanistic movement of the 1960s and have been widely used in psycho-spiritual work and incorporated in a field of psychotherapy. The actual term ‘transpersonal’ was first used by C Jung in 1917. I see transpersonal approach to healing and life in general as an active, purposeful engagement with ideas such as, hope, meaningful life, human innate potential, divine nature within us all – all of which create a ‘whole’ of life experience. It includes interconnectedness between earthly and spiritual, cognitive and emotional, physical and sensory, person and interpersonal, inner and outer, individual and collective. We have an opportunity to start with ourselves and extend our essential life-force and divine energy outwards. We can do so through nourishing thoughts and meaningful actions, emotional intelligence and awareness, intentional creative life, honouring of the body, practicing enchantment of life and spiritual awareness in a way that makes the most sense to us.
When all structures around us collapse, pillars that held our earthly lives in place, where do we turn for help and containment? What happens to our identity and personal concerns? Through history we have seen individuals, as well as, nations collectively ‘rising from the ashes’ when a surge in consciousness comes forth and personal diminishes. We access our strength, hope and potential in a place beyond personal. We can call it faith, spiritual awareness, experience that has no words, yet its power cannot be denied and transformations are inevitable.
Better knowing your nature one can be more effective in the world and seeing that we are not just one or the other, thoughts or feelings we are the whole experience of life in all its spectrums. In dropping into the dark we discover the light and with light taken away darkness serves as a lesson towards change.
As a result of a crisis what we ultimately look for is:
A path to consciousness through harnessing the unconscious
Inner and outer transformation (individual and collective)
Coming to awareness of the interconnected reality
Joining back in with the individual and collective ‘whole’
Spiritual connection to the divine
What we can do:
Turn within with love, compassion and trust
Have faith in knowing that our potential is limitless. Potential within us all is a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. When all the external noise, defences, unconscious actions no longer dominate we can clearly see what really is available to us from within.
Become conscious of your unconscious through paying attention to your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Focus on your personal (with yourself), interpersonal (with others) and extra-personal (transpersonal, spiritual, divine) relationships.
Self-reflect with every step paying attention to words you speak
Be present through the body either through grounded visualizations or other activities that connects you to the physical. I find digging the earth, planting, gardening, walking or running very revelatory, cantering, meditative and often spiritual experiences.
Care-take your insights and implement into life as a way of practicing change, growth and transformation
Know what brings you joy and pleasure; what makes your passion burn; what actions make your life fulfilling and meaningful
“Everything living thrives for wholeness” (C. Jung) and it is wholeness we need to reclaim and rebuild following multiple fractures, isolation, disconnection and loss on a huge scale. Use the crisis to begin the work of rebuilding earthly and spiritual reality based on what matters to you. Spiritual to you might be finding meaning in life or creating a practice that allows you a space where you are most productive, loving, and compassionate. Through individual healing and awareness of the transpersonal, whichever way you choose to access it, use it as a helping hand, a reminder of ‘something more, something better’, we can weave threads of consciousness, however, small at first, as long as there is intention and inner belief in what we can truly do when we commit to healing and recovery.
When all falls apart what’s left is the extraordinary spirit that shines within us all, the innate natural capacities to do things unimaginable that often come force when we are faced with crisis. Through the light of consciousness step-by-step, piece-by-piece we pave the road ‘home’, back to ourselves, a road back to wholeness.
Raw Nature Spirit 
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