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Through the landscape of home & heart

By: Marjory Mejia

I recently woke up feeling homesick, with a ¡uuuuuuuggggghhhhhh!, a visceral yearning to heal our separation from the land, our lost connection to the landscape, our Tierra Santa. It is the second time this dream feeling emerges after my recent ceremonial work.

After a gorgeous weekend of deep healing in a medicine circle, I couldn’t have been happier to find the Botanical Gardens in Atlanta, Georgia. This garden-forest was full of surprises, views, moments along a journey that made me sing: Mamapacha, I’m coming home.

This post is a photo meditation that I offer to you with love, in praise of Mamapacha, in celebration of the healing beauty and magic that surrounds us, a prayer to feel at one with the land, not just our homeland, but any sacred land that kindly receives us. When we approach each place with reverence, the whole world becomes home. We ground, relax, breathe more deeply. As you behold these photos, know that both nature + self participate, beyond ‘observing,’ to ‘feeling’ each other, in another kind of language, the language of the heart.

I thank God for this most
amazing day;
for the leaping greenly
spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything
which is natural, which is
infinite, which is yes.

e. e. cummings (via @susannahconway)

Photo Credits: Most photos were taken by my dear friend Jack Ian Lin 

A poem that deeply touches my soul:

The Love Home of Mahasti

When they ask, What force can bind one to another?
Don’t conjecture, the pull of the moment?
Don’t ask, arrows flying to pin us to the ground?
Don’t guess, some old fallen down dust house
we wish we could repair?

No, none of those
can bind one to another.
Not the moment.
Not threats.
Not wishes gone by.

Instead, offer this:
My soft braids
falling loose between us,
bridle your heart
like reins on a fine horse…
They hold you to me
and me to you,
as much as fine-wrought chains…

but unlike chains of the mundane
that can never hold anyone to anyone,
we are held to home by the love we share…
for we are to each other
the kucheh, the door set recessed
away from lashing of snow storms.
To each other, we are the roofscape
to stand upon to see /hear night, sunrise,
call to prayer.

We are badgir and shish-kahn,
windcatchers to cool one another.
We are reliable qanats
who bring water to feast and flower.
We are, most of all,
to one another, hashti,
the tiny space behind the door
that urges us
to change from street mind
to sacred mind.
That is, to the Heart of Home.

Translated by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés by cp estés ©1980 a.r.r.

It is Summer and nature is blossoming in all her glory. We come into deep resonance with our true selves in the landscape. Our skewed sense of fragmentation, separation, and dissonance dissolve, melt away, and we start to flow again. Our souls are enlivened in the fullness of nature. May you feel her healing power in your heart, space, and life.

With flowing love,