hello hello!
Hi everyone,
Well- it's May 17th! A little over a month and a half until my Watson year is wrapped up. I've begun an ecotherapy course and as part of an assignment I found a place to sit along the ocean and worked on connecting with it and myself.
Visit 1: Afternoon. The place I’ve chosen to connect with is a collection of rocks that jut out into the Pacific Ocean, along the southern cliff side of Crowdy Head, NSW. Being a traveler around the world for the last 10 months or so, I do not have a specific place to keep coming back to for more than a month or so at a time. Even so, I’ve been learning how to find a home within myself and to temporarily extend that home to whatever space I’m physically in. For the last 30 days, Crowdy Head was my home. In a few days, Dungog is my home. Next month, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA will be my home, and the months after that Boston, Massachusetts. Back to the present- I just went walking around and was curious about this area since I’ve never been over here. While walking I noticed how incredible the rocks are, there are lots of iron deposits so they are brightly orange, red, purple, pink-colored. I began picking up some smaller rocks and then some blue/green ones as well, because they reminded me of the colors of the ocean as it churns the waves. So I had a stack of blue-ish and red-ish rocks sitting in my shirt (I didn’t have any pockets). I found this spot where I’m sitting as I continued to walk, and it looked like I’d stumbled onto an alien planet. The rock formations are so strange, like everywhere with square shapes. I think maybe the result of years of gasses bubbling up through the surfaces? And the rocks’ tops look like coral, like the surface has bubbled away. (I later learned the rocks are part sandstone and the sandstone had been eroded away but the other parts of the rocks stayed, hence the weird patterns). There is a collection of rocks that I climbed and it feels like I’m sitting on a throne, watching the waves come in from the vast open ocean.
It’s very windy right now. What I am experiencing: the feel of the wind, especially on my legs and my face, and the sound of the wind whooshing off the waves going back and forth and crashing. My flip flops are hanging off my toes, I hear the sound of water droplets hitting the rocks and dripping down. The pages of this notebook are flapping in the wind. I can see 4 or 5 different shades of blue and turquoise in the water.
After about a half hour of sitting and observing, I felt compelled to arrange my rocks that I’d found into some kind of nature art. I arranged them into a circle. I’ve been making nature art often while up at Crowdy, and infrequently during the year of travel but enough that I felt confident just trusting whatever instinct came to me and seeing what messages nature was sharing with me through it. My process of making nature art usually involves: collecting items that feel right, arranging them in whatever way feels right, and trying to have fun while making the art. It usually takes me 20 minutes to make. When I’m all done, I like to meditate on what’s been created and send a message of gratitude to nature for allowing me to connect with it. I see what patterns emerge through the art and the process, and speak to nature like my therapist in a way. I try to focus on my breath and get in at least a couple of good, solid breaths while feeling engaged in the present. I have anxiety (and depression) and I’ve recently gone off my medication that I’ve been on for years. It’s been going okay, but certainly has been challenging. Making land art and connecting with nature has been very helpful for my own mental health.
Visit 2: Sunset. This time I didn’t write any notes while I was sitting there, I remember feeling anxious and not engaged with being there. Was still watching the waves, listening to the crashing, trying to figure out where the low and high tides reached up to. Although I was feeling distracted, I still added on to my previous land art creation, which had been left untouched. I could have made a new creation but it felt right to just add on to the middle. My mind was racing and filled with lots of fleeting thoughts, but it was interesting to be purposefully trying to calm myself and engage with nature in spite of feeling anxious. The sunset was beautiful- shades of pink, orange, purple, red, yellow, blue. I felt lucky to be witnessing such a mundane but miraculous beauty of the earth. Especially in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many people are cooped up in their tiny apartments, I had the vast ocean and sunsets and beaches and rocks to experience and connect with.
Visit 3: Morning. Excerpt from my journal: “It’s May. I’m back in my sit-spot for the last time before I leave Crowdy. It’s beautiful and sunny and windy but I’m having trouble feeling present. I can feel depressive tendencies creeping up on me. Like yesterday, I was doing perfectly fine, and then it just hit me like a wall. I didn’t want to do or be anything. Just wanted to lay down. But being active in the outdoors helps recharge me, it’s just hard to get myself motivated enough to begin those activities that I know are so healing in nature, such as running, gardening, land art, etc.”
I was feeling restless, so I decided to get up and walk around the area near my sit-spot, exploring the rocks and all its sensations, sharp and dull edges. I felt my energy begin to rise, balancing precariously on smaller rocks, stepping my bare feet into slight puddles that had formed from the storm the night before, examining the carcass of a crab on the rocks, peering over the edge of the rocks into a trench of the water that seemed serene and peaceful on one end but the other got much deeper and the waves crashed into it. I enjoyed climbing the rocks barefoot, it reminded me of the way I’d explore as a child with my neighbors and siblings.
I found 2 awesome leaves on my walk over to the sit-spot and attempted to draw them later on. One looked goofy, with green, yellow, red, and white polka dots. The other looked like a wildfire.
While at my special spot, I thought about what I knew of the history of the land. The place that I was currently sitting and walking around had likely been underground hundreds of years ago, as there’s a hill that’s been quarried out. The Biripi people are the traditional owners of this land, for thousands of years. I’d read on a sign the other day that the Biripi knew when to venture east towards the ocean each year depending on when a certain species of caterpillar began to migrate, and that it also lines up with the time of the year that the Mullet fish are running and being herded by dolphins into the bay.
Something I forgot to mention about my other sit-spots was that each time I’d read the poem that you included in the Module 1 notes. I read it aloud to the ocean, hoping to see if the meaning would change for me the more I read it. I also like to sing to the ocean, songs like “swing low, sweet chariot” and choir songs I’ve learned throughout the years.
I'm now back in Dungog spending time learning to cook, running, working on my ecotherapy course, playing frisbee with friends, and generally trying to stay sane in the midst of the pandemic. Luckily Australia is in good shape right now, but I'm still reading about how the US is doing each morning.
If you've read this whole thing, thank you! Some days are harder than others with my mental health. If you feel like it, please send me a note or email and let me know how you're doing! (andrea.dickmeyer@gmail.com) Connecting with other people really helps me. Sending love to you all!
Well- it's May 17th! A little over a month and a half until my Watson year is wrapped up. I've begun an ecotherapy course and as part of an assignment I found a place to sit along the ocean and worked on connecting with it and myself.
Visit 1: Afternoon. The place I’ve chosen to connect with is a collection of rocks that jut out into the Pacific Ocean, along the southern cliff side of Crowdy Head, NSW. Being a traveler around the world for the last 10 months or so, I do not have a specific place to keep coming back to for more than a month or so at a time. Even so, I’ve been learning how to find a home within myself and to temporarily extend that home to whatever space I’m physically in. For the last 30 days, Crowdy Head was my home. In a few days, Dungog is my home. Next month, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA will be my home, and the months after that Boston, Massachusetts. Back to the present- I just went walking around and was curious about this area since I’ve never been over here. While walking I noticed how incredible the rocks are, there are lots of iron deposits so they are brightly orange, red, purple, pink-colored. I began picking up some smaller rocks and then some blue/green ones as well, because they reminded me of the colors of the ocean as it churns the waves. So I had a stack of blue-ish and red-ish rocks sitting in my shirt (I didn’t have any pockets). I found this spot where I’m sitting as I continued to walk, and it looked like I’d stumbled onto an alien planet. The rock formations are so strange, like everywhere with square shapes. I think maybe the result of years of gasses bubbling up through the surfaces? And the rocks’ tops look like coral, like the surface has bubbled away. (I later learned the rocks are part sandstone and the sandstone had been eroded away but the other parts of the rocks stayed, hence the weird patterns). There is a collection of rocks that I climbed and it feels like I’m sitting on a throne, watching the waves come in from the vast open ocean.
It’s very windy right now. What I am experiencing: the feel of the wind, especially on my legs and my face, and the sound of the wind whooshing off the waves going back and forth and crashing. My flip flops are hanging off my toes, I hear the sound of water droplets hitting the rocks and dripping down. The pages of this notebook are flapping in the wind. I can see 4 or 5 different shades of blue and turquoise in the water.
After about a half hour of sitting and observing, I felt compelled to arrange my rocks that I’d found into some kind of nature art. I arranged them into a circle. I’ve been making nature art often while up at Crowdy, and infrequently during the year of travel but enough that I felt confident just trusting whatever instinct came to me and seeing what messages nature was sharing with me through it. My process of making nature art usually involves: collecting items that feel right, arranging them in whatever way feels right, and trying to have fun while making the art. It usually takes me 20 minutes to make. When I’m all done, I like to meditate on what’s been created and send a message of gratitude to nature for allowing me to connect with it. I see what patterns emerge through the art and the process, and speak to nature like my therapist in a way. I try to focus on my breath and get in at least a couple of good, solid breaths while feeling engaged in the present. I have anxiety (and depression) and I’ve recently gone off my medication that I’ve been on for years. It’s been going okay, but certainly has been challenging. Making land art and connecting with nature has been very helpful for my own mental health.
Visit 2: Sunset. This time I didn’t write any notes while I was sitting there, I remember feeling anxious and not engaged with being there. Was still watching the waves, listening to the crashing, trying to figure out where the low and high tides reached up to. Although I was feeling distracted, I still added on to my previous land art creation, which had been left untouched. I could have made a new creation but it felt right to just add on to the middle. My mind was racing and filled with lots of fleeting thoughts, but it was interesting to be purposefully trying to calm myself and engage with nature in spite of feeling anxious. The sunset was beautiful- shades of pink, orange, purple, red, yellow, blue. I felt lucky to be witnessing such a mundane but miraculous beauty of the earth. Especially in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, when so many people are cooped up in their tiny apartments, I had the vast ocean and sunsets and beaches and rocks to experience and connect with.
Visit 3: Morning. Excerpt from my journal: “It’s May. I’m back in my sit-spot for the last time before I leave Crowdy. It’s beautiful and sunny and windy but I’m having trouble feeling present. I can feel depressive tendencies creeping up on me. Like yesterday, I was doing perfectly fine, and then it just hit me like a wall. I didn’t want to do or be anything. Just wanted to lay down. But being active in the outdoors helps recharge me, it’s just hard to get myself motivated enough to begin those activities that I know are so healing in nature, such as running, gardening, land art, etc.”
I was feeling restless, so I decided to get up and walk around the area near my sit-spot, exploring the rocks and all its sensations, sharp and dull edges. I felt my energy begin to rise, balancing precariously on smaller rocks, stepping my bare feet into slight puddles that had formed from the storm the night before, examining the carcass of a crab on the rocks, peering over the edge of the rocks into a trench of the water that seemed serene and peaceful on one end but the other got much deeper and the waves crashed into it. I enjoyed climbing the rocks barefoot, it reminded me of the way I’d explore as a child with my neighbors and siblings.
I found 2 awesome leaves on my walk over to the sit-spot and attempted to draw them later on. One looked goofy, with green, yellow, red, and white polka dots. The other looked like a wildfire.
While at my special spot, I thought about what I knew of the history of the land. The place that I was currently sitting and walking around had likely been underground hundreds of years ago, as there’s a hill that’s been quarried out. The Biripi people are the traditional owners of this land, for thousands of years. I’d read on a sign the other day that the Biripi knew when to venture east towards the ocean each year depending on when a certain species of caterpillar began to migrate, and that it also lines up with the time of the year that the Mullet fish are running and being herded by dolphins into the bay.
Something I forgot to mention about my other sit-spots was that each time I’d read the poem that you included in the Module 1 notes. I read it aloud to the ocean, hoping to see if the meaning would change for me the more I read it. I also like to sing to the ocean, songs like “swing low, sweet chariot” and choir songs I’ve learned throughout the years.
I'm now back in Dungog spending time learning to cook, running, working on my ecotherapy course, playing frisbee with friends, and generally trying to stay sane in the midst of the pandemic. Luckily Australia is in good shape right now, but I'm still reading about how the US is doing each morning.
If you've read this whole thing, thank you! Some days are harder than others with my mental health. If you feel like it, please send me a note or email and let me know how you're doing! (andrea.dickmeyer@gmail.com) Connecting with other people really helps me. Sending love to you all!
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