A Year-Long Healing Journey Into The Poetry of Nature
In A Year of Poetic Medicine we will explore The Poetry of Nature guided by NanLeah and Geoff Oelsner, lifelong students of Nature
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or bush does is lost to you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
~ David Wagoner
The Poetry of Nature resonates with many who seek to connect with the natural world for healing and poetic expression.
About The Poetry of Nature
As we turn the page to a new year, it is essential to turn towards our healing and well-being. We can do this by connecting with nature and the Earth. Like in Wagoner's poem, "I have made this place around you." That connection will guide us to our feelings, our wildness. This is the most important time in our existence to be doing this healing work.
The Poetry of Nature is a year-long opportunity to be supported in your exploration and practice of poetry and Nature through the dance of seasons; through moon's faces and phases; ebb and flow; dawn and dusk. Poetry writing and sharing offers us ways to know ourselves and the world; to find our truth, our voice. We invite you to discover the generative and healing powers of poem-making and to share this in the company of other like-hearted people.
Two things are true for this program: a.) in Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making, John Fox made a very conscious effort to include our relationship to the Earth, via the chapter "The Peace of Wild Things" as key to healing as a whole being, and b.) this program is part of a four-year unfolding IPM story called "A Year of Poetic Medicine."
This gathering is for all kinds of Nature Lovers: for those that are concerned about Earth's changing climate, and their place in it; for those who have the felt sense that things can be different; and for those who are ready to turn their hearts and minds to a new story.
Perhaps like us, you yearn for inner and outer stillness, and feel ready to lead a more spacious, intentional life. Your body is asking to be listened to. You are being called to live by heart, mind and soul. Poetry-writing and sensitivity to the natural world are open portals to this more soulful aliveness.
Through the monthly letters I offer poems, prompts, photos and reflection. I'll share what I'm witnessing in my "neck of the woods." Throughout the year participants will be encouraged to "stand still", to connect with their Nature and their wildness by attuning to their "neck of the woods" however that shows up for each person. The forest knows where you are.
This could mean deepening connections with a favorite nature spot, and discovering new ones. It could be your connection with gardening. It could be creating and maintaining a Nature altar. Nature and wildness can be as close as your pet, your house plant. Throughout the year, we will honor our connection to animals, birds, plants, and trees that share Earth with us. Together, we will explore and celebrate our inner and outer landscapes.
Sharing Our Connectedness
At no time in human history has the need been greater to connect with Nature. It is essential to our healing and well-being. The way to share our connectedness comes from being right where we are. Place can guide us to our native joy, our wildness.
When we look reverently at Nature and our locality, solutions present themselves, solutions which benefit us all. Earth is asking this of us.
Your contribution includes:
Monthly letters with poems, prompts, photos and reflections arrive the first Sunday of each month, February - November (past letters available to our later enrollees)
Year of Poetic Medicine Facebook Group to share your writing and engage with other in our supportive and safe Poetic Medicine community.
Join us!
To our new community members:
Look for future promotional communications regarding upcoming Poetry of Nature and other Year of Poetic Medicine themed offerings.
Poetography by NanLeah
My poetography is writing with light, poetry, and life; it allows me to focus close in.
With it, I nourish myself and others through Nature's miracles.
NanLeah and Geoff Oelsner
This program is an opportunity to be supported in your exploration and practice of poetry and creative writing. It offers a way to access the deep source of inner wisdom and love that is your truth. It is a way to bring forth your generative voice and to do this in the company of other like-hearted people. Healing is always the underlying current; poetry offers a way to know ourselves and the world.
We invite you to participate in our healing Poetic Medicine community! Your donation enrolls you in A Year of Poetic Medicine while directly supporting the work of the Institute for Poetic Medicine and our Poetry Partners around the world.
Poet, singer/song writer, environmental activist, and board member of The Institute for Poetic Medicine, Geoff Oelsner, will assist NanLeah in facilitating the group. Geoff will add a brief feature called "Attunements" to the monthly letters, offering stories, poems and songs of deep communion, or attunement, with aspects of Nature.
In our Year of Poetic Medicine Facebook community, we share your poems, reflections and photos. This year, let our community be a "neck of the woods" you can turn to, where you are seen, and heard. Come play with us!
Everything we do is by invitation. Please bring a willingness to be curious and receptive, to deeply listen and respond to yourself and others. No experience with poetry is necessary!
We look forward to this Year of Poetic Medicine and our healing journey together.
NanLeah was born into a military family and along with her 4-year tour in the U.S. Coast Guard she had opportunities to live all over the U.S. Along the way she fell in love with every landscape. For the last 22 years, she's sent roots deep into the dance of plants, animals and the birds that share their home with her. Home is the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula, an emerald land that has been a constant source of curiosity, wonder, astonishment, deep gratitude and love. Pluviophile, poet, photographer, self-taught naturalist, NanLeah weaves her hobbies together to share Nature as it's unfolding in her neck of the woods.
Geoff Oelsner has been an IPM Board Member for the past 9 years, offering seasonal workshops at solstices and equinoxes, support to the organization and to members of our cohorts, and assisting with our monthly Year of Poetic Medicine group. He practiced psychotherapy, music therapy, clinical hypnotherapy and massage therapy there for over 30 years before his retirement. Geoff's love for the earth coupled with a rich mix of experiences of "Attunement," or communion with nature, have led him to an awareness of our largely unexplored capacity to connect with and benefit our natural environment. His memoir A Country Where all Colors are Sacred and Alive, of non-ordinary experience and collaboration with Nature (2012) Lorian Press, affirms this vital capacity. To hear some of Geoff's recorded songs and see his poetry or to learn more about his environmental work you can visit his website.
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