Dosing myself

It never ceases to amaze me how profoundly healing living simply and close to nature can be.

We have an entire movement of Circadian Biology preaching-folks born out of necessity since many of us have detached ourselves from nature and our inheritance as humans on this earth.

We’ve lost the ability to commune with trees, embrace seasonal cycles and heal ourselves with the plants that surround us.

Many of us our turning back now and even some do the science is coming with us.

We don’t really need scientists or experts to tell us that going to sleep when the sun goes down and waking when it rises is the best thing for us.

We don’t need a research paper to tell us that the sun feels restorative and deeply warming when we are sick or that walking barefoot on the beach is therapeutic.

I don’t need science to teach me that fresh air is best, that being cold for periods of time is healing and that sweating is also beneficial. These things just feel good and right.

My brain is hardwired to know that a fresh apple is healthier than processed and preserved apple sauce sitting in plastic on a shelf in the store for six months and that fresh bread baked with fresh-milled flour is how bread should be.

My heart feels more full when I hold animals and children than when I hold my phone.

My body feels more balanced when I live in alignment with the natural world around me.

YET, there is some programmed part of us that has been deceived and re-calibrated to forget these things, to believe in artificial lights, late nights, cheap eats and the fulfillment that comes from Target shopping sprees.

How do we combat that?

Nature.

The more time I spend in nature and let it bathe me with its God-given beauty, the more I see and feel truth.

The programmed parts of me disintegrate and I willingly shed the excess and lies I have accumulated in life.

As I stop shaving my body and covering it in or filling it with wisdom-disrupting chemicals and leave cultures-norms, narratives and standards behind, I more deeply align myself with His simple design and it feels good to dose myself with healing created in the very beginning of all things.

It’s beautiful to me that God has spoken through His creation and not just His word.

He loves me through trees and kisses from little lambs. He hugs me with the warm sun and cleanses me with sweat.

He restores me with the sound of a creek trickling in a warm summer day and the bathes me in rain sound baths.

He speaks to my being when the breeze brings relief on a hot day in August or the cold ground in March invigorates my whole self.

There’s so many Believers that fear nature, appreciate it only in its most tame and curated forms, Christians that distrust their bodies, isolate themselves from natural experiences and forget about seasons and cycles.

Some even go so far as to demonize dirt, consider childbirth and menstrual cycles unsanitary, paganize the intelligence of water and scoff at the language of the stars.

When was the last time we heard a sermon preached on Job 38 or 39? Psalm 19? What pastor is willing to address how God references constellations and the Zodiac in Job 38:31-33 or how the voice of the sky declaring God’s glory is heard throughout the earth?

We live in a wild and wonderful world and the agendas to disconnect us from nature come straight from a wicked adversary, one who despises and seeks to pervert God’s handiwork at every turn.

Meanwhile our Father has made it all for us and declared it “good”.

7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;

8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.

9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?

10 In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.

Job 12

Xoxo,

Sarah

I pretty much hate apps and rarely download any.

My phone is used as a phone and for texting.

I use Telegram with my two dear friends and one dear sister, the navigation app, Spotify for worship music and jams, notebook for writing and record keeping and the Substack app.

I no longer have email on my phone and I have no notifications on.

I hate to be tied to it.

I hate the pressure to “text back” or answer.

What can I say, I grew up in the days of landlines.

If you call someone and they were on the phone, the line was busy.

If you called and they were out, oh well you’re out of luck.

Shifting away from working online I have slowly weaned myself off of the phone being an appendage and I still have a ways to go.

I will say I do enjoy the Substack app.

It’s lovely and has some cool features. Writers can publish long form posts, but also notes and chats. It’s the only modern technology that feels reminiscent of a newspaper and also, the contributors have to write and it’s not very focused on video content, which is nice.

Enough with the reels already.

I don’t benefit in any way. I just like it.

https://open.spotify.com/track/0tQIMYnVPvE9tPIj0eiTG9?si=6Afm1axNQS29ccJf7QFrEQ