For many years, and even now, generations of black folks who migrated north to escape life in the south, returned down home in search of a spiritual nourishment, a healing, that was fundamentally connected to reaffirming one’s connection to nature, to a contemplative life where one could take time, sit on the porch, walk, fish, and catch lightning bugs. If we think of urban life as a location where black folks learned to accept a mind/body split that made it possible to abuse the body, we can better understand the growth of nihilism and despair in the black psyche. And we can know that when we talk about healing that psyche we must also speak about restoring our connection to the natural world.
bell hooks dropping bombs in 1994 in her book Sisters of the Yam.
I concur with her. Often when people tell me that I look very calm (despite the fact that I go through a very large amount of anxiety), I think that I explain this to connecting with the earth. I am down to earth. I like to contemplate nature. I grew up in the countryside before hitting the city lights and it never left my soul.
When things get complex (as they are in the city), strip it all down. Live more simply. It’s quite easy to do when you’ve been used to do nothing in the front yard, just being in the sunny wheat field.
It’s a lot harder when your life has mostly been about impressing folks around to prove your worth.
You are not a value. You are a conscious. A beautiful, deep, conscious. Connect with the earth. The rest will follow.