Finding Myself in Nature: How Mother Earth Healed Me From Chronic Illnesses and Emotional Wounds
When I missed concerts and theatrical performances while sick with autoimmune diseases, the birds outside of my bedroom window sang to me. When my grandmother died, the creek near my place of birth held and rocked me on a fisherman’s boat as I grieved. When I fled to the tropics depleted from burnout, the sun revived my spirit and the ocean restored my body.
Pachamama, as she’s called in the Andes, or the Great Mother who comprises the cosmos and earth, has been supporting and nourishing us for our entire lives. Yet most of us rarely acknowledge her. As a result, we’re imbalanced, disconnected, and exhausted. Starved for her love, we seek it in food, relationships, careers, and material goods that leave us wanting more and more.
“But she gave you Lyme disease,” people who know my story question my devotion. A somatic psychotherapist and Master Reiki practitioner for 17 years, I understand the mind-body-spirit connection. So I explain that I was in energetic resonance with Lyme disease because of a lifelong tendency to help others in order to feel valuable. By rendering me mentally and physically incapable of resorting to old habits, Lyme pointed me to subconscious wounds and an opportunity not only to heal emotionally and spiritually but to lean into guidance and reparenting from the natural world.
Mother Earth did not give me Lyme disease—nor chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, neurological disorders, cystitis, or endometriosis. These chronic illnesses presented me with an opportunity to pursue a new level of spiritual mastery and to purge physically some of the trauma, pain and limiting beliefs of my ancestors.
For 30-plus years, I’d sought approval through physical appearance, acceptance by over-giving to others, and connection through excessive charm and wit. I repressed deeply-held sorrow by living a fast-paced, overfilled social life. Hitting a wall of debilitating physical pain, 70 lbs of weight gain, and an inability to stand for longer than five minutes drove away friends and ended a long-term romantic partnership. I faced my worst fears.
Too exhausted to socialize anyway, I sought counsel and companionship among trees, plants, and animals. They held space for me as I felt emotions long repressed. Persistent brain fog encouraged me to practice quieting my mind in their presence. Soon I began to perceive them communicating with me through images, feelings, and voiceless words. Not only that, I sensed their healing frequencies altering the electromagnetic field encompassing my body.
It took years to cultivate patience and trust in the healing process. Negative thinking and exertion of personal over divine will created most of my suffering. Begging and pleading with Spirit one evening while sitting beside the ocean, I felt enveloped with compassion. I looked out at the horizon. From the still point, where the ocean met the sky, words moved towards me.
“Come here,” she said. “Bring your awareness here.” Mama Ocean taught me how to access the zero point, from which infinite possibilities arise. But, she instructed, you must blend into everything, be nowhere and nothing. Stop struggling and let go.” Then as the sun began to peak above her waves, she said, “Now dream your dream without expectations of how or when it will manifest.”
From that day forward, I pretended for 20 minutes daily that I was floating on dark ocean waters, looking up at infinity and melting into the all-that-is. Then I’d imagine lighting a spark within, declaring, “I am healed” while feeling excitement and elation. Then I lived as best as I could as though there was no more disease, waiting for my outer world to match my inner energetics.
On a day I grappled with intense body shame, Grandmother Moon reminded me that all of the ways I adored her beauty were projections of my own. “I am your mirror,” she said. Likewise, Father Sun taught me to how to call on the frequencies of joy and laughter, filling my entire body until I’d giggle for no reason regardless of circumstances. Father Wind taught me to be brave when I nearly lost hope.
Pachamama’s teachings were delivered mostly with gentleness and sweetness. Because I was a student of Andean mysticism, two lessons came with a tinge of tough love.
My solo winter solstice retreat was cut a few hours short when a great apu, or sacred mountain spirit, chased me out of the Poconos with quickly overflowing creeks and roadways. Newly apprenticing to my shamanic guide, I asked Mt. Pocono what he was trying to tell me. “You didn’t ask permission to enter,” he scolded. He modeled healthy boundaries and taught me to hold my own in relationship to other humans.
Years later during a trip to Miami, I asked Mama Atlantic to heal my body. Of course she would but not without first stinging me ever-so-mildly with a disembodied jelly fish tentacle! For I’d known better after learning about the importance of ayni, or sacred reciprocity, and should have brought her an offering. I’d begun to feel entitled and could have easily brought her flowers. She then instructed me that it was time for me too to stop giving away discounted or free therapy sessions when I needed to better support myself financially.
The most profound transformation occurred in my darkest hours, when the long-repressed sorrow I’d held onto since I was the tiniest little girl finally rose to the surface entirely along with sobs so intense I could barely catch my breath. That’s when my entire community of nature helpers stepped forward without my invocation and formed a circle around me saying, “We love you because you are. We love you when you’re happy, when you’re upset, when you’re in rage, and when you’re behaving badly. We love you just because you are you.” I internalized their feelings towards me and was able then to love myself.
When I quit hiding my swollen body in shame and trying to please everyone around me at the cost of my well-being, I discovered a natural healing modality that muscle tested which organs and systems were struggling, which needed to be prioritized, and which natural remedies (food, herbs, homeopathy, etc) it needed and how much. At last, my body was being asked what she wanted and gifted with medicines from Pachamama herself.
I gave thanks to Fathers Sun and Wind, Mamas Earth, Moon, and Water, and received the nurturing and nourishment that finally cleansed me of the parasites, viruses, heavy metals, mold, fungus, bacteria, chemicals, and venom that had contributed to the longest initiation in my spiritual life thus far. As promised by Mama Atlantic, I am dancing, hiking, and swimming once again.
In the spirit of ayni, and in gratitude for Pachamama’s help, I invite you to join me for a Mother Earth Love retreat in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, February 22 to March 1, 2025. We’ll engage in ceremonies, ritual, and practices to bring us into right relationship with Pachamama, deepen our intimate connection to her, accept all of the love she holds for us into our hearts, and replenish our bodies and our spirits.
We’ll experiment and play and open to receive messages from the stone and plant people, two-, four—, and many-legged, and the finned, furred, and winged ones under the watchful guardianship of Arenal Volcano. And we’ll reclaim the joy, wonder, and deep peace that comes from living in harmony with our beautiful planet.