Your Body Is A Landscape

Writing prompts for your inner wild

The weather this summer has been turbulent — rising heat indexes, floods and heartbreaking wildfires. We are feeling the overwhelm of climate change in every part of our body. We are nature, after all. Our bodies are living ecosystems; reflections of Earth and ecosystems that surround us. And it is important that we check in with the landscape of our bodies, too.

Our inner landscapes evolve through our unique experiences and the ways we handle them. They’re formed by our ability to maintain boundaries, let them dissolve at the right moments, and rebuild them when they’ve been crossed without our permission. Our personal narratives and stories shape and influence our inner ecology, the way we see the world, and how we interact with everything in it.

For these reasons and many others, writing has been essential for me. Through writing I’ve become aware of stories and belief systems that deplete my wild nature. When I reveal them on the page, I begin the slow process of revision… and restoration.

We shared the following writing prompts in a recent Rewilding Through Writing class and what came through for students (after 10 minutes of freewriting) was revealing and absolutely beautiful.

If you’re still reading, take a moment to scan these prompts and if they resonate, I encourage you to set at least 15 minutes aside in a quiet place to listen to your body and free-write.

First, take a moment to become still and breathe. What are you feeling? Tune into your body and imagine your feelings and sensations are inner landscapes:

What do these landscapes look like, feel like?
Are the lands lush or depleted (or both)?
Are there a variety of ecosystems?

What is happening in your inner environment?
Are fires raging (is your body hot and dry or do you feel quick to anger)? If so, are they healing fires (burning away detritus, honoring boundaries)?

Do you feel parched or are your rivers and streams flowing freely?
Is the landscape of your body overly manicured or flourishing with wildflowers?

Set a timer for a minimum of 10 minutes to tune in and write stream-of-consciousness about what you find.

Photo by Bobby Stevenson on Unsplash

When you’ve exhausted the writing-exercise above or feel finished, you may want to tune in again and ask:

How can I restore my inner ecosystems? How can I tend to areas of excess or depletion?

How can I rewild my body? 

Set a timer again and download the intuitive, instinctual answers that come to you.

When we get quiet, check in with our bodies, and write from their perspective, it is amazing what we can reveal.

I leave you with one of my favorite passages from Women Who Run With The Wolves:

“The body is like an earth. It is an land unto itself. It is as vulnerable to overbuilding, being carved into parcels, cut off, overmined, and shorn of its power as any landscape. The wilder woman will not be easily swayed by redevelopment schemes. For her, the questions are not how to form, but how to feel. The breast in all its shapes and sizes has the function of feeding and feeling. Does it feed? Does is feel? It is a good breast…

There is no “supposed to be” in bodies. The question is not size of shape or years of age, or even having two of everything, for some do not. But the wild issue is, does this body feel, does it have a right to connection to pleasure, to heart, to soul, to the wild? Does it have happiness, joy? Can it in its own way move, dance, jiggle, sway, thrust? Nothing else matters."
~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves 

Would love to read what came up for you. Feel free to share your writing or experience the comments. And if you’re interested in joining the next Rewilding Through Writing class, you can now register for autumn here. Once you do, contact me with your vision and intention for our work together.