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Last month I shared how my mom was my original teacher in The Art Of Nurturance & Nourishment. (flower gardener, hostess of women’s gatherings, and the ever flowing heart of our family). This month, I’ll share with you what I’ve learned from my LEGEND of a dad. He’s an anomaly but only those closest to him really get to see him in the fullness of his character. One of my favorite stories he’s shared with me is what he experienced when he hitchhiked to the commune in upstate NY where he ended up meeting my mom. He had grown up just outside of NYC and had been studying pre-med on his way to becoming a doctor. He was just a few credits away from graduating, when he had some sort of spiritual emergence/emergency, dropped out and let go of the path he’d been on. This was in the ‘70s. Hippies were hippie-ing! and my dad was INTO IT! He met a group of hippies in an NYC park, dug their vibe, and decided to go visit them where they were living upstate. He hitchhiked 4 hours north, was dropped off in the middle of nowhere and started walking the mile(s) up a big hill to the property where the commune was communing. He’d grown up in the city, and now, he’s standing there, in the middle of a dirt road, surrounded by pristine forest. His backpack drops to the ground and he meets: Perhaps The Most Spiritual Experience Of His Life. It was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Profound, Sacred, Magnificent, and Mystical. An experience of Arriving. Landing. Connection. Belonging. Aliveness. He has been in a deep and reverent relationship with Nature ever since. FOR THE RECORD- he hasn’t told me this story in years, and I’m putting ALL of these words into his mouth (only few of which he would use himself, but he says the same stuff in his own way). I love how vividly this image remains in my own mind, of him in his mid 20’s, surrounded only by nature for his first time. I can see it, I can feel it, and I know it in myself…cuz about 10 years later, I was born in the house my dad built with his own hands and best friends, out in the country surrounded by trees. He’s a real wood guy, man of the woods. It goes like this: Mom’s Garden, Dad’s Woods. He is a woodworker (cabinet maker turned woodturner (wooden bowls are his thing). He sells and mills specialty lumber. He chops all of the firewood that keeps them warm all winter long in upstate NY. If you go for a walk with him, he’s mostly looking up, checking out the trees.
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