So I have been lucky enough to have spent the last month on the beautiful island of Ibiza. Not as a crazy clubber (OK maybe one all-nighter!) but to sit in the nourishing space created by being in a reliably hot country- daily sea swims, feet in the sand, walking in shaded forests, delicious cold beers in the daytime and quiet moments to reflect and contemplate life, with only the deafening wonder of cicadas to break the silence.
There is a strong myth on the island that it has the power to welcome you or spit you out and from my limited experience there may be some truth in that. There seems to quite a divide between those who truly thrive there and those who do their best to survive, often eventually leaving despondent that it wasn’t quite the Utopia that had been promised.
I first recognised the island’s invisible power in my own visits. If I wasn’t properly grounded or I showed up a bit broken by modern life, I would get a migraine for the first day or two. It felt like a glitch in the matrix, like I needed recalibrating to exist harmoniously with the energy of the place.
This last visit I had time to reflect on what this underlying energy might be. How did she choose whether to allow you in or to spit you out? What was the criteria? I was fortunate enough to be doing a shamanic embodiment course during my time there so I was already invested in finding the answers through the Animist lens (everything is sentient and sacred) I was trying to cultivate.
And just like that it dawned on me.
As I felt into the true gratitude I have for the teas and for the Ibizan land, I realised they carry the same energy, the same power. There are spaces that naturally restore you just by being there, like mineral-rich thermal waters and similarly, there are herbal infusions that ease symptoms just by drinking them. These wonders of nature offer support in ‘bringing us back’ from below par, gifting their medicines without necessarily involving our deeper awareness, our deeper connectivity to the Earth we call home.
I realised both the teas we work with and the volcanic Ibizan island, while offering to hold us, also gently insist on our growth. Beyond fixing, they wish to expand us and help us thrive but it seems this requires us to meet them halfway, do some of the conscious growth work for ourselves. They are both fiercely supportive and guiding but wish us to collaborate in this great process of life by developing our awareness too, to match their efforts with our own so we might reach beyond just ‘par’.
So I now understand that to be a healthy part of the bigger ecosystem I must give and receive in a more equal way. It is give and take. We have reverence and wonder and gratitude to offer back, we only need to develop our awareness.
The natural world is truly a source of gifts, not ‘commodities’, but how can we receive what we need in a way that honours rather than plunders? The answer sits in this more balanced relationship with the non-human world, where the wonder and awe of living in such vibrant lands amongst all beings allows us to sit more comfortably in our true humanity. The Teas and the Ibizan land have shown me that their incredible powers, the ones I mentioned at the start of this newsletter, are here at this time in our history to help us wake up.
Wishing you all a wonderful August, full of holidays and sunshine (fingers crossed) and we look forward to talking to you again in September.