Subtle Lessons From Nature with Deb Matlock

My natural rhythms is to not be buried in stuff. You know, all of a sudden, then my Saturday becomes cleaning and organizing my house as opposed to sitting outside nature, journaling or going to the nearby lake or, you know, spending more time growing some food or something like that, you know, whatever it might be for each of us. It's like when our possessions own us. One thing that I get curious about is how does it remove us from our sense of self in the natural world?

Say more about that. How it removes us from our sense of self. I love where you're going with this.

Yeah, I think it's. It's something, you know, and I've noticed in my own life as I've gotten older and I've. I've been in the same place now for 16 years. And, you know, being in one place, it is easier to gather things than if you're moving, like, younger adulthood. When I was moving more frequently, there was more of a purge cycle built in, you know, and it sort of sometimes starts to feel like, okay, how much do I want my time to be spent vacuuming, dusting, cleaning, organizing, doing this, that or the other? How much of my time do I want to spend picking out clothing as opposed to having a smaller number of pieces that I love, feel really good in, feel professional, in, fit my lifestyle so that I can just go right into my closet and not think, you know, how much time do I want to spend on these things, managing my things?

Wow. How much of my precious time do I wanna spend managing my things? That is powerful because time itself is an illusion, right? We have the present moment, and nobody knows beyond that present moment what they have.

You know, that is exactly it. And I think that. It's like. I think of that, some. That kind of concept, that. That very universal concept for all of us. None of us are getting out of this alive. So that's the fact, right? And so then I stop and think, okay, so with the time that that's there, you know, what. And because we don't know, and I mean, I'm. You know, we've probably all lost people. And I know in the last couple years, I've lost friends of mine that are my age, you know, to sudden health issues that nobody knew were there. Kind of on a dime, you know, these two people and I. Both of them, it hit me really hard. And I remember thinking, you know, here I am focused so much on this or that or organizing this, or why don't I go sit outside and appreciate that I am physically here on this earth. Today, right now. And I'm gonna go enjoy even 20 minutes just being here on this earth today, right now, and not being owned by stuff, you know, and then I think within that, there's a spectrum of where people fall, because I also know that part of some of my passions require some stuff. Like, I love art. I need some art supplies. You know, a tiny house probably wouldn't work for me because I love having animals. I have a friend for whom a tiny house is perfect, you know, So I think within that, we can also be. We can also find our mirror in the natural world, too. You know, there are animals that, like, you know, pikas here in Colorado that live at high elevation. They gather herbs, and they store them in their rocks for the winter, and they have little pantries and they, you know, and it works, you know, and it's not the same as another species that maybe doesn't save anything, you know, and we can ask ourselves, you know, where on the spectrum of. Of this do I fit? That allows me to be in that authentic place with myself, but doesn't have me being overrun by things that don't fit my life anymore. And I think if we. If we look at the world around us, we can find our mirrors there.

You. You mentioned animals again, and the pika, and it made me think of the squirrel that you referred to just a little while ago, the squirrel that was, you know, finding a lot of food in the leaves and storing some things and sometimes forgetting where he or she stored the food. And then maybe a tree growing or something else happening. And often with our things, our beloved clutter, we'll tell ourselves, well, I can't just give this to a donation center. I have to give this to the right person. I have to find the right person. Months and years will go by while we store our things because we have this thought which I believe is mine.

Clutter.

That I have to find the right person. And yes, it is always wonderful when you have that perfect thing for that person, and it's just. And they're so excited. And that is. That is really, really fun. However, often we will store so much, so much for so long because of this, and we pay the price, right? We. We feel heavy. Our homes feel heavy. And so I go back to that squirrel who sometimes forgets about the food and then a wonderful, beautiful tree growing. And that, to me, is permission that wherever it lands, it gets to be the right place. Wherever it lands, in terms of the clutter, in terms of the stuff that we don't have to find. The right person that we get to believe that wherever it lands, that that is the right place.

Oh, I think.

What do you think about that?

That is so beautiful. And what I love about that is it brings up another, I think, way that we're part of the natural world, which is this, this collaborative way of being, you know, where it's, it's. It's sort of like the human ego that says, I'm going to control everything. I'm going to know who gets every one of these items and I'm going to, you know, and sure, we may have that special family heirloom that we want to make sure goes to somebody, but that's like the few between from what most of us have, you know, but if we think of ourselves as a collaborative sort of cog in a wheel like the trees and the flowers and the birds, they're probably not all sitting there with a big concern for the role they're playing. They're playing their role, you know, and if our role is to get rid of some of our stuff and take it to our library or our donation center or the church garage sale or whatever it is, we've chosen all of these things. And what's so beautiful about the world today is there's so many ways to take our clutter, put it out into the world in a way that benefits organizations or other groups. You know, like, one of my favorite places to donate is to the wildlife rehabilitation thrift shop that was in my community because the donation goes, they'll sell my stuff that I don't need and it supports wildlife rehab, you know, and I love that cycle of giving back. And I think that if we, if we look at our stuff as part of the give back, that way we can also be very conscious about where we take it too. We can be like, oh, this food pantry in my community is having a garage sale so that they can buy more food. That's two weeks from now. I'm going to have a goal of having a car load to take to them before that sale. That's how I kind of do it. I look at what are the things going on that I want to use as my. And then they give me motivation. Like I need to have my books done by this date for the library. And it gives me a little bit of a boundary around what could go on for, like you said, years. Because also a lot of us have a lot of other things that are really important. And so if I have a pile of emails or two hours of working on clutter, it's hard sometimes to say, I committed this time to working on my bookshelf. That has to be what I do. Barring an emergency email is not really an emergency. You know, I have to get out of my own way there. So sometimes having the choice of I want to support this fundraiser by this organization can be really helpful. And then it connects us to the natural world if we find those organizations or our communities. You know, we're supporting the world that we're part of.

Supporting the part of the world that we're part of. I think that's what you just said. Supporting the world that we're part of. That. That is a beautiful reframe. And it's permission to let go. Just let go. And that it can feel. It can feel right and light.