When the Forest Got Our Backs

The Wound Is Where the Light Enters

“I said: what about my eyes?

He said: Keep them on the road.

I said: What about my passion?

He said: Keep it burning.

I said: What about my heart?

He said: Tell me what you hold inside it?

I said: Pain and sorrow.

He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”— Rumi

Rumi's poem again recently, standing beneath the forest canopy, and it felt like the forest whispered it back to me.

Working with the land—clearing, tending, creating space for others to find stillness—has been both an act of devotion and surrender. In preparing the Homestead for our latest Nature and Forest Therapy training gathering, I realized how sacred it is to create a container for people to be brave, to feel, to rest, and to be held by Nature herself.

As guides, we bridge the human and the more-than-human world. We hold space for transformation—not by fixing or forcing—but by allowing. In doing so, my own heart opens a little wider each time. The forest keeps teaching me that holding space for others is also how I heal.

The forest keeps teaching me that holding space for others is also how I heal.

I’m proud of what we’ve created here: the land, the training program, the shared laughter, the tears, the quiet awe. Everyone left with that post-retreat glow, and even now, the energy still hums through me. It’s a soft kind of joy, the kind that rejuvenates instead of depletes.

Now, as I shift back into planning and dreaming, I carry Nature’s gentle reminder: don’t work yourself to death—let life work through you.

I am deeply grateful—for my partner’s steadfast love, for my family’s help, for this growing community, and for every wild soul who steps onto this land and leaves changed.

Here's a video showing a glimpse of our retreat:

Thank you, from the bottom of my wildflower heart. 🌸