I Know Where To Go When I Need To Heal

Out of my head and into nature

I have half jokingly told people that my ideal situation would be to live in the forest with strong WiFi, great coffee and no bugs. Having lived in a few large cities—Los Angeles, São Paulo, Madrid— I can confidently say that I strongly dislike city life though I love its conveniences. I’m human—I’m allowed to exist in this contradiction.

For now, the way my life is set up, I make it a point to go into nature as often I can in big and small ways. When I lived in Madrid, I used to sit at the park with my guitar and sing with the birds. Now that I’m based in Trinidad, I go outside to our garden after spending long stretches at the computer, and I’ve started ‘river hunting’ with my new friends. I’ve previously shared about how I often receive songs while sitting under a tree and, beyond that, I do my best music production work when I’m outside, toes in the grass.

As such, it’s no wonder that my newly released album, the river whispered, incorporates all the sounds of nature in which I find solace

Photo by Marlon James

A dear friend once told me that after her journey through the Appalachian Trail, someone pointed out to her that now she knew where to go when she needed to heal.

When I lived by the river at the time the river whispered was seeded, I wouldn’t have said at the time that I was looking for anything. I really just wanted to get out of Madrid—out of the city and experience something different from my own life. Into nature where I could breathe.

It wasn’t until the following year that I properly, undeniably, learned that nature is my sanctuary, my hospital and my pharmacy. That year was weird. We were in the early days of figuring out a new normal, I wasn’t quite satisfied with my teaching job, and I now understand that I was totally disconnected from myself and my body.

On my way to the low point that led me to write Out of My Head (another story for another day), I cobbled together the second version of Tea With Mara which remains one of my favorite songs. It’s the song that explicitly told me to go into nature.

“In the woods, you will find me

In the shade and the shadow, waiting patiently

In the pain and in the monster,

we’re just a part of your tapestry”

The speaker in the song is…someone else. It could be my “higher self”, the spirit who walks with me, or even my future self—I’m not particularly sure but I trust her wisdom. I heeded the advice and two weeks later I set out to walk 160km / 100 mi of the Camino del Norte, which is one of many routes of the Camino de Santiago.

Camino De Santiago, Northern Route (País Vasco), 2021

I’ve since then learned that I don’t need to hit rock bottom to go into nature. In fact, it’s more healthful to go into nature regularly. This can be as simple as sticking my toes in the grass for a few minutes after hours staring at a screen, and can be as epic as taking trips into the forest for days on end with very little technology on my person.

By the time this reaches your inboxes, I will be walking 280km / 173mi of the Camino Portugués, a route of the Camino de Santiago that begins in Porto, Portugal. I haven’t hit rock bottom, but I’m withdrawing into nature and walking in honor of what I lost in the last few years. A funeral is for the living, an act of remembrance. And closure. This is what I need.

This song, This Experience is Human, illustrates all this. It visited me yesterday as I walked 21km through a forest in the Portuguese countryside.

I’m coming to terms with the fact that the years I spent living in Spain were seminal. I met some beautiful, life-long friends and through the pandemic I had the space to complete my debut album. And that was also the loneliest time of my life for a variety of other reasons in addition to the pandemic.

Two years since my final surgery and the final doctor’s appointment after a harrowing 7 month experience with the Spanish medical system, I finally feel like myself again.

It took me making an album to clear the river which given me the capacity and presence to finally look back at what happened with clarity and compassion. I rivered myself back to myself by around traveling my home region and creating music as medicine for myself. I continue this process of rivering by doing this walking pilgrimage for the next 2 weeks.

On the full moon, the river found me on the Camino Portugués

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Sprinkles from the River:

🍃I invite you to support the album by giving a listen when you have a quiet moment, preferably with headphones, and sharing your favorite song with a loved one. You can find it wherever you get your music.

🍃if you can, support the album via BandCamp, which is a platform that directly and equitably supports musicians. This also helps me support the beautiful folks who helped me make the album

🍃there is unlikely to be a June newsletter as I will still be backpacking in Europe and my goal is to be fully present

🍃my newsletters will now be monthly. I have a number of “tree songs” that have been simmering since the time of my injury, and I’m ready to share them exclusively on Substack over the second half of this year

Thank you for you support, in all the ways.

~Feroza