You drive out of town, away from the neon hum of business and entertainment, and the road begins to twist and climb. Fields roll past, mountains breathe on the horizon—some of the most ancient mountains in the world. A gravel road greets you with horses, donkeys, and late-summer wildflowers: goldenrod and Joe Pye.
The climb grows steeper. You can’t see what lies ahead. A small fear stirs—Perhaps I’m lost, perhaps I’ve gone the wrong way. Then a sudden blind turn heightens the anxiety. But soon the ground levels, the trees part, and the horizon unfurls into something vast and alive.
If you pause—if you really arrive—you’ll notice nature begins her conversation immediately. The air has a taste, the silence has a sound, the stars themselves seem to gather here at night. The lack of cell service is not a flaw, but a feature. Here, absence becomes presence, and distance dissolves the noise.
At first, you may think: This is so far away from everything I need. I thought that too. I couldn’t imagine living here—giving up conveniences, trading speed for stillness. But live here long enough, and the reverse is revealed: town begins to feel barren, far away from everything you truly need.
The earth has a way of stripping us down. I resisted. My fingernails were clean. The soil was something to outsource, landscaping an annoyance. I felt placed into this world, not grown from it. But after years of inner turmoil, I found myself gardening. Kneeling in the clay, I saw it differently. It felt different in my stained hands. I smelled the earth, and in that moment remembered my true Mother—not the one who bore me, but the one who bore all of us. From that recognition, everything has grown.
Since then, without ever enrolling in a class, each element has stepped forward as teacher. Earth showed me my roots, reminding me we all come from the same Mother. Water revealed fluidity and persistence—taking the shape of what serves, flowing around the rest. It taught me that only stillness clears the water. And when I endured a storm that swelled the rivers, wiping out towns, I realized that nothing resists water for long. Fire I am only beginning to befriend, already bringing with it passion, transformation, and awe.
But my closest companion now is the night—once something to avoid, once replaced by the glow of a screen. It has become a confidant. In its silence I find peace. In its darkness I see landscapes lit by the full moon, so beautiful they refuse capture by film. I suppose that makes me a proud lunatic. And when the fireflies mingle with the stars, when they streak and shoot across the sky, I am reconnected with civilizations of the past—who too looked up in wonder and found themselves reflected in that endless, ancient mirror.
And isn’t it marvelous—that what we once called “far away” becomes what is closest of all? That what we feared as silence reveals itself as the deepest music? That what we thought of as “lost” turns out to be the very way home?
So it is with the elements, and so it is with life. We are not strangers here. We are not visitors. We are the land, the water, the fire, and the night—rediscovering ourselves by remembering what we never truly lost.
I challenge you: befriend the elements. You don’t have to live in the wilderness to start the relationship. At first, it may be a long-distance connection. But if you listen closely, it will grow into a new type of love.
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