The Earth Holds Us, Too

Earth Day reflections from a woman becoming herself—quietly, wildly, and on her own timeline.

Lately, I’ve been spending more time outside. Not in any elaborate, planned way. Just… one chair pulled into the sun. A journal in my lap. No setup, no expectation.

And I keep thinking:
I didn’t know how much I needed the sky until I started looking up again.

There’s something about this time of year—early spring, when the air is still unpredictable and everything feels halfway between seasons—that makes my own in-between feel less lonely. The trail near my house is slowly coming alive, piece by piece. Buds hesitating, blossoms testing the air. The ground still soft from snowmelt.

It feels familiar.
It feels like me.

For most of my life, I’ve treated healing like a checklist.
Identity like a destination.

But nature doesn’t work that way.

It doesn’t rush to become.
It doesn’t ask permission to bloom.
It doesn’t apologize for resting, decaying, or taking up space.

And I’m learning—neither should I.

Trees don’t bloom every season. They shed, they go bare, they rest.
Wildflowers grow wherever they please.
Even decay becomes soil for something new.

The Earth is always becoming, without urgency.
And maybe I can be, too.

There is something sacred about slowing down long enough to feel the rhythm of it all—the way growth happens even when nothing seems to be changing on the surface. The way stillness isn’t stagnation.

I’ve spent so much time believing I had to hustle my way into wholeness.
That if I wasn’t moving fast, I wasn’t moving at all.

But the truth is, my roots have been growing quietly in the dark for a long time.
And now, I’m learning to trust that.

This Earth Day, I keep returning to the same thought:
The wildness I crave already exists within me.

I’ve just been taught to silence it.
To tame it.
To doubt it.

But look at the forest.
Look at the way everything grows differently, unpredictably, unapologetically.

The trees don’t ask if they’re doing it right.
The daffodil doesn’t need certainty before it blooms.

Why should I?

I’m starting to believe the Earth has been holding me all along.

Every time I’ve laid down on the ground and felt the weight of my own thoughts ease.
Every time I’ve walked a trail to clear my mind and ended up remembering who I am.
Every time I’ve let the wind pull something loose that I was never meant to carry.

We are not separate from nature—we are nature.
And the more I slow down, the more I remember that I belong here.

Wildness isn’t chaos.
It’s authenticity.
It’s trusting the timing.
It’s blooming when you’re ready—not when someone else tells you to.

Today, I sat on the ground with no plan.

I closed my eyes.
I breathed deep.
And I asked myself:

What part of me is blooming right now?
What’s still underground, waiting for its moment?

I didn’t need an answer.
I just needed to remember that I’m allowed to take root.
To grow slowly.
To become, without explanation.

So wherever you are—
This Earth Day, let yourself be held.

Let the Earth be your teacher.
Let the wind carry away what no longer serves.
Let yourself bloom, quietly, fiercely, in your own untamed way.