where do you find your god?

we spend so much timing looking upward, when the answer often lies at the root

Years ago, i was able to create from the cavity of a place; a place of destruction, of turmoil, of loss. I lived in the pain cave. now, i create from the stillness, a place of center. when i’m at emotional capacity, i’m unable to build. it’s impossible to paint, to write, to explore the insides or the outsides. intellectualizing my way around it proves to be non-viable, and so i have learned to sit with it. and when i sit with it, my mind often wanders back here.

where do you find god?

i’m not sure i feel comfortable using the term god. why does it feel so limiting?

source energy? divine? universe? higher self?

what form of divine energy creates the innate knowing of our heart to pump blood throughout our body? or for the intelligence plants hold when growing towards the sun? perhaps its a universal source found in the connection of all things.

perhaps its the same source artists discover through flow state. in the acts of surrender.

for me, it’s always been here— the outdoors, the natural world, the place where mankind hasn’t poked and prodded and taken from. it’s here, in the cathedral of the woods. on the bark of the 3,000 year old tree. there is nothing here—fourteen miles deep in the redwood forest— that does not feel aligned with the divine. we walk, the four of us, silent… a pause so deep and so genuine that no silence has lingered the same since. the trees, towering some 350 feet above our head, creak and groan as they sway; a sound so loud and foreign that is almost unrecognizable. how can we be so far removed?

the trees stand, witnessing us. centuries old, standing in solidarity– there before my birth and surely there long after i’m gone. as they should.

but perhaps the most magnificent thing about these redwoods isn’t what is above our heads. we spend so much time looking up, up, up– not from the center, not from the ground.

we walk and i look down at my feet. my hiking boots step firmly on the moss-covered ground; how below them lies an entire underground connection of magic. these redwood trees have shallow roots, only penetrating some 5 feet below the surface. the only way they’re able to hold upright at their height and power– is through the collective community. each set of roots spreads for miles, intertwining with the network of trees surrounding them. this is the magic of the circles, of the groves. an interwoven community, held firm through divine connection. how could we have forgotten this?

And still, underground, we can go deeper, learn more. It is against all human nature to look away from the sky. we long to be in the stars, learning about distance universes and planets— dreaming up all of the ways we can create life on mars. So much of our attention is diverted upward, needing to grow, to leave, to expand. but beneath us lies a network of wisdom so profound and connected… one we often turn away from. why are we so quick to reach outside of our selves? to ignore the root of it all?

What separates my body from these trees? from these spaces that are filled with ancient wisdom? perhaps the cultural barriers we’ve constructed. the ones that tell me my body is meant for taking, for the other– that i do not have jurisdiction. the barriers that purposefully define my nude form as something separate, something shameful. my body was meant to be here. with the gods.

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photos by Lindsey O’Sullivan