The Call To Come Home

The Call to Come Home

There are moments when something reaches out and touches us so deeply that we don’t know what to do with the feeling.

For me, it was a series of photographs of women in flowing gowns standing on a wild, misty coastline in the Pacific Northwest. Beautiful, yes. Magickal, absolutely. But what stopped me in my tracks wasn’t the beauty. It was recognition.

Something ancient stirred in me. A feeling I’ve known my entire life but haven’t always known how to name. A longing that isn’t about travel or fantasy or aesthetics, but about home.
And not the kind of home with walls and addresses. The kind of home that lives in the body.

When Nature Feels Like Home… But You Can’t Reach It

Here’s the part many of us don’t say out loud:

Even when we know nature is where we feel most at peace, most ourselves, most whole…sometimes we can’t bring ourselves to go there.

We stay inside.
We close the door.
We scroll, distract, dream.
We ache.

And then we feel confused. Or ashamed. Or broken.  …at least I do anyway. 

Why can’t I just go outside when I know it heals me?
What’s wrong with me?

I’ve asked myself these questions for years.

I live near water. I know the forest calms my nervous system. I know my soul exhales when I’m surrounded by trees, animals, wind, and quiet.

And yet… I’ve spent long stretches of my life feeling unable to access it.

Not because I don’t love nature.

But because loving it means feeling, and feeling hasn’t always been safe.

This Isn’t Laziness or Failure

It’s Protection

What I’ve come to understand…slowly, gently…is that this isn’t depression in the way we’re often taught to label it. And it isn’t unworthiness in the sense of “I don’t deserve beauty.”

It’s something deeper.

Nature asks us to soften.
To drop the armor.
To come back into our bodies.
To remember who we are when we’re not performing, producing, or proving.

And when you’ve lived for years in survival mode…carrying responsibility, grief, self-doubt, exhaustion…that kind of softness can feel threatening.

Not because it’s bad, but because it reminds you of what you’ve been missing. 

So instead of going there, we dream about it. We imagine cottages in the woods. Lives lived slowly. Animals, moss, fog, quiet mornings. A version of ourselves that breathes again.

Dreaming keeps the thread alive without forcing us to cross the threshold before we’re ready.

The Fear Beneath the Longing

Under the beauty… there is fear.

Not fear of the forest.
Not fear of the ocean.

Fear of what happens to us when we remember who we are there.

Because once you feel that sense of home again, you can’t unknow it.

You start asking questions: 
Why have I been living so disconnected from myself?

What would have to change if I honored this calling?

What parts of my life might no longer fit?

That’s a lot to hold.

So we pause.
We stay inside.
We wait.

Not because we’re failing, but because we’re standing at a threshold.

This Is a Remembering

The reason certain places call to us over and over isn’t because they’re beautiful. It’s because they mirror us.

Wild places don’t demand we be anything other than what we are. They don’t rush us. They don’t judge our pauses. They don’t require explanations.

They wait.

And when I imagine myself walking a black pebble beach or standing beneath towering trees, I don’t feel like I’m escaping my life. I feel like I’m being called back into it.

Back into my body.
Back into my breath.
Back into a truth that has always lived inside me.

This isn’t about recreating a moment captured in a photograph.

It’s about answering a quiet, persistent call to come home.

If You Feel This Too

If any of this resonates with you…if you’ve felt the pull, the ache, the fear, the confusion…please know this:

You are not broken. You are not behind. You are not failing at healing. You are remembering. And remembering doesn’t require action right away. It requires permission.

Permission to want this. Permission to grieve how long you’ve been away from it. Permission to be afraid and listening.

Nature isn’t offended by your absence. The forest isn’t withdrawing its invitation. The ocean isn’t keeping score. It’s waiting without urgency.

And so is the part of you that knows exactly who you are when you’re there.

With Love and Magick,
Christine

Aralani Photography (thank you for your gentle reminder and inspiration to explore what my soul remembers) You can find her on Facebook and Instagram