Soul of the sky; Feet of the earth; Head above water; Heart in the sea A #CUWild Story

“The closer you get to real matter, rock air fire and wood, boy, the more spiritual the world is.” – Jack Kerouac

Nature has always served as external connective tissue between my head and heart; a fulcrum of balance in my life. When I was small it saturated my existence with color through pockets of still intact family trips to the jungle, the mountain, and my ultimate favorite – to the beach (as we lived very close there in Hawaii). As an adolescent I made pilgrimages into the creeks and valleys surrounding an uncle’s property in northern California, packing snacks and water to fuel my journeys through the woods that made me feel as if I’d been gone days rather than a few hours. As I got older I was fortunate enough to get to immerse myself in horses – trail rides and quiet space with my best friend (a bright bay quarter horse named Jet) being my solace and purpose (other than academia) through moves, family separation, growing pains, heartbreak, and deep dark struggles with depression. Lord knows where I’d be without these strongholds.

Hikes, a trip to the Grand Canyon, and exploration occasionally peppered my life until I moved home to Hawaii following college graduation to become a caregiver for my terminally ill and estranged father in his final months. I was present for it all. The ocean was the place my mother and I returned to in those last days to sort through the enormity of mortality and death’s struggle, dissolving for brief mindful moments in the outdoors, just as we watched our footprints do in the sand. After he died with us on hospice care, my best friend and I established a ritual of exploring a “new” corner of our island home each Thursday. Adventure Thursdays stretched from north shore sun and saltwater drenched sessions to waterfall swimming and traversing to Haleakala at sunrise or sunset. We saw and explored it all, coming to see and feel appreciation for the backyard we grew up with and were finally and truly experiencing.

In those initial, fresh months of grief and confusion, those days kept me going. I immersed myself in those unadulterated moments in nature, beginning to let go through the inner and outer adventurings and allowing myself to feel both lost and found (depending on the day). Graduate school, coming less than a year after that, became a time in which I have felt the most lost… but it is nature that has enabled me to find myself. Through sunset runs, yoga amongst the trees, canyon hikes, and simple moments sitting in sunshine. Nature has allowed me to reconnect with that feeling in my bones that I am a part of something larger, with a wholehearted purpose, a part of the universe in ecstatic motion. To refer to Max Ehrmann, no less than the trees and the stars, I have a right to be here.

For some it’s the mountains. For others the desert, the lake, the stream, the snow. For me it’s strongest at the ocean. It’s where I feel the divine connection between who I was, who I am and who I aim to be. Honoring the past and feeling hopeful about the future but blissfully content in the present. At peace in the vivid turquesa and melody of waves in my ears (the lullaby of my childhood). Tied to the saltwater in tears, shed in both happiness and grief as we are tiny vessels carrying seawater from the ultimate source. The sea acts as a great mirror of our truest soul – which is, in itself, a gift. The ocean taught me how to drown in things bigger than myself. To be humble in knowing that home is within my own heart and under the stars rather than in a person or foundation of concrete or plaster. Of simple happiness. Nature itself has taught me that I belong even when I don’t feel like I do because I am provided for and that there is strength in my heart bigger than any depression. That just like an oak, my foundation is not built on artificiality or deficiency. But that at the same time I am not exempt from bending and breaking. Beautifully, also, being able to burn, break apart, repair, and grow green and strong in the most broken of places, holding the capacity to heal from the darkest of personal tragedy. To dissolve into something beautiful and complete and greater than anything we as humans can comprehend. To just be.

Never underestimate the power of nature to remind you who you are. In it not only am I am found, I know with my soul that I was never in fact lost. Nature provides [the best lessons]. To quote Rudolph Steiner (because I clearly really, really love quotes/the written word) of these lessons:

To wonder at beauty,
stand guard over truth
Look up to the noble,
resolve in the good
This leadeth us truly,
to purpose in living
To might in our doing,
to peace in our feeling
To light in our thinking,
and teaches us trust
In the working of God,
in all that there is
In the width of the world,
in the depth of the soul.

Kim Schulz ’12


 

 

Kimberley Schulz graduated with a B.A. in psychology from Chapman University in 2012. After working for a year at home on Maui in Hawaii doing animal-assisted therapy with residents of hospital and nursing home settings she was accepted to doctoral school in San Diego, California. She currently resides in La Jolla and is in her third year of graduate studies in Clinical Psychology, interning at UCSD’s Moores Cancer Center Patient and Family Support Services and serving as a research assistant and TA for a professor in the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP). She is writing her PsyD dissertation on self-compassion and resilience. At Chapman, Kimberley was a founding member the University Programming Board, served as the Vice President of the House of Representatives, was a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority, and President of the Panhellenic Council. In her free time, Kim can be found doing yoga, running the beach or trails at Torrey Pines, taking aerial classes, meditating, or capturing moments of light with her iPhone camera.