Creation: An Invitation to Love
Kelly Cochran Cohlman
To write about love of Creation could easily be an ode to the beauty all around each of us, all the time, in millions of ways. For me, that beauty calls to me to come in. An invitation. Know me. Remember me. We’re long-time friends. Soul mates. Feel those invisible threads tugging? We are not separate.
My senses thrum with that beauty. Not only the grand, sweeping vistas or sunsets at the beach so many may easily point to, but everywhere, all the time. A nut shell, discarded by a squirrel, stepped on or over or past, filled with mud holds the shape of a perfectly-formed love heart inside. The electric greens of growth, the colors we can’t reproduce.
I walk out into the woods; my body is my vehicle. What works is good. Messages I receive back from time outside in the natural world are reflections of health and well-being. What is working? How well?
Things that do not occur to me: How does my body look to others? Am I enough? No labels. Trees don’t need to be “right.” They don’t appear to recognize my need to be right, either. Between trees is a safe space to realize I may actually have been really, rather wrong. I have found unconditional love in those spaces.
Part of my love of Creation is obviously that I am better able to access and love myself when I’m in an embrace with Creation. Illusions of separateness feel so much thinner. Metaphors work for me often much better than direct language, and what grand metaphors there are out there!
We may not look at the face of God, but we have this incredible “reflection.” Creation, for me, is a way to access the Divine.
My first inclination is to say my love of Creation is purely selfish, merely feeding my own good feeling. But, perhaps it’s better named as gratitude. The invitation to better know my own true self, the lens with which to view and to connect with the Divine, the opportunities to co-create — how could I not be grateful for supporting my body, an earthly home for my soul, and for opportunities to nourish and grow that very soul?
Of course, the human body is made up of Creation. Our bodies become new things when we are done with them just as the bodies of others built ours. The authors of children’s books and scientists agree, we are made of the very stuff of stardust. Humans and their galaxy have about ninety-seven percent of the same kind of atoms, in fact. Delicious connection.
I further sustain my body with Creation. Beautifully-colored fruits and vegetables I’ve nurtured in pots and garden plots become feasts that fuel my life in many ways. The garden is my happy place. Cooking is an act of self-care and love.
The rhythms of Creation are a symphony whose Composer is always accepting apprentices. The invitation is open. And, I love it.
Kelly is into her fifth decade as a freelance renaissance woman. She especially appreciates good food and time alone, both preferably outdoors.