Dust and Tribe is proud to feature this guest post by Safiyyah, a young woman who found herself in the woods of North Carolina. You can find her on Instagram (@outdoorwildlings) where she hopes to document her adventures, share her discoveries, and learn from others with the intention of inspiring her visitors, especially young women, for whom nature offers a special resonance and peace.
I grew up in the place that people picture when they think of the city- New York, the Big Apple herself.
I can’t say that I hated it at the time because it was all I knew. But I always remember being drawn to the landscaped trees on the sidewalk, to the blocks of green stamped into parks from Astoria to Central, to Washington Square and all the little spots in between.
When I was little I would pretend to camp out in my living room every time we had a blackout, and I would hunt my stuffed animals because I needed meat to survive. This was my childhood, a city girl dreaming to be free. Dreaming to be wild.
At the time this lifestyle was but a fantasy. I couldn’t really imagine that I would ever have the opportunity to actually live it.
So where did I come from? Nobody in my family really camps or forages or hunts. Everyone likes nature, but not many people are in love with her the way that I am.
My childhood was, to put it simply, not easy. To explain those circumstances would take chapters, but what I can say is that it took a toll on my faith, and I lost myself for a while.
Then came time for college, and while I had plenty of options to start my undergraduate education in NYC, I moved to North Carolina instead. There were numerous reasons why I insisted on making this move, and one of them was to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
This move absolutely and completely changed my life. I had the chance to gain independence, to explore, to meet people, to adventure, and to find myself again.
Outside is where I feel closest to God. There is nowhere I feel like I want to become a better Muslim, and therefore a better person, than when I am outside in nature. Surrounded by God’s creations, I can watch them all interact with one another. I can observe how animals move and live, and learn about the bounty that grows out of this earth, and feel the vulnerability of the night, or huddle around the safety of a fire, and in the morning watch the sun rise to welcome another day.
Sometimes it’s not easy. There are nights when it’s cold, days that are scorching hot, and times when the fish don’t bite, but the mosquitoes do. There are thorns that prick, plants that make you sick, and others that make you itch.
But there is also the unbeatable satisfaction of the berries you find on your walk, and even the ones you grow in your garden. There is the blessing of fishing and hunting for your own meat and being directly connected to your meal. It is one of the most refreshing feelings in the world to know that not only did you find, identify, track, outsmart, hunt, kill, or process your own food but also that it has not been sprayed, altered, force-fed, mistreated, cooped up, abused, injected, or whatever goes on in those large corporate farm factories.
I believe it is important for everybody to be connected to his or her food, whether through foraging and hunting, through responsible farming, or just truly being in nature. If we understand the balance of it all, the night and the day, the winter and the spring, the plants that help and those that harm, the predator and the prey- then we can learn to balance our own lives. We can learn to appreciate the busy and the calm, the excitement and the peace, the ups and the downs, and most importantly we can learn that life can only come from another life.
And this life deserves respect, in all of its forms.
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