Nature as a Portal to Essence
One of the things I return to again and again in my work is the way nature helps us feel something directly that language alone often cannot reach.
The Enneagram is often taught as a system of personality, and it can be very useful in that form. But for me, it has also become a way of sensing deeper qualities of being. Beneath the familiar patterns of type are archetypal qualities of essence, and the natural world can become one of the clearest ways of encountering them.
Nature evokes essence.
I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the overlook behind my home has become a kind of backyard lab for this work. Rock underfoot, cool breeze, pine-fresh air, warm sun on the skin, and the wide openness of the ridge help me feel qualities that might otherwise remain abstract. What I teach has been explored and refined in that very landscape.
A mountain may call forth strength, steadiness, and grounded power. Fresh snow may evoke purity, clarity, and goodness. The open sky can awaken a felt sense of freedom and spaciousness. A forest may stir belonging, depth, beauty, or quiet wisdom. These experiences are not only poetic associations. They can become direct experiences of nourishment in the body.
This is one of the reasons I am drawn to an archetypal lens. The qualities we long for are not confined to personality theory or spiritual language. They are woven through life itself. They can be sensed through landscape, weather, rhythm, season, light, and the body’s response to what it encounters. Nature offers a living field in which these qualities become more accessible.
For many people, this is especially important because essence can otherwise remain abstract. We may understand an idea like peace, freedom, belonging, or strength, but not actually feel it. Nature can help bridge that gap. It gives us something immediate to relate to. Instead of trying to manufacture an inner state, we begin by noticing what is already being stirred in us through contact with the living world.
This also changes how I hold the Enneagram. Rather than approaching the nine types only as fixed identities, I am increasingly interested in them as universal patterns and qualities that can be recognized across human experience. Nature supports this wider view. It helps us sense the Enneagram less as a system of labels and more as a mandala of archetypal life.
One simple way of deepening this experience is through nature journaling. I do not mean this as a performance or an art project, but as a contemplative practice of noticing and recording what is being evoked. A few written reflections, a sketch, a list of images, or a description of bodily sensations can help anchor the experience. Journaling slows us down enough to stay with what the moment is offering.
In this way, nature journaling becomes more than observation. It becomes a way of entering into relationship with essence. We begin to notice not only what we see around us, but what qualities are being awakened within us. Over time, this can deepen both self-understanding and a sense of connection to something larger than the personality’s usual concerns.
For me, this is one of the most beautiful meeting points between nature, archetype, and embodiment. The natural world reminds us that wholeness is not something we invent through effort alone. It is something we learn to recognize, receive, and inhabit.
