INDY OFFICINALIS: We enter the cool, quiet shade of the woods. The ground becomes soft and moist. The noise of the outside world drops away. I sense the kids notice the change too. I explain how the mushrooms seem to love the leaf litter that gathers where the oaks and the pines come together. Pretty soon I realize that these kids are into this. Like, really into this.

ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: As a child, Indy Officinalis looks to nature for comfort, in a world that regularly makes her feel like an outsider. It’s her private place to feel less different. But, as you’ll hear in this week’s story, an unplanned nature walk with a band of misfits opens Indy up to the idea that nature is a home for us all — a place that erases our differences and opens up connections.

In this series, we combine immersive first-person stories, breathtaking music, and mindfulness prompts so that we may see our lives reflected back to us in other people’s stories. And that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives.

From WaitWhat, this is Meditative Story. I’m Rohan, and I’ll be your guide.

The body relaxed. The body breathing. Your senses open, your mind open, meeting the world.

OFFICINALIS: I’m standing on our back porch, surveying the yard. The sun-drenched lawn stretches away from me on a downward slope. It’s just grass, grass, grass, then suddenly the woods. A big stand of old deciduous trees. Sturdy oaks with outstretched branches. Thin little dogwoods. There are even a couple sagging willow trees. That’s how our street — Willow Street — gets its name. 

Everywhere I look I see green. I breathe in the earth and dirt so close by. A grin spreads across my face. 

I’m 6 years old, at home in North Carolina. And I love playing outside. Compared to our little house, our yard seems huge. It takes me 30 cartwheels to get from here to the trees. No matter what’s happening at school or in this new town we just moved to, this yard is my sanctuary. 

I run down the slope, feeling the dewy grass under my feet. I stop short. In the far corner near the tree line, there are berries I’ve never seen before — heavy bunches of shiny, dark red berries. They hang from vibrant pink stems. Without thinking, I reach my hand out and pick one. I’m always picking berries and leaves and flowers and feeling them between my fingers. Seeing how they work on the inside.

With a slight pinch of my thumb and forefinger, the berry pops. The deepest, darkest magenta juice gushes out. It’s sticky, with the faint smell of pumpkins. It stains my hands like crazy. “Whoa,” I say. I’ll eventually learn these are pokeberries. They’re really common here.

I turn my hand over, palm facing down, and methodically rub the berry juice on each of my fingernails. The stain sets in immediately, bleeding over onto my cuticles and fingertips. An adult might say, “what a mess.” But to me it’s exactly what I need.

I’m obsessed with colored fingernails. When I’m out shopping with my mom, I see women with pink, gold, and purple nails so pretty and bright. I assume all these ladies were born with them. I don’t understand why I was born different, with boring, plain fingernails. I worry that something’s wrong with me. 

That’s a feeling I have a lot these days. I’m awkward, quiet, sensitive. Occasionally, when I do say something, other kids are like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know you could talk. And it makes me feel even weirder. 

I look down at my red fingernails — freshly painted with the pokeberry juice, and I smile. Now my nails look the same as everyone else’s. Thanks to these plants, I don’t feel so different anymore. 

All the kids gather at the picnic tables under the huge pavilion in the park. The air is thick and humid, like dog breath. But it’s nice in the shade. Some girls who just finished playing foursquare grab a deck of cards and start playing Speed.

I’m 8 years old. This is my summer day camp. We spend all afternoon in the park, playing games, running around in the grass. I love it. We only stop here at the pavilion when we need shade or snacks. 

Sitting at a picnic table, I watch two girls having a conversation. I want to be involved, but I’m not. By the time I think of something to say, it’s too late. They’ve moved on. 

A small commotion breaks out at one of the other tables. A kid named Joseph digs his hands into a plastic bag. He’s giving out candies — Sour Patch Kids. Everyone swarms him. I’m a huge fan of Sour Patch Kids. 

I hurry over, holding out my hand next to the other kids. But when Joseph gets to me, he gives me a look and shakes his head. “I don’t give candy to your kind,” he says. 

At first, I’m confused. Then I look down at my hand next to all the other hands and I understand what Joseph means. Our town is predominantly white. My mom is Black and my dad is South Indian. I’m bi-racial. Some kids and even adults make it clear that they don’t want people who look like me around. The few Black kids at my school say I act and talk white. And there are definitely no Indian kids. I’m already so shy. Where am I supposed to fit in?

Joseph turns to the next kid and hands him a piece of candy. I drop my hand and turn away. I don’t want to be here anymore. 

Without thinking, I walk away from the pavilion. I head across the large grassy area at the center of the park. 

This is where we play games at camp. But right now, no one else is around. It’s just me. A breeze blows across the lawn. The blades of grass dance in the sunlight. I kick off my shoes and feel the cool dampness underneath my bare feet. 

I scan the ground, looking for dandelions. I like to pick them using only my feet. I find one with a nice long stem and puffy seed head. I slide it between two of my toes. With a gentle tug, it comes loose from the dirt.

I lift it with my hand and hold it close to my face. I see how the little seeds cling delicately to the stem, ready to fly off at any moment. I take one slow easy breath.

When I’m out here, doing my flower thing, I’m not thinking about the mean things kids say to me. I’m not thinking about that deep sense of awkwardness and otherness that hangs over me at school. I just let myself feel this connection to these plants. 

Just like when I’m in my backyard, picking pokeberries, building forts, or catching crawdads, nature comforts me. There’s nothing in this field that’s telling me I’m wrong or that I don’t belong here. I just wish other people could see that too. 

GUNATILLAKE: Right now, how can you sense nature? It might be a tree out the window. A sound of a bird from afar. A feeling of cold air on your face. How is nature here for you? What feelings come up when you acknowledge its presence?

OFFICINALIS: From behind the podium, my eyes scan the old, stuffy auditorium. Rows of creaky chairs filled with students and faculty. Walls lined with little wooden plaques, each displaying the names of graduates dating back to the 1800s. This big room feels so claustrophobic.

I clear my throat, look down at my notes, and try to remember how to start.

It’s my senior year at an all girls boarding school in North Carolina. The speech I’m giving today is part of my senior project. We write these big papers and then present them in front of the whole school. Needless to say, I’m nervous.

My school is small. I’m able to go here because I get a scholarship. Other girls are here because their parents paid to have the library rebuilt. There aren’t any teachers or coaches at this school that look like me. Most of the Black people I see are on the cleaning staff. 

At first, I try to be outgoing. Try to be cool. Try to not be the weird girl anymore. 

But mostly, I escape into books. I read Into The Wild and Walden and essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I write poetry about the thing I love most nature. And when it comes time to write my senior project, I make my topic: humans re-connecting to nature. I talk about how unnatural it is that we live in these confined spaces. We wake up in a square, work in a square, travel home in a square. 

Standing at the podium, I try to gauge my classmates’ reaction. Are they thinking this is weird? There goes that strange girl with dreadlocks again.

Before I know it, I’m out of notecards. The presentation is over. People are clapping. 

For the rest of the day, other students come up to me and say, “That was amazing!” “Indy, that was really good.” “Your speech was the best.” It feels so good. They really connected to what I was saying.

Nature is something that feels so private to me. It’s always just been my thing. But maybe there are ways that nature can be a bridge to other people. Like, it can be a connection point for people like me who feel separate. Unconnected. 

The screen door shuts with a bang. The smell of pine fills the air. I look out into the forest, at the trailhead nearby. I’m 22, working as a camp counselor in western North Carolina. 

It’s been a long afternoon of teaching. I’ve been showing my class how to make terrariums. Now that the day’s over, I’m looking for some quiet time. And I know I’ll find that in the forest. 

As I head toward the tree line, I stop. There’s a group of about five girls and one boy standing just off to the side, clearly waiting for me.

“Can we come with you today?” I study the face of the girl. She has cropped brown hair and wears a black choker necklace. She and the other kids have noticed that I always go for a walk after class. 

I hesitate. The woods are my secret place. I kind of want a break from 13-year-olds. What if they get bored and start making fun of me?

But they look so hopeful. This camp is for kids in the foster care system. Kids from tough situations, without a lot of stability. Their home lives are hard to explain, so they usually just keep them a secret. A quiet knowledge that they’re different from other kids. I know they could probably use a break, just like me. My mood softens. 

“All right,” I say. “Come on, I’ll show you how I find the best mushrooms.”

We enter the cool, quiet shade of the woods. The ground becomes soft and moist. The noise of the outside world drops away. I sense the kids notice the change too. I explain how the mushrooms seem to love the leaf litter that gathers where the oaks and the pines come together. I know a bit more about the science of nature these days. I take naturalist classes, herbalism classes, read endless field guides. I know the names of so many plants and trees. How they interact with each other. I know if I spot a trillium bloom, that’s the earth saying, hey, there might be morel mushrooms nearby.

The kids start hunting around on their own. “You guys are so much lower to the ground,” I joke. “You’ll find all the little ones that I miss.”

But pretty soon I realize that these kids are into this. Like, really into this.

I see the girl bend down in a shady patch on the forest floor. “Look, Indy! I found some!” Sure enough, there are the signature yellow curls of the chanterelles. They look like little hats. “Good job!” I say.

She is beaming. She reminds me of me at her age. Quirky. A vegetarian. Cares about animals. I know she’s been bounced around to a few foster homes already. That she doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere. Always an outsider, with secrets of her own.

I didn’t have the same struggles these kids have. But I’ve always felt different. Whether it was because I was quiet, or Black, or a woman, or a nerd. We’re all misfits in our own way. And out here, none of that matters. They accept me and I accept them. 

We’re an awkward group of ragtag weirdos in the woods. But out here, we all belong.

Nature is equalizing. We’re all just humans. But, it can be hard to see that when we spend our lives moving from one little square to another.

I want these kids to have what I have — to feel like the woods are always home. And that they can find sustenance here when there isn’t enough food at home. I share all these little techniques for finding berries and greens that I had growing up. The things that helped me imagine myself in a little world full of dandelions, pokeberries, fairies and rocks. A world where I belonged.

The sun catches us as we take the narrow path back to the dining hall. I slow for a moment to look up at the canopy of radiating pines. I feel so lucky to be right here, right now. This feels different from when I would go out to the woods alone. This feels like more.

Families are unstable, people change, homes change. But nature, as long as we protect it and appreciate it, is pretty much always there for us. It persists. We can all be weirdos in the woods.

GUNATILLAKE: Our lives can be so dynamic. So let’s take a moment to enjoy the stability nature provides. The comfort that we can lean on. A force we can always tap into when we’re feeling adrift.

OFFICINALIS: My fingers dig into the soft soil, making little depressions to plant the pepper seedlings. I press down, feel the dirt give way. Smell the sharp, damp earth. I gently place the seedling into the hole, making sure it’s not too high and not too low. 

I look up and smile at the man kneeling next to me. He’s lining up his seedlings with mine.

His name is Pepper. Pepper is a staple of Skid Row, the community in Downtown Los Angeles, where I’m helping run a rooftop garden. My first day here, he tells me, “Anything you need, I totally got you. If anyone messes with you, tell ’em Pepper has your back.” Skid Row is part of a large network of makeshift encampments and temporary shelters for unhoused people. 

But this rooftop garden is like an oasis. We’ve set up large, repurposed animal troughs, filled them with soil and annual vegetables. We’re up above the noise of the street, the cars and the trash trucks. The tall buildings of the LA skyline tower above us, but plenty of sun shines through.

I first come out to Los Angeles for a workshop, see the rooftop garden at Skid Row, and fall in love with the place. All my friends are like, do not go to Skid Row. That is a terrible idea. And I’m like, no, you don’t understand. This is what I do. I know it’s my life’s work to connect with nature, and to help others do the same. These are people who need nature the most. 

For all its deep challenges, Skid Row is a community. People barter and trade and find sources of water and cook over open flames together. It’s amazing to see how nature persists. People persist. 

Pepper gently lifts a seedling out of a tray. His arms are tan and tattooed and his hands are rugged and weathered. He has small fingernails and his skin is cracked. As we plant together, he tells me about his childhood. How he grew up with a racist father and decided that living on the street was better than living with him. Then he cracks a joke. Pepper is hilarious. And wise. I love growing food with him. 

I look at my hands in the soil, next to Pepper’s hands in the soil. It feels like such a visceral connection. The paths that led us here are so different, but right now, we’re so much alike. We’re in nature. Learning. Working. Together.

For so long, I thought of nature as my own private escape. The place I could go to soothe myself when the world felt confusing or when I felt bad. But nature is a home for us all. It erases our differences and creates space for us to bond and connect. And nature exists wherever we need it. In the woods. In an urban garden. In the little dandelions pushing their way out of the sidewalks. We always have access to that sense of belonging. And it only gets stronger when we share it. 

Rohan’s closing meditation

GUNATILLAKE: Thank you Indy.

As it happens, I’ve been thinking a lot about urban gardens recently. We’re looking to move house and having the space to grow beans and berries and bok choy is one of the things on our checklist. Oh, and trees. Trees to host the treehouse that the kids endlessly chat about of course, but also to provide shade and to help us remember that things take time. So, inspired by my recent reflections and Indy’s story of course, let’s do a short meditation together, shall we?

When I think about nature being a home for us all, the image that comes to mind is a tree. A particular tree. It’s a java fig tree. It’s in Peradeniya Botanical Gardens in Sri Lanka, a stone’s throw from where my mother went to university. And it’s enormous. It covers a massive area, its boughs magical. 

Holding it in my mind, I’m reflecting on its qualities. It’s scale. It’s ability to shelter so much life. It’s longevity. The delight and curiosity it evokes in all who see it. Drawing people from across the Gardens, bringing them together. A majestic magnet. 

And I also think about which of those qualities I’d like to express in myself. I’ll choose scale. So I imagine spreading out across the space that I’m in. Not just in my body, but through my action and my influence. Being more java fig tree.

Feeling stable. 

Dynamic, but steady.

Feeling connected.

And connecting others.

When I see myself as the java fig tree, so many of my other qualities are stripped away. Those things that separate me from others, that make me feel different. When I’m more tree, I’m a part of something bigger, something for all of us.

Now it’s your turn.

Bring to mind something in nature that you find inspiring. Animal, plant, anything really. As long as it has meaning for you.

Visualize it or bring it to mind in whatever way works.

Reflect on its qualities, what makes it amazing, including how it supports or builds community, and see if you can express some of those qualities in yourself right now.

Whatever that might be.

Give it a go, however silly or abstract it seems.

I hope to be more tree. What will you be more of?

And as we move into the week ahead, let’s remember our wonder of nature. I’m going to print out a picture of that tree and stick it by my desk. Let it inspire us in the days ahead.

Thank you Indy, for inspiring me. 

And thank you. Go well.

We’d love to hear your personal reflections from Indy’s episode. How did you relate to her story? You can find us on all your social media platforms through our handle @MeditativeStory, or you can email us at: [email protected].