#sparkchamber 121222 — Vanessa Chakour
“You carry Mother Earth within you. She is not outside of you.” A truth spoken by Thich Nhat Hanh, the father of mindfulness, and lived by today’s #sparkchamber visitor Vanessa Chakour. Author, visual artist, herbalist, holistic arts educator, former professional boxer, and environmental activist — Vanessa’s work is a dynamic fusion of vast personal experiences over the past two decades. Rooted in the belief that healing happens through reclaiming an intuitive connection to ourselves, the natural world, and our own “inner-wild,” “Nature as Self is at the core of my work.” Her teaching and work experience span herbalism, nature connection, boxing, meditation instruction, writing, and visual art, “these are all practices that have helped me heal trauma, peel back layers of conditioning, and connect more deeply to my animal nature.”
Vanessa authored Awakening” Artemis: Deepening Intimacy with the Living Earth and Reclaiming our Wild Nature — a healing resource that blends practical plant-based knowledge with spiritual reconnection to show how respect for and communion with our natural world guides us toward healing — and founded Sacred Warrior, a multidisciplinary educational and experiential “school” offering plant medicine, wildlife conservation, and therapeutic arts through courses, workshops, and retreats. “I’ve been curating and facilitating rewilding retreats, workshops, and classes through Sacred Warrior for over a decade, working and teaching in partnership with organizations like United Plant Savers, the Wolf Conservation Center, The Jaguar Rescue Center in Costa Rica, and Alladale Wilderness Reserve https://alladale.com/ in the Scottish Highlands.”
Understanding that everything is Interconnected, that disrupting the life-purpose of any living being disrupts our own, that every being has a purpose and values their life, that diversity is essential for healthy ecosystems, and that the health and well-being of the earth and our own health and well-being are inextricably linked, is foundational to living in harmony with nature. “The faster we come to understand that we are nature and not separate from the web of life, the better off we’ll be as individuals, and the better off our shared home, our planet, will be.”
Vanessa is currently working on a new book with the working title is Earthly Bodies: Embracing Our Animal Nature that will be published with Penguin Life next year. We will let you know when it is available. In the meantime, follow along @vchakour on Instagram.
1.] Where do ideas come from?
Writing and visual art have always been my way of downloading experience and understanding what I feel. My work is inspired by the living Earth and my wild relatives [plants, fungi, other animals], by bizarre nighttime dreams and everything that connects with me emotionally. I often write from where the ache is.
2.] What is the itch you are scratching?
I would say that my writing centers around relationships. Relationship with my animal body, my loved ones and the living world around me. I write to deepen intimacy with it all and to remind others that we are all related.
3.] Early bird or night owl? Tortoise or hare?
My writing flows best first thing in the morning, ideally before or as the sun rises. I love the quiet, the new beginning. If I take that time in the morning, my creativity seems to flow better throughout the day.
4.] How do you know when you are done?
I feel it in my body. I just know. There is no more energy there, nothing more to mine, no more lines to add. I have said what I need to say.
