{"id":1052,"date":"2019-04-09T01:46:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-09T01:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/?p=1052"},"modified":"2019-04-09T16:48:54","modified_gmt":"2019-04-09T16:48:54","slug":"unfolding-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/uncategorized\/unfolding-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Unfolding Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I&#8217;m on my two feet. I attempt to let go of any negative presumptions of the world around me and judgemental thoughts. I&#8217;m allowing myself to be engaged in the world around me. I hear my fellow peers laughing going down the gravel road, rain from the past storm dripping from the leaves to the ground, and the sound of a squirrel going up the tree. I unfold myself like I would a piece of paper; you can see where I am creased from being set in my ways before, and you can see where I am wrinkled up from damage that has been done before. I have scars, and I wear them like a trophy; it&#8217;s just like I won a war. I don&#8217;t try to hide them anymore, because in Japan broken objects are often repaired with gold. Nobody is ashamed of gold. I let myself be open, and I accept I am free. My past and medical records are something I can&#8217;t unsee. I acknowledge my struggles and bring them to the light. I&#8217;m allowing myself to be vulnerable in this moment, because before I hid behind doctors doors &amp; pharmaceuticals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Guilford Woods is my place where I am connecting with, and I&#8217;m connecting more with nature every day. Just today I found myself pausing even on the sidewalk because I thought the leaves blowing in the wind sounded beautiful. A few months ago, I would&#8217;ve been running to my car not paying attention. I&#8217;ve had this disconnection with nature I never really acknowledged because I was never connected in the first place. I have a rough health history I&#8217;ve had since a child. After you&#8217;re missing one and a half of your two kidneys, your parents want to keep eyes on you at all times. Everything becomes cautionary. Doctors are wanting you as a kid to stay inside the classroom or sit on a bench, while everything in me wanted to be like the rest of the kids. I acknowledge my health <g class=\"gr_ gr_1275 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del multiReplace\" id=\"1275\" data-gr-id=\"1275\">seperated<\/g> my own relationship with nature. So, I am finding ways to connect with the outside world at <g class=\"gr_ gr_1589 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling multiReplace\" id=\"1589\" data-gr-id=\"1589\">twenty one<\/g> years old. I may be off to a late start, but I think I have a pretty good excuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Connecting with nature also involves acknowledging what happened in my place before I got there. I&#8217;m taking a look at the history of my place, and I find information about the Quakers interesting. Quakers have found a relationship with Guilford Woods and The Underground Railroad. According to&nbsp;<em>The Guilford College Woods: Assessment, Planning, and Recommended Strategies for Preservation<\/em>,&nbsp;Quakers of Society of Friends had worry about the issue&nbsp;regarding the failure of ending the act of slavery; this was a big deal in the past and much disagreement was present. The clear light was given that slavery was <g class=\"gr_ gr_73 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_disable_anim_appear ContextualSpelling ins-del\" id=\"73\" data-gr-id=\"73\">in-humane<\/g> and they would not be part of this act.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m on my two feet. I attempt to let go of any negative presumptions of the world around me and judgemental thoughts. I&#8217;m allowing myself to be engaged in the world around me. I hear my fellow peers laughing going down the gravel road, rain from the past storm dripping from the leaves to the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/uncategorized\/unfolding-myself\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Unfolding Myself&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1052"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1054,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1052\/revisions\/1054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ds.guilford.edu\/classes\/english\/228-2019s\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}