Naturally, with Rachelle Robinett

Welcome to the final session in this series of readings from Naturally—and the chapter about pleasure: Lifting Spirits.

Pleasure as the biology of desire—how hormones and neurochemicals shape craving, and how we can meet those needs more intelligently.

I’m sharing one reading per week, which will also serve as a sort of workshop on herbalism for pleasure. If you have a copy of Naturally already, please grab it and join me! If you don’t yet have a copy, I’m offering a deeply discounted price here for Substack readers ($19.99 only here, only this month). Feel free to share it with friends, and invite them to join us too! :)

Between readings, I’ll be here to answer your questions in the comments.

This series is free. Naturally is where it all goes further.

Thank you for being here! If this reading inspired you, please share it!

Warmly,

Rachelle

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Journals from the Jungle—stories from my recent travels, drawn straight from my journals. These reflections trace a return to an embodied, authentic self through nature, adventure, rest, and the unraveling of old beliefs. Along the way, I explore freedom, pleasure, love, and the strength that comes from shedding what no longer serves us—offered in the hope of inspiring a more vital, freely lived life.

2:30 a.m. I wake up and look for him. No. I feel so sad. But, I shouldn’t at all. It’s just a day, but I do—as if, or because, it could go like this. He could just quit me.

I sent his photo to my friend. She said, get out. You have the same smile. I’m not allowed to be heartbroken until he gives me a reason to be. Believe the positive fantasy, which is still just as real as the alternative. Trust the past.

I cry on the beach this morning because I see this place that I had yearned for so desperately, and I’m on it, in it. I walk home on the sky. I think: I was right. In this—not void, but froth.

I feel myself being a vessel for experience. These lows are what I put myself through in order to have the highs. It takes a lot of endurance, courage, pain, tolerance—but it’s worth it. It feels very helpful to recognize this moment as that.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to session #3 in this series of readings from Naturally—and the chapter about pleasure: Lifting Spirits.

Pleasure as the biology of desire—how hormones and neurochemicals shape craving, and how we can meet those needs more intelligently.

I’m sharing one reading per week, which will also serve as a sort of workshop on herbalism for pleasure. If you have a copy of Naturally already, please grab it and join me! If you don’t yet have a copy, I’m offering a deeply discounted price here for Substack readers ($19.99 only here, only this month). Feel free to share it with friends, and invite them to join us too! :)

Between readings, I’ll be here to answer your questions in the comments.

This series is free. Naturally is where it all goes further.

Thank you for being here! If this reading inspired you, please share it!

Warmly,

Rachelle

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to session #2 in this series of readings from Naturally—and the chapter about pleasure: Lifting Spirits.

Pleasure as the biology of desire—how hormones and neurochemicals shape craving, and how we can meet those needs more intelligently.

I’m sharing one reading per week, which will also serve as a sort of workshop on herbalism for pleasure. If you have a copy of Naturally already, please grab it and join me! If you don’t yet have a copy, I’m offering a deeply discounted price here for Substack readers ($19.99 only here, only this month). Feel free to share it with friends, and invite them to join us too! :)

Between readings, I’ll be here to answer your questions in the comments.

This series is free. Naturally is where it all goes further.

Thank you for being here! If this reading inspired you, please share it!

Warmly,

Rachelle

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to my series of readings from Naturally—and the chapter about pleasure: Lifting Spirits.

Pleasure as the biology of desire—how hormones and neurochemicals shape craving, and how we can meet those needs more intelligently.

I’m sharing one reading per week, which will also serve as a sort of workshop on herbalism for pleasure. If you have a copy of Naturally already, please grab it and join me! If you don’t yet have a copy, I’m offering a deeply discounted price here for Substack readers ($19.99 only here, only this month). Feel free to share it with friends, and invite them to join us too! :)

Between readings, I’ll be here to answer your questions in the comments.

This series is free. Naturally is where it all goes further.

Thank you for being here! If this reading inspired you, please share it!

Warmly,

Rachelle

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Journals from the Jungle—stories from my recent travels, drawn straight from my journals. These reflections trace a return to an embodied, authentic self through nature, adventure, rest, and the unraveling of old beliefs. Along the way, I explore freedom, pleasure, love, and the strength that comes from shedding what no longer serves us—offered in the hope of inspiring a more vital, freely lived life.

June, 2024

With tears in her eyes, and then in mine, my best friend tells me, finally, that she’d never seen me in love with my ex-husband. Then, she says that she’s in awe of me—not proud, per se, just totally and completely in awe of how I redirected my life, and transformed yet again. “You live here now,” she whispers with glee. We reflect on how the old relationship made me feel safe, which was rehabilitative, but ultimately required the sacrifice of what I most needed in order to be happy. Which, for most of my life, I thought was freedom. But as I write this now (December, 2025), I believe may no longer be the case. It may be, rather, that what I sought was to be in love again. With my lifestyle (because I was in love with my life), with myself, and because it is truly incomparable: with another person.

We reflect on how safety and certainty are not the same thing. This is a topic I’ve been exploring with my therapist for years—the relationship between freedom and stability; motion or growth, and security; independence and merging. Ah, merging. (There is so much more about that to come.)

We …

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

With tears in her eyes, and then in mine, my best friend tells me, finally, that she’d never seen me in love with my ex-husband. Then, she says that she’s in awe of me—not proud, per se, just totally and completely in awe of how I redirected my life, and transformed yet again. “You live here now,” she whispers with glee. We reflect on how the old relationship made me feel safe, which was rehabilitative, but ultimately required the sacrifice of what I most needed in order to be happy. Which, for most of my life, I thought was freedom. But as I write this now (December, 2025), I believe may no longer be the case. It may be, rather, that what I sought was to be in love again. With my lifestyle (because I was in love with my life), with myself, and because it is truly incomparable: with another person.

We reflect on how safety and certainty are not the same thing. This is a topic I’ve been exploring with my therapist for years—the relationship between freedom and stability; motion or growth, and security; independence and merging. Ah, merging. (There is so much more about that to come.)

We …

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

My god, the sea bass. Every time, I swear. I’m feeling better this evening. No particular reason—just letting it all flow. I send a friend a voice-note and realize that I sound stoned, my voice is so low and slow here.

I recall a recent kiss goodbye and how he whispered “be good” as he traced a fingertip lightly down my cheek before turning to leave. When will I see him again and how will it be? Who else will have come and gone by then?

This dense little town with its heavy jungle, thick with secrets. Does anyone already know anything about me?

I’m thinking about men. About one, who was …

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

My god, the sea bass. Every time, I swear. I’m feeling better this evening. No particular reason—just letting it all flow. I send a friend a voice-note and realize that I sound stoned, my voice is so low and slow here.

I recall a recent kiss goodbye and how he whispered “be good” as he traced a fingertip lightly down my cheek before turning to leave. When will I see him again and how will it be? Who else will have come and gone by then?

This dense little town with its heavy jungle, thick with secrets. Does anyone already know anything about me?

I’m thinking about men. About one, who was …

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

Late-June-ish, 2024

I’m thinking about how much perspective this place gives me in terms of what matters and doesn’t, regarding work and projects and making art, which may also just be exercises in filling the void. (Meaning: What once felt so important, when seen from above or beyond, appears to be pointless. I told this to a friend in New York—that I wasn’t sure if I cared about making anything anymore—and she looked horrified. But, I thought at the time, isn’t the point of life to simply live it?)

I do feel like I should just write and write and write. Live and write.

When I wonder about (tbh worry about) the potential of the sheen of this place wearing off I recall that 1. The people who live here all do so by choice, 2. They don’t want to leave, like ever, and 3. They (and I) appreciate living in paradise so much that they live by the phrase pura vida, and others like “too blessed to be stressed” and hashtag-grateful. The effect of this place is so great that it almost forces that mentality. Also, could I ever take any of this for granted after being deprived of it for so long? And: Nature is novel, and this place will always change so … there probably isn’t anything to worry about. I can always move on again should I desire. I keep in-mind the local perspective of not knowing what’s on the next page.

Someone in New York asks me what I want and all I can think is, “I don’t want to come back.” They’re trying to make sense of what I’m doing and I think to myself, I have no idea. But I am so absolutely certain—maybe even more certain than I’ve been about anything in my life—that whatever it is, it’s right.

I’m so curious how …

… this chapter will end. Just under one month remains.

I make myself rest, dozing in the liminal as I so often do in these hot afternoons after surfing and showering. I make love to myself. I look at the date for the first time in some time. I watch sunset—mesmerized by the molten light and lavender blush that my phone camera is incapable of capturing. I visit the tree I’ve planted and see it growing happily. I stay offline. I notice how, for someone with senses like mine, and for those who really pay attention, this place is an endless feast. The pastel mists over the jungle-drenched cliffs—the warm breeze, the severity and delicacy … A butterfly joined me on my last wave today. Intensity and fragility: crushed crabs, washed ashore coral still teeming with bodies, ravenous waves that also whisper into light at another tide. Extremes.

It is so good for me. I can only imagine how much literal and figurative life this single stay has given me.

I feel a swell in my chest as I reflect on all of this: The beauty of this place, the adventures with strangers who’ve become new friends, the surfing, the whole damn thing. Body, mind, spirit … I have crawled into its embrace and allowed myself to be thoroughly enveloped. And so much has transpired. Years in a month. A decade in two. A lifetime in three. I feel full, but not to capacity; I want more. And more I’ll have. Because there is more yet here. And more yet of me to give (away) in order to discover, to undo, to become, to be.

What gratitude.

The next evening: A large storm rolls in and knocks out the power again. I note how comfortable I feel about that now, though I still need to get candles and a good flashlight for my house. I revel in the disconnection, in the darkness. Outside, thunder and lightning overlap each other, shimmering the sky, pouring rain, and whipping the palms. Then, as it clears, the dusk sky just flickers and rumbles. I love being forced to live according to the weather. I simply watch it—peaceful and content—my music playing softly in the background.

I’d ask if this whole thing were about freedom, but I know it’s so much more than that. I’m excited for my naked coffee morning with the hummingbirds tomorrow, and one last day of solitude before my friend arrives. After that, just a bit more time before I return to NYC …

~

Interesting morning, emotionally. My hormones make me heavy, I think, and susceptible. Also, everything out here does. I make it to a new beach for a tree-planting session and it’s so beautiful. Jungle cliffs shrouded in mist over white sand and turquoise water. I plant slowly and more than once, tears well up in me—as well as startlingly strong emotions: a wave of depression, a moment of some unhinged mania, brief and sharp, as if my mind is lost. I think, because I have so thoroughly shattered all of what was, so completely cut the cords of all that I was and existed within so recently that I am … other now, and unformed, malleable and oscillating, not yet reassembled. Maybe I am no one today, or maybe I am someone else, or maybe I am just myself.

Planting trees while covered in dirt and sand and sweat, surrounded by land—by nature and its wild forces—I am on my hands and knees in more ways than one, bowed as if at some altar …

I feel the farthest away from “everything” that I have yet. My waves of sad-ish emotion may also be grief, for having been away from this kind of living for so long, or for what I’m going to give up in order to live into this, or even for some sense that this too is fleeting. I feel permanently changed. Deeply reorganized. Cellularly altered.

I’m unsure in so many ways, but I am not uneasy. And breathless when I look up at the landscape, which catches my heart and causes to me to stare vaguely. I think: This may be the death of me. And if it is, wouldn’t that be an ideal way to go? To die amidst more than I can ever have, more than I can contain, and therefore unfulfilled yes, but in so drastically different a way than the lack of fulfillment they know back “home.” Yes, I think. I do want to die out here. And by that I mean that I want to disappear, which reminds me of the times I’ve wanted to tell someone here to kidnap me. I want to exit so fully that I want to cease to be.

°•*⁀➷

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rachellerobinett.substack.com/subscribe