The Practice: Nature
“Nature teaches us simplicity and contentment, because in its presence we realize we need very little to be happy.”
Daily Practice and Reflection:
Nature offers us a reprieve from our busy lives and is a doorway back into balance, back to beauty. The simple act of being outside, taking in the fresh air, experiencing something bigger than just us can point us back to our true nature, our essential being. Experiencing the great outdoors is a retuning home of sorts.
Returning to the land helps us reconnect to steadiness and harmony, qualities that are sometimes hard to access in our hurried lives. And as we experience the flow and rhythm of nature, pausing to watch the clouds pass in the sky, listening to the wind through the trees, or the crunch of snow under your feet (Bendites), we are reminded that we are not separate from nature, but rather a part of it.
Over the last two challenging years, I found great solstice in being outside. Nature was my refuge that helped me feel more connected, grounded, and balanced while being in its beauty. Walking the trails each day provided me with tremendous relief from the uncertainty and not knowing. I often found myself in the summer months longing to just lay down on the trail, feeling my entire back body being held by the earth (with the hopes no one would walk up upon me).
Dr. Larry Ward shared his time spent outdoors as, “…resting in nature as I have yet to ever be rejected.” I love these insightful words as I have felt this in many moments but never able to articulate this truth. Resting in nature helps free us from our sense of separateness and isolation as we connect into its spaciousness. And nature is the ultimate expression of equanimity: steadfastness, resiliency, and harmony; all qualities we desire that are expressed so simply as we sit in nature’s beauty. I hope you have some time to be outside today: walking sitting, resting, or watching.
“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”
Meditation Practice:
“No, we don’t need more sleep. It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don’t need more sleep; we need to wake up and live.”
“People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child—our own two eyes. All is a miracle.”
“You are comprised of: 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells. You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing. You are not living on Earth. You are Earth.”
“The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.”