My Willow Oaks
One way to allow nature to nurture you?
Get your ass under some trees!
More ways...
Behold the life forms on our planet from whatever vantage point you have...Experience the sky. The birds. The land. Trees. Squirrels. Water. Fish. So much. Everything.
Experience a Forest Bath. Just go for a walk as close to your residence or work place as you can, to wherever there are trees and other species of animals (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians).
Appreciate the interconnectedness. All of the everything you behold gives us the biospheric system that allows us to breathe and exist at all. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.
Thank your lucky stars that you were born onto this planet at this particular moment and place in time. All of the craziness and wondrousness, the love and hate and fear and trust and grief and longing— all of this is part of being a spiritual being in a human experience on earth at this particular time. For a limited amount of time. Limited.
Accept that you are living through a magnificent time of change on this planet Make a list of things you have to be grateful for. Keep your Syrian pen pal in mind .
Experience a Forest Bath. Just go for a walk as close to your residence or work place as you can, to wherever there are trees and other species of animals (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians).
Appreciate the interconnectedness. All of the everything you behold gives us the biospheric system that allows us to breathe and exist at all. Appreciate, appreciate, appreciate.
Thank your lucky stars that you were born onto this planet at this particular moment and place in time. All of the craziness and wondrousness, the love and hate and fear and trust and grief and longing— all of this is part of being a spiritual being in a human experience on earth at this particular time. For a limited amount of time. Limited.
Accept that you are living through a magnificent time of change on this planet Make a list of things you have to be grateful for. Keep your Syrian pen pal in mind .
Heaven and earth and I are of the same root,
The ten-thousand things and I are of one substance.
—Sengzhao
Everything is connected
Especially the trees with every living thing that breathes.
I wish that everyone would shut up already about square footage and the price tag of land.
It might not bother me so much in theory except that every time I turn a corner, another lot of undeveloped property (what a concept), by which I mean untouched plots of trees and and grass and nests and dens and rich root systems and microbiomes and shaded earth, bird song and scampering through leaf sounds, is being clear cut and dug up for real estate profit. Real Estate. Let those two words together sink in.
Witnessing this destruction of the earth makes me physically sick. It's difficult to keep my blinders on.
I wish that everyone would shut up already about square footage and the price tag of land.
It might not bother me so much in theory except that every time I turn a corner, another lot of undeveloped property (what a concept), by which I mean untouched plots of trees and and grass and nests and dens and rich root systems and microbiomes and shaded earth, bird song and scampering through leaf sounds, is being clear cut and dug up for real estate profit. Real Estate. Let those two words together sink in.
Witnessing this destruction of the earth makes me physically sick. It's difficult to keep my blinders on.
When the last tree is cut, the last fish is caught, and the last river is polluted; when to breathe the air is sickening, you will realize, too late, that wealth is not in bank accounts and that you can’t eat money.
—Alanis Obomsawin
And yet, if I bring myself back to the present moment, to my immediate vicinity, almost all I see are trees. Trees and my garden. I have the great and time-limited fortune of living beneath a canopy of willow oaks with the mother tree immediately outside my front door. I desperately appreciate my situation.
This is a great trick, by the way, especially if you suffer from the same malady as I do, or if you regularly read the news. When the world is too, too much (when I click through to news or social media or whatever entity is selling soap or cars or drugs on the back of human and biological tragedy), I bring myself back to the present moment, to my immediate vicinity, which I intentionally fill with beauty and nature, my freakout subsides. I allow my eyes to rest on the trees, my darling, magnificent plants, well-made pretty fabric, phenomenal books, Miss Tallulah, or the way the light bounces off any surface, more... I allow my hand to feel something tangible, within reach and notice why I brought it into my world to begin with. The color, the form, the texture, the pleasure the life form or object brings me.
Then I take a deep breath and all's right with the world again. It's a form of meditation.
This is actually why I teach drawing. To help people connect to what is right in front of them. It's mindfulness on steroids.
I love living on Earth. I love this planet. With every passing day, my appointment with death is a gamble. It's kind of nice to know for sure that one thing (death) is absolutely out of my control because, if I accept that, my experience of life is amplified to the max. I just have to keep remembering...
This is a great trick, by the way, especially if you suffer from the same malady as I do, or if you regularly read the news. When the world is too, too much (when I click through to news or social media or whatever entity is selling soap or cars or drugs on the back of human and biological tragedy), I bring myself back to the present moment, to my immediate vicinity, which I intentionally fill with beauty and nature, my freakout subsides. I allow my eyes to rest on the trees, my darling, magnificent plants, well-made pretty fabric, phenomenal books, Miss Tallulah, or the way the light bounces off any surface, more... I allow my hand to feel something tangible, within reach and notice why I brought it into my world to begin with. The color, the form, the texture, the pleasure the life form or object brings me.
Then I take a deep breath and all's right with the world again. It's a form of meditation.
This is actually why I teach drawing. To help people connect to what is right in front of them. It's mindfulness on steroids.
I love living on Earth. I love this planet. With every passing day, my appointment with death is a gamble. It's kind of nice to know for sure that one thing (death) is absolutely out of my control because, if I accept that, my experience of life is amplified to the max. I just have to keep remembering...
Life is a process. Healing is a process. It truly amazes me how far away from a wound we can get to engage in an actual healing process of that wound. Especially if it's emotional. All of that is a subject for another lengthy post. But... when you are feeling hurt or sad or low, my suggestion is to...
Turn to Earth. Turn to the manifest forms of energy designed specifically to work with us to help and heal us through our lifetimes.
By Earth or Nature, I mean the energetic forms that spring from the systems born of and engaged with our planet. Including you, as a person or earthling, and me. With that defined in approximately 25 words, I'll move into the meat of this post.
Turn to Earth. Turn to the manifest forms of energy designed specifically to work with us to help and heal us through our lifetimes.
By Earth or Nature, I mean the energetic forms that spring from the systems born of and engaged with our planet. Including you, as a person or earthling, and me. With that defined in approximately 25 words, I'll move into the meat of this post.
How do you allow nature to nurture you?
Let me know in the comments below.
Let me know in the comments below.
