Wisdom Of The Woods And The Water

Over the past couple of years I have enjoyed being in nature more than ever. That's probably because I have needed it more than ever.

Author Mary Shelly said, "Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."

Since massive changes suddenly began globally in March 2020 doing everything has become more difficult and more stressful for almost everyone.

On the other hand, going to the woods is as easy as its ever been. I just head out the back door of my home, and walk. I could continue walking for days and never leave the forest.

There are no fences, no charges, no conditions for entry, and no one trying to sell me their product or narrative. 

It's just me, the squirrels, and the wisdom of the woods and the water. 

"Woosh, swish, shwee, shush", say the trees.

"Gurgle, kaboing! (deep boulders rumble downstream), splash", responds the brook.

The squirrels aren't saying anything, but I notice they are watching me closely. We have a staring contest. They win every time, and I hike on.

After returning from a good stint in the forest, my response to Shelly would be that, "nothing is as good a salve for the pained human mind as spending time in nature."

If I were a doctor, that is the prescription that I would be writing.

For immediate relief of existential angst and free-floating anxiety, get in nature - stat.

I will finish with some official woods wisdom - 

"One must get up early if one is to go for a hike on the shortest day of the year."

What Is Forest Bathing?

Go through here to clean your car.

Go through here to clean your soul.

WHAT IS FOREST BATHING?

"Forest bathing is the practice of immersing yourself in nature in a mindful way, using your senses to derive a whole range of benefits for your physical, mental, emotional, and social health. 

It is also known as Shinrin-yoku. ‘Shinrin’ means forest and ‘Yoku’ stands for bathing. The idea took birth in Japan in the 1980’s and proved to be a very effective tool to overcome the ill effects of a hectic life and stressful work environment.

Forest bathing in nature allows the stressed portions of your brain to relax. Positive hormones are released in the body. You feel less sad, angry and anxious. 

It helps to avoid stress and burnout, and aids in fighting depression and anxiety. 

  

A forest bath is known to boost immunity and leads to lesser days of illness as well as faster recovery from injury or surgery. 

Nature has a positive effect on our mind as well as body. It improves heart and lung health, and increases focus, concentration and memory."

- read more

To Learn Stillness, Seek Out A Tree

Very few people can do a thing as difficult as sitting in stillness. In a busy world, very few know how. Or feel they have time.

Eckhart Tolle recommends that if you want to learn stillness, "seek out a tree". 

"Let stillness", he said, "direct your words and actions".

Trees and forests have long been my refuge, my church, my place to worship, and to heal. 

No matter where I go, I seek out the trees.

They have taught me not only the benefits of stillness, but also humility, patience, flexibility and perseverance.

Forests are models of cooperation, with roots and fungal threads joining the community together into a single, supportive super-organism. 

The answers humanity needs at this time will not be found while we are busy with other things, and they will not be found through high-tech solutions.

Mother Nature is the Technoqueen. She has all the lessons, all the answers.

These answers will only be found when we achieve the stillness required to allow our life to flow freely and openly. 

The trees are waiting to teach us. They may be patient, but our time is running out.

Don't wait - to learn stillness, seek out a tree. 

Sit quietly. 

That is all that is required.

Use what you learn to direct your thoughts, words, and actions.

 

Technology Limits, Nature Expands

I believe the advance of technology is limiting human potential rather than expanding it. That makes sense as the technology we are using today was not designed to increase our potential, it was designed to increase the potential of corporations to make a profit.

Our technological obsession is having a dehumanizing effect on us. In order to counter this trend, I like to put my technological devices aside and immerse myself in nature. 

We are all born naturalists. As children, our eyes are open to "the glory of the stars, the beauty of the flowers, and the mystery of life". 

That is because, as Alan Watts says, we are not born into this world, we are born out of it, "like a wave from the ocean". We are part of everything we see. We are it, and it is us.

Then we "grow up'. We adopt technology into our lives and are alienated not only from each other and ourselves, but more importantly, from nature. Bad things happen when we are disconnected from our natural surroundings.

In technological societies, the alienation from nature is almost complete. We have allowed ourselves to be limited by our toys, rather than choosing to be expanded by the natural beauty around us. 

Our truth, though, is never far away. Perpetual youth, Emerson observed, can be found in the woods. It really is that easy. When I go to the woods, I rediscover my youth, and I find the magic that has been pushed aside by infinite fake realities.

Technology promises magic, but it is a cheap illusion, as well as a distraction from all that is really important. It is true that technology can aide in our creativity if used properly, but if not, it can also stifle it.

More importantly, how can we save the environment, and develop our potential to be fully human, if we no longer consider the natural world to be an important part of our lives? 

The truth is, we can't. 

If we no longer see the magic, if we don't love Nature as we love our high tech lives, we risk losing everything that makes us human, and life on Earth possible. 

So occasionally I log off of the tech, and log on to my life. I get out into Nature, and feel that youthful magic again, that connection to my larger body, and it is pure joy.

That is what expanding your human potential feels like, and I wish everyone would take the time to experience it on a regular basis.

I am convinced that the result would be healthier humans, and a better world.

“We refuse to turn off our computers, turn off our phone, log off Facebook, and just sit in silence, because in those moments we might actually have to face up to who we really are.” 

 

- Jefferson Bethke

Back Into The Woods

"If you don’t go out in the woods 

nothing will ever happen 

and your life will never begin." 

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

All house and no woods makes Gregg a dull boy. 

After weeks of weather conditions not conducive to hiking, or snowshoeing, I decided to just get out there. I needed a good dose of nature or I was going to lose my mind. 

There was a skiff of fresh snow on the ground, but not enough to support snowshoes, so I put on my hiking boots and fired myself out the back door, across the field, and entered my sacred space - The Woods.

As usual, it was perfection. 

I always hike with walking poles, so didn't have to worry about my footing. I followed a flagged property line down the valley to the brook at the bottom. When I got there, it felt like visiting an old friend's house; somewhere I was welcome and supported.

The brook, which I have visited in all seasons many times over the past 4 years since arriving here from our previous home on the west coast, was higher, louder, and flowing faster than I have ever seen before. 

We have had several gnarly storms recently, and the weather has been mild enough for rain as well as snow melt. I couldn't help but imagine what it would be like if I fell into the brook. 

Is that too morbid?

I don't know if it was morbid, but it was deliciously scary, and I was totally transfixed on the speeding liquid below me.

Would I live long enough in the quick, cold water to float all the way down to the ocean, 5 km downstream? Probably not. Brrr. Ok, that IS morbid.

I shivered just thinking about such an icy immersion, and stepped carefully as I hiked along the bank. I thought of Linda, home alone and waiting for my return, and longed to back with her in our warm house, sharing pictures and stories.

If I don't go back into the woods, my life may never begin, but if I do go into the woods, my life may end. 

Nature can nullify as likely as it can nurture, and I find that vital and exciting. I don't worry too much about it, because I know that if you treat nature with respect and care, everything will be alright. 

And on this particular hike, everything was.

I got home, and Linda's smile said it all. Her dull boy was gone, and a fully refreshed version stood before her, safe and sound.

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.” 

- Willa Cather

The Woods Are Calling

I have not been in the woods for some time; they beckon me.

For several weeks our weather has not been conducive to hiking, riding, or snowshoeing, limiting my outside activities. Besides some minor snow shovelling, I have been relying on inside physical activity to keep me going.

I tend to our home, which takes some effort, and I have resumed my previous practice of doing some yoga (sun salutations) in the morning. While I love it all, I most enjoy taking my exercise outside. 

While out in nature, snowshoeing is one of my favourite activities. I have only been able to get out twice so far this season, definitely not the record-breaking snowfall of our first year in rural Nova Scotia. 

This year I have had to make do with looking at previous snowy woods photos, including those in this post which were taken on my last outing, all the way back on winter solstice.

 

The past few days have been cold, and some snow has been falling. The ground is no longer bare and frozen, and the woods are accumulating a bit of a base of the white stuff.


However, I am dreaming of an epic, magical event that transforms everything into a muffled, quiet wonderland. I want to wake up tomorrow morning and see the woods transformed and waiting for me. 

Then I can heed their call.

Mushroom Mandala

Attention: This is a sacred space.

A mandala is a symbol or diagram that represents the Universe. The word mandala is Sanskrit for "circle". I thought of that when I saw the large mushroom cap, shown above, while out for one of my ritual forest baths. 

When I saw the mushroom I immediately thought of mandalas, which are often circular. The way the leaves fell around it in an intricate supporting pattern formed the larger part of a greater mushroom mandala. 

One thing about mandalas is their impermanence, reflecting the impermanence found in the larger Universe for which it stands. Sand mandalas are literally blown apart not long after they are completed.

A mandala can also be seen as a portal to the self, something that psychologist Carl Jung used in his work. Today, Jungian therapists use mandalas 

"to access progressively deeper levels of the unconscious, ultimately assisting the meditator to experience a mystical sense of oneness with the ultimate unity from which the cosmos in all its manifold forms arises."

Whenever one encounters a mandala, whether one someone else has made, or one you have made, or a natural mandala like the mushroom mandala I found, there is an opportunity for personal growth and integration.

The mushroom mandala reminded me of that. With its support, I meditated for a magical moment. 

"One. One. One."

I am glad I stopped to ponder this sacred circular setup, because next time I pass this way, it will be gone. 

One With The Woods

"I said nothing, and tried to think nothing.”  

- Ishmael, Moby Dick

Is there anything better than feeling one with everything? In those moments one is free, content, void of desires. Nothing is to be done. The struggle ceases, and what is, is. It is the best feeling ever.

"The minute you begin to do what you really want to do, it's really a different kind of life." 

- R. Buckminster Fuller

I feel that way often, but especially when I walk in the woods behind my home. Usually I drop into the valley until I get to the brook at the bottom. It is very peaceful, the only sounds being the wind in the trees and the water running down to the ocean a few kilometres downstream from here.

"Nonresistance, nonjudgement, and nonattachment are the three aspects of true freedom and enlightened living." 

- Eckhart Tolle

There are many old trees here, both hardwoods and softwoods. Several, with massive trunks and soaring canopies, are hundreds of years old. 

"We are far removed from Nature, including our own nature. But we have lived this way for a long time. In fact, acceptance of this reality is an absolutely necessary part of this system we live in." 

 - Jorg Kolberg

Old forests have a special appeal to me as they have a very different feel; it is an ancient organism, with the wisdom and steadiness that comes with age and experience.

“Modern people talk of a battle with nature, forgetting that, if we won the battle, we would find ourselves on the losing side.” 

- E.F. Schumacher

I feel very safe and comfortable here. The drape of civilization sloughs off me, a shedding skin. I am aware of everything, resist nothing, judge nothing, am outside of time.

Stripped to the core, I am one with the woods. 

There is much to be learned here about dissolving the illusion of our separateness, and rediscovering our connection to all of creation. 

When we honour this connection, life unfolds in natural and harmonious ways.

Last Day Of Summer 2018

Our backyard woods are beautiful this time of year.

Today is the last day of summer. That kind of snuck up on me. 

After a summer filled with many sunny days and high temperatures and humidity, I don't think I am mentally prepared for the cool weather conditions that we have shifted into already. 

I am happy to not have permanent heat exhaustion any more, although it was nice not needing bothersome things like clothes or blankets or supplemental heat for a few months. 

That really simplifies things.

This was the second summer drought in the last 3 years in our area. Many of our neighbours had the unfortunate experience of having a well go dry, again. You can't run a household without water. No water, no home.

We had a bit of a deterioration in our well's water quality, but not in quantity. It came to taste so bad that we had to pick up an on-tap filter system.

Tomorrow is the Equinox, when day and night are roughly the same length. From then until December 22, the hours of darkness increase, while our time in the sun decreases. Temperatures will rapidly drop off. 

I am beginning to come to terms with the change in season, again. Fifty-seven times I have been through this cycle, and it still feels like a surprise... or cruel joke. On the other hand, the woods changing colours, and brisk, crisp days, are something to be cherished.

We will just have to get used to getting fully dressed in the morning, after sleeping in a bed piled high with blankets. Wood stove, coats, gloves, toques (wool hats), and snow shoes now all have to be made ready. 

Problem is, my head and heart are still lounging in the garden. Onions, potatoes, carrots, and beets are still in the ground. We will can pickled beets over the weekend, while the wind and wet blow around outside. The rest can stay out for a while longer, since average first frost in this spot is some time between October 1 and 10th.

Happy last day of summer to Northern Hemispherians. Happy last day of winter to our Southern Hemispherian friends. Welcome fall/spring equinox.

Forest Medicine

Welcome to the healing forest. There is good medicine here.

I went for a late afternoon bike ride into the forest today. It was hot and humid with a slight wind. The smell just about knocked me out of the saddle. In a good way.

The smell of trees and forests is one of my favourite things in all of nature. My addiction to forest sights and smells could be due to being born on the northern limit of the Great Plains, in short grass prairie territory. 

On the road to another rejuvenating forest bath.

On the flat, featureless (which is its defining feature) prairie landscape, there is nary a tree to be seen. The prairie has its own dusty olfactory gifts, and although I prefer the funk of the forest, breathing fresh air anywhere is a good thing to do for your body, mind and soul.

Science certainly agrees that forests are beneficial olfactory oasis's. Researchers have identified forest substances that affect how neurotransmitters in our brains function, showing how forest plants change how our brain operates. 

"Time in forests significantly improves mood in countless studies replicated in a variety of cultures." 

- Association of Nature & Forest Therapy

A waxing gibbous moon was part of the forest experience today.

When we are exposed to certain soil bacteria, it causes our brains to emit more serotonin, a chemical that regulates brain function, as well as moods. It is a natural anti-depressant that also decreases inflammation in the immune system.

When we breathe in the forest air, we are also breathing in phytoncides, airborne chemicals that plants give off to protect themselves. Phytoncides have antibacterial and antifungal qualities which help fight disease. 

"For 1 hectare (ha) of pine forest approximately 5 kg of volatile phytoncides are released into the atmosphere in one day, while for 1 ha of juniper forest approximately 30 kg are released, reducing the number of microflora in the air." - source

My destination, resting spot, and turn around point.

When we enjoy that sweet forest smell, all kinds of gifts are reaching our nostrils, and they are unseen airborne healers. Our bodies respond by increasing the number and activity of a special type of white blood cell that eliminates body cells affected by cancer and viruses.

So that smell that I love so much is more than just a pleasant part of being in the forest. More importantly, it is a mood enhancer, brain and immune system booster, and disease fighter. 

No wonder I am addicted to it. In a good way.

Another magical and fantastic phytoncide factory - white pine in this case.

Happy Winter Solstice

Today I took my ritual sunset hike in the woods behind my home. The chickadees say, "Hi".

Today is the day I have been dreading since June 21st, when I am usually out enjoying the longest day of the year. At that time of year I can leave the house for a hike any time up to 9:00 pm, and still be home before dark.

It is a time of photonic riches, but not for long. I savour them while they last. I am a solar powered group of cells soaking up Sun love.

From that summer day, bit by bit, the sun starts its long march to this day, winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. Photons, why have you forsaken us? All light is sacred this time of year - it is fleeting, fleeing. Pray that you will see even a bit of it.

Today I had to make sure to prepare for my ritual hike before 3:00 pm to avoid hiking home in fading light. Even at noon the light is weak and wanes fast. I have to hike at a rigorous pace, both to stay warm, and to beat the shadow rolling across the landscape towards me.

I stop at the brook and am immediately mesmerized by the sound of water gurgling and splashing to the sea, 4 km downstream from here. I have an urge to start a fire and stay all night in the woods. Instead, I say goodbye to the water spirits and start back up the valley.

Along the way I am mobbed by a group of black capped chickadees. One lands on a branch an arms length away from me, right at eye level. "We are the same, you and me", I tell the bird. I can see every feather in its fluffy little body. Its black eye looks back at me.

I am mesmerized again, or should I say enchanted? I can't feel where I end, and the forest, the water, the sky, and the bird begin. We are all part of a single body, the creation of The Great Photonic Being. We exist because it bathes us in its love.

The Sun is life.

"Keep on hiking." It's the responsible hiker voice in my head telling me to move on. I don't want  a peak experience to become a near death experience.

Once home, the dark descends with a thump, and thus begins another long winter night. And if we are lucky, it will be the beginning of a long winter nap as well.

Happy solstice to NBA readers and all of Planet Earth. May your New Solar Year be filled with lots of hearts and photons.

Thank you for being bright candles for Linda and me over the last year. We are fortunate to bathe in your warmth and brightness. It make us feel that Yule be ok, we'll be ok, and the world will be OK.

Peace.

Cyber What?

Nice no-traffic riding on rails to trails system by our home.

Cyber what? How about a cyber break? Nature is about the most opposite thing to the online world I can think of, and therefore it can be used as an effective antidote.

I like to give myself a nice dose of pure analog Nature on a regular basis. Today a bicycle ride was my activity of choice.

This ride takes me 5 km from home, downhill on the paved road, all the way to salt water. There I sit in the weakening fall sun and watch a duck on the water. From there I backtrack about 2 km, then turn off on a short section of gravel road that leads to a rails to trails system.

Sun setting over the countryside, way too soon. Pedal a bit faster.

Once on the old rail bed I ride about 5 km through extensive quiet forests back toward home. That leads to 3 km of gravel road that returns me back to the paved road, arriving at my house from the opposite direction that I left 2 hours earlier.

While I was out, I hugged a big, old tree in a cemetery near tide water. It was magnificent. For some people, this does not compute.

It does for me.

How to document a tree hug: 1) pick out tree, 2) set camera for 10 second timer, and 3) run...

I feel the textured, cool bark. The wind whooshes through the bulging biceps of huge limbs. The trunk trembling is not noticeable, unless you give your hug a good, long time. I'm not thinking of any cyber-silliness.

Almost there: 4) begin to spread arms, 5) slow down, don't get hurt...

Keeping my ear to this stately, stable life form, three times my age, I listen to what it has to teach me. It knows about patience, and being rooted in its community for the long haul.

It knows about resilience, cooperation and connectedness.

6) ahhhh, squeeze, 7) pause, 8) feel connected, 9) don't forget camera.

Thank you for being my solid and real inspiration in this space, at this time.

I love your reality, tree.

Roughing It In The Woods

Last stop and resting place for this school bus conversion that I found while out for a bike ride in the woods.
It had a wood stove, gas range, counter tops, kitchen sink, two bunk beds, and tables to seat eight.
Landscaping provided by Mother Nature.

One reason I enjoy a stripped down lifestyle is because it is more like roughing it. I like roughing it, and always have. Tenting, living out of a van, cabin or shelter all bring one closer to living harmoniously in, and with, Nature.

There are lessons to be learned here, not all of them comfortable or easy.

Life is not suppose to be perpetually easy and luxurious. Nor is it in our DNA to live in chronic speediness and complexity. Civilization and its marketing branch, consumer culture, makes us soft, dependent, and unprepared to deal with change.

It makes us depressed and dumbed down.

Our bellies, our morals and our minds, all suffer from a morbid slackness, barely held together by thick leather belts of excuses and justifications. Lulled by the easy life, we come to lack intellectual curiosity.

We have been stupefied by stuff. Stifled by silliness. Stultified by the system.

Living simply in a consumer culture is a form of "roughing it". Like other forms of closer-to-nature living, it helps us appreciate what we have, is more physical and healthful, and fosters skills of independence and resilience.

In his book, A Walk In The Woods, author Bill Byrson talks about hiking and camping in a way that describes my experiences roughing it rather well.

"Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really. 

You have no engagements, commitments, obligations, or duties; no special ambitions and only the smallest, least complicated of wants; you exist in a tranquil tedium, serenely beyond the reach of exasperation, “far removed from the seats of strife,” as the early explorer and botanist William Bartram put it."

I have always enjoyed the feeling I get while hiking, camping, and living on the road. Liked it so much, that it became the model for the rest of my life. I want to feel tranquil and content when I go out into the woods. But I also want to feel that way at home.

I want to feel that sweetness all the time. It is quite wonderful.

Finding Sanctuary In The Simple Life

Simplicity provides sanctuary from the buffeting winds of modern consumer life. In this place one will enjoy great inner peace.

I was crossing the field behind my house on snowshoes yesterday, headed for the shelter of the forest below. I was fighting my way through a white out while being buffeted by wind gusts reaching 100 km/hr. It was scary and strangely exhilarating, like life in general these days.

After almost being knocked over, I made it to the edge of the trees. More than other days, it really felt like going "into" the woods. In the open deciduous trees at the forest fringe, it was still quite windy, although I didn't feel like I would be blown away any more.

That part of the forest is like a vestibule, or covered porch. The real shelter is just a bit farther in where the spruce forest begins. The spruce forest grows close in, the trees not minding rubbing snow covered shoulders with each other.

It is here that one can find total reprieve from the wind, regardless of speed or direction. Although I could hear the freight train wind around me, where I was in the trees was complete calm and tranquility.

While the snow was blowing horizontally at face-stinging speeds in the field, just a bit farther on I stood in a pocket of peace surrounded by snow covered spruce. Here, unbelievably, the snow was gently falling straight down.

Afterwords, while warming up by the fire back at home, I thought of how a simple life is like that pocket of calm in the spruce trees. Living a slower life with fewer things with which to concern yourself, provides sanctuary from the wild storm of complication raging all around.

It was only because I knew that the forest would provide me with sanctuary as soon as I got to it, that I was fearless in striking out across the wind-blasted expanse of the open field. So it is with the sanctuary provided by simplicity.

I can engage in the world without fear of being blown away by it, because I am always able to return to the calm, tranquil existence that simplicity provides. And who couldn't use more peace, calm and tranquility in scary times?

For fast acting relief from the storm, simplify your life. A spruce forest is also good.

The Wilderness

There are wild things in the wild lands behind my home. The blob in the middle of the photo on the bank was a dark brown mammal the size of a large house cat. At first I thought it was a river otter, but it was not.
Not sure what it was, besides amazing to see.

There is no place more simple, more basic and more real than the wilderness. Wherever I have lived I  have made sure that some form of wild area was close at hand as a refuge from the concrete and craziness. Somewhere I could experience total silence, total dark, unfettered nature, and wildlife.

What qualifies as wilderness depends on who is looking. An argument could probably be made that there is no true wilderness left, but I have personally experienced some amazing places far from the herd. I have hiked into remote mountain wilderness areas, but even there it only takes one jet to fly over to remind you that civilization is never farther away than just above your head.

Behind my new home is a forest-covered slope that descends into a valley wilderness with a beautiful brook at the bottom. The forest has all the hallmarks of an old growth ecosystem, and walking or snowshoeing through it is as wild and primitive as it gets.

Most definitions of "wilderness" mean something like "a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by civilized human activity".  From what I can see, my backyard forest fits this definition, although I do not know the history of this part of the world, which goes back several hundred years.

While hiking in the forest, which extends unbroken for kilometres in every direction, I had the good fortune to have a sighting of a small wild mammal by the brook. It was more evidence that this is wild land, and wild creatures are living here successfully. I love to know that such a wild community exists where I live.

The creature I saw is a member of the weasel family, but which one, I am not sure. I like to think that it could be a pine marten, or a fisher, two species that are rare in these parts. Both of those species require old growth forests and wild lands to live happily. Given that this is a large tract of exactly what these animals need, it makes sense that it could be one of them.

As I crouched by the rushing brook watching the dark brown animal move stealthily along the bank, I felt a deep connection to both this land and the things that live here. I can understand completely the pine marten, fisher, and other living things that need wild areas unaffected by the long reach of the civilized world.

To thrive, I do too.

The Pathless Woods

There is pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

- Lord Byron

The Peaceful Warrior

I constantly practice my warrior gaze, but have a way to go.
It should say, "Mess with Mother Nature, and you mess with me".

I think I have more of a forest elf thing going on, but that is alright, too.
The bright colours are so I don't get shot while out in the woods during hunting season.

Peaceful warriors have the patience to wait
until the mire settles and the waters clear.
They remain unmoving until the right time,
so the right action arises by itself.
They do not seek fulfillment, but wait with open arms
to welcome all things.
Ready to use all situations, wasting nothing,
they embody the Light.

Peaceful warriors have three great treasures:
simplicity, patience, and compassion.
Simple in actions and in thoughts,
they return to the source of Being.
Patient with both friends and enemies,
they live in harmony with the way things are.
Compassionate towards themselves,
they make peace with the world.

Some may call this teaching nonsense;
others may call it lofty and impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.
And for those who put it into practice,
this loftiness has deep roots.

- Adapted from a poem by Lao-tzu

Worshiping In The Woods

“I’ve decided I’m going to live this life for some time to come. The freedom and simple beauty is just too good to pass up.”

- Christopher Mccandless

I pulled a Henry David Thoreau this summer and spent most of my free time in the woods. During my break from writing I stepped into the forest and promptly forgot, for a time, all about the artificial, complicated world outside.

This life-long student of nature entered the wild to confront the essential facts of life. Each time I set out I wondered what I would learn from these woods, because I am enriched every time I visit.

When I approached nature with humility, the wildlife and I see each other. I explore and the crows and ravens keep me company. They remind me to always be aware of both the laws and magic of the natural world.

Spending time in wilderness, sometimes immersed for days at at time, is something I have always done. I continue that tradition here in the beauty of our new home in Nova Scotia.

Over the years the wild has taught me to live "so sturdily and Spartan-like" as to cut out much of the allure, and distraction, of mainstream life. What is left is the marrow, and it continually calls to me to come and worship and learn.

Like Henry, I can never have enough of nature. That, and kindness, is my religion.

"Open yourself to miracles. Use new eyes. Believe in magic. Embrace life’s wonders." 

- Jamie Sams and David Carson

When The Going Gets Tough...

Nature has vital therapeutic effects. My favourite place in nature is the forest. Any forest. This is where I feel the best.

The Japanese enjoy an activity called forest bathing. Instigated in 1982 by their Forest Agency, it has become a recognized relaxation/stress management activity.

Studies have found that spending time in the forest creates a calming effect throughout the nervous system. Benefits of forest bathing include reductions in stress, anger, anxiety, depression and sleeplessness.

Being in nature is essential for human health. That is why when the going gets tough, the tough go to the forest.