Go Outside
Reconnect with Nature
It’s summer where I live. If it’s summer where you live, go outside.
Don’t wait for the weekend, don’t wait until there’s time, don’t make a plan to go outside, just freakin’ go outside. Right now, if you can. Lunch-break at work? Go outside. Kids in bed early? Go outside. Smartwatch says it’s time to get up and move around for a minute? Go outside.
Park farther away and enjoy the walk outside. Even if you live in a city, go outside. Outside is still there. There’s still sky and clouds, air and birds, maybe even plants and trees if you’re lucky.
I go outside every time I can, all throughout the day. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. (I have a temperamental English mastiff who makes spending too long in or too long out, a challenge, and her timer goes off about every fifteen minutes.)
Still, I find a way to go outside.
Reconnect with Nature
When I first go outside, I have a kind of ritual I do. It goes like this.
I quiet my mind and pull all my focus into my surroundings. I release the thoughts of what I should be doing, what deadlines are looming, what bills are unpaid. I shut all that down by overwriting thought with sensory input.
The first sense I notice is sight, of course. I look for the longest time, just taking it all in, turning in a slow circle to see all around me. I notice and delight in every part of it, the beautiful, the ugly, the neat, the messy, all of it.
Everything is green outside right now where I live. The grass, the hillsides, the woods, all green, countless shades of green. There are bits of pink and white as various trees blossom and fade. The apple blossoms have come and gone, the poplars and nut trees have begun, and the honeysuckles are in peak, fragrant bloom.
In the grass of the lawn there are tiny purple violets, bitty white blooms like baby’s breath, wild strawberry blossoms, and other flowers I haven’t identified by name. They all grow shorter than the lawn mower’s height setting. (We keep it very high.) Later there will be other blossoms as the berry briars in the hedgerows burst to life. There are blackberries and blackcaps, and I think some raspberries. There are grapevines in one spot, which sadly do not produce grapes.
It’s impossible to ignore the sounds where I live. There are birds everywhere, their symphony constant, and ever-shifting. There’s the gentle flow of water, here, and the magical tinkle of metal wind chimes, and the soothing, tropical clunk of a bamboo set. Every now and then I can hear the deep hum of a tractor in some distant field. There’s farmland all around me. The starlings craw and the crows caw and there’s the brown thrasher, my favorite of all.
The brown thrasher is a member of the mocking bird family. He sings dozens of different bird songs, two rounds each. Ca-caw, ca-caw, tweedle-dee, tweedle-dee, whirrr, whirrr, and so on. I captured a little bit for you, although this bird breaks the rules and sometimes only does one “verse.” Sound up. Don’t try to see him. He’s hiding. Just listen.
I pay attention to the smells, too. The honeysuckle shrubs are in full bloom and their sweet, heavy scent overwhelms everything else. But here and there as I walk barefoot across the lawn, the smell of sweet mint wafts up to greet me when my foot brushes through a patch.
I feel the sun on my skin, and the breeze that carries a chill, even now. It’s early in the day, the sun is slanted low. I feel the earth under my feet, and the grasses. I love walking through baby cover best. It’s so springy and fun, and it bounds right back after I step on it. I move to stand on a natural stone patio and I feel the cool, flat stone against my feet.
I feel my body, even the achy parts, and I try not to judge or mull on those things, just notice with love and move on. I feel my emotions, do a little check-in, but again, no solving, no analyzing. I just notice with acceptance and move on.
I taste the air on my tongue. It’s thick with life in the form of pollen. I know it’s there and try to detect its flavor. The spruce trees flavor the air, too. I taste my warm coffee or cool water each time I take a sip. I taste them thoroughly, when I am in this state of boosted presence, focus, and awareness.
I open myself to the energy of nature. For me, it’s all around me; grass and wildflowers, plants and trees. Especially the trees. I try to find the place where the energy that became me, and the energy that became the tree, were one and remain one. We are but branches of the same river that flows from the same source.
I find standing in the sun with my arms outstretched to either side of me feels best for this kind of melding with nature. I feel like I’m radiating, and everything in nature is radiating, and our radiances overlap and meld, recognize and remember, meet and know and embrace once more. It’s kind of a family reunion.
As I feel that, I try to expand that radiating energy orb of love and oneness ever wider, to encompass my pretty little house, and my lawn, and all my “things,” and then wider to the surrounding hillsides and farms, to the villages and towns. I expand it to encircle the entire beautiful earth and her atmosphere.
All those energies overlap and meld, recognize and remember, meet and know and embrace once more.
For those brief moments while I’m able to maintain that state of connection, of wholeness, of reunion, the emotion is indescribable. Joy is too weak a word. It’s as if there were so much joy, you could open your chest and it would beam out like the most powerful sun.
But I can only maintain that state for mere moments. There’s always a thought that gets through and pulls me right back from being the Whole Universe to being this particular individual called Maggie. Usually the thought is something like, “Wait, was that due today?” Or “Wait, did I shut that burner off?” Or, “Wait, what’s for dinner?” Or else the dog interrupts.
It’s okay, though. I’m not sure we’re meant to maintain that kind of state for more than a moment. I’m not sure our minds and brains are equipped to stay too there too long while still in our bodies.
But those rare moments are worth their weight in platinum, to me, because they seem to increase the love inside me. I just feel filled with it. They remind me of the connection, that everything on this planet is one organism, and the life-force that empowers all of it is one life force. One livestream plugs non-physical Consciousness into multiple physical forms.
Those moments provide glimpses of who we really are, and the immense power to which we have access.
So, in short,
Go outside.
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