Reflections: Finding Comfort in Nature
January 20, 2020
To look for solace in nature has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. Growing up as a small child in rural Massachusetts, the youngest of older parents who had me as a change of life baby, I learned first-hand from my parents about the importance of the land and the wildlife around us, supported by the land. To walk the field next to my parent’s home, or better yet, skip down the dirt road just past our house, to the river, was pure bliss when I was a child. I watched my mother talk to the birds, and feed the chickadees in her hands, this was all part of my childhood and the impression it made has never left me.
Perhaps it is my fondness for walking among nature that aids me when I am outdoors seeking solace in nature. I find myself relating to Sam Keen’s sentiment in Hymns to an Unknown God, “Walking… is pure grace, an effortless art that produces surprising moments of spontaneous transcendence.” (p.149) Keen goes on to say that on a regular basis he finds the answers to his questions on long hikes in the hills. I find Keen to be a present day Thoreau as he muses in his writings on various deep questions that in my opinion, we all should ponder in life.
It is in movement, walking outdoors in the bright sunshine (or even under grey skies) that I find myself in a state of inspired grace, for the movement takes over and I become one with the Earth, seeing all of her gifts with a new sense of wonder each time I walk my daily path. For I see in my walks, that nothing ever stays the same. The impermanence of nature is a moving picture before my eyes each time I step outside my door and walk along the river. It is in this movement in the ever-changing landscape that the answers are revealed to me.
When life is stressful, I walk outdoors. When I am uncertain or sad, when grief has weighed me down, as has been the theme in past 18 months or so, I walk. To walk in nature is to find comfort that is like being in the arms of the mother. Nature’s solace is not just about facilitating the healing of sadness or grief, no, nature brings joy as well.
From my nature writing journal, 2015.
References:
- Keen, Sam. Hymns to an Unknown God. Bantam Books, 1994 .
