When I was in Australia, a little over a year ago, I received a key ingredient to how I relate to nature. For much of my walking life, I had been focused on listening. I knew that nature had a voice. I felt song through frequencies and rhythms that were becoming vivid in tandem with my time spent washing away the gunk in my energetic body. I believe we call that ‘forest bathing’. As though the field of buzzing things around me was silenced by waves of crystal clear water.
It has been delicious. Words and melodies have become things I can pick from the air like apples. A sense of purpose fills my chest and tickles my skin like a loving hand behind my heart. It started with saying thank you to trees. They said something back. Something wordless. Deeper understood than words. And from that space I am learning more and more to communicate with nature.
Somehow I still forgot how circles worked. Until an ancient human culture spilled into my cells in Australia and reminded me of something I was born knowing. Our communication with nature is a dialogue. In a short lifetime of projecting my dreams upon the earth, the earth has been whispering its dreams for me to embody. While focused on honoring her by deeply listening, she has been listening back.
This past week I’ve been gifted with a visit from a magnificent teenager who walked with me. They came all the way from Montana to remind me how much it matters to know each other and to be there. I’ve gotten to cook meals and pick lettuce. Laugh with my trail brother and his amazing wife. Bounce their 8-month old on my knee. Behold the power of grandparents. Marvel in the architecture of academia. Sit in circles of harmonic singers. Cuddle with a cat. Chase a ball with a dog. Basically, I’ve gotten to celebrate much of the beauty that we get to experience as living bodies doing their best. And I’m honored.
And what do you know? The same magic I percieve in the trees is in the eyes of the infant. The one that gives.
I carry on with a sense that life can’t lose, like the ace of trump is in its hand. And since people love to play games, I let it be. I step out of this round to be with the forest instead. I do it for delight. Like canopy light in a deciduous forest. What a gift to walk in a tunnel that gives and gives. And to know that I am giving too. By being. The journey is the offering.
This it what it feels like to be rich. To give what you have.
I recommend a walk in the woods. A chance to wash off a bit of the that buzzing gunk around us. It’s good stuff.