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Today's
Quotation:
Nature
is another important aspect of nourishing the soul. After a hike in the mountains where we live, for instance,
I feel a remarkable sense of gratitude and awe. My
mind
quiets down
and allows me to see more clearly the
beauty of creation. And through that gratitude, the
beauty of the universe
is reflected back to the creator.
Joan
Borysenko
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Today's
Meditation:
There's
nothing like a walk in the forest to clear my mind and get
my spirit to calm down and slow down. Any time I get
away from the mass of people and find a quiet, solitary spot
in nature, be it in the middle of the desert, in the forest,
on a beach, or even along a lonely country road, I feel
myself being refreshed, revived, renewed. It's a
wonderful feeling that I don't search out nearly enough.
In
cities we keep flowers and plants to remind us of this
connection, but we far too rarely seem to search out the
closeness of the connection--we don't often actually go out
and feel what nature has to offer. I know that over
the last few years, with all the work that I've had hanging
over my head, my connection with nature has been tenuous at
best, non-existent at worst. I go for walks, but I do
so in town. We have a great bike path that I walk
along very often. It goes through forest and next to a
river for a couple of miles, but that's been the extent of
my connection with nature for a while. I miss it.
Sometimes
I don't go out into the woods because I have too much to do
for the next two hours. Then I spend the next two
hours doing something that I hadn't planned on doing, and I
realize that I could have gone out after all. Usually,
I needed to go out, yet I didn't look after myself closely
enough, and I didn't take care of myself by giving myself
the time I needed to renew myself. It's kind of sad,
but it's true.
When
I'm out in nature, just as Joan Borysenko I feel a stronger
sense of gratitude and awe, and I see more clearly just how
beautiful this world is. I need that feeling every
once in a while if I'm to keep a clear perspective in my
daily life on just what is truly important and just what
isn't. We nourish our souls when we get in touch with
nature, and our souls are the part of ourselves that we so
often neglect.
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