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…nature has inspired me to meditate daily, heartfully engage qigong, stand outside many times a day and simply breathe “thank you” to whatever is happening out there at that moment…
Here in our Stories of Grateful Living, we honor the voices of our community as we invite people to share their personal experiences with gratefulness. Join us in appreciating the explorations, reflections, and insights of fellow community members as we collectively learn what it means to live gratefully.
Last week I wrote this piece during a moment when hope was not easily within reach. I took a walk among trees and re-membered a few things that refreshed my perspective:
Photo: Jennifer J. Wilhoit/TEALarbor stories. All Rights Reserved.
No matter how much the world — and your niche within it — has changed lately, the season of spring just keeps blooming and flourishing, greening and growing, singing and soaring.
I find myself doing things differently these days, and not just those things that allow me to comply with local and national directives. I am finding new ways to stay steady, balanced, whole.
Some of these are inspired by what I hear fellow humans doing: policemen singing to residents on the streets of Spain; museums offering virtual tours of current exhibits; neighbors reaching out to one another in so many supportive, engaging ways; car parades and drive-by-waving teachers; now-free online offerings of a zillion sorts; the Zumba instructor who blared music and shouted dance moves through a megaphone from her yard for her neighborhood’s edification …
And those have inspired me to make art, move deeper into book projects, create collage mandalas several times a week, explore musical additions to my day, consider novel ways I can reach out to neighbors and friends, and more …
Many of these new steadying practices are inspired by what I experience out in the natural world every day: birds singing, calling, building nests, soaring high overhead, digging for meals, preening; trees, plants, grasses sending out buds, flowers, leaves, glinting in sunlight, offering Earthy scents, standing tall and strong; weather changing quickly in this transition season from hail to rain to sunbreak to cloud to more hail, to wind gusts all in a single afternoon …
…there is something abiding, stable, regenerative, beautiful, soothing, healing that is growing right outside our door: the vast world of nature.
And nature has inspired me to meditate daily, heartfully engage qigong, stand outside many times a day and simply breathe “thank you” to whatever is happening out there at that moment; plant some flowers, create nature altars in my grass, find and prepare more natural objects for my daily nature calendar, value every moment as a gift and take considered action based on that (as opposed to mindlessly following impulse or routine), notice my own seasonal patterns and find ways to be and add beauty to the world, and more …
Once again, I am seeing how the cycles of nature hold me. And can hold all of us.
… how even during a time of heightened anxiety, more sensitive work engagement, so much devastating news, no sense of a lifting of disease or crisis any time soon, little reassurance …
… how even during this time heavily taxed by the work of creating everything anew because nothing from before seems to work very well (or is prohibited) …
… how even during this time of grief, loss, restriction, paucity …
… how even during a time in which we miss the ways we have come to understand friendships, community, gathering, our place in the world, the modes in which we conduct our work, our activities, our travel, physical movements around others, in fact – the world we have known and thought we understood …
Even in all of that, ALL of it, there is something abiding, stable, regenerative, beautiful, soothing, healing that is growing right outside our door: the vast world of nature.
I pray that we each find the pathway – and summon the courage to make the journey – to discover our new place in the world of nature and let that guide us to discover who we can be within. Spring is out there doing what spring does.
We invite you to share a story about yourself or another person, reflecting on the question: “How has gratefulness shifted a moment, an experience, or a lifetime?”
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Jennifer, your essay resonated with me. I take a walk outdoors every day and it is so healing to be out in Nature. I stop and look at the buds on the trees getting bigger each day, watching the daffodils grow from little shoots to opening their beautiful faces, seeing the birds flying through the air or sitting quietly on branches, etc. A sense of peace comes over me and I think, everything is perfect, all is well. I say “Thank-you God for this beautiful day, this beautiful world, this beautiful life”!!! What a blessing to be on earth at this historic time! Thank-you, Jennifer for your kind sharing!
Love, blessings and peace to all ???
My dear Sheila. Yes! Yes to the birds and buds, flower faces and springtime flourishing! What you wrote reminds me to add this: When I am out just being present in nature as she is (no matter the season), I feel the peace for myself, and I make a small prayer of extending that outward to larger and larger circles and cycles of life. Saying a blessing of gratitude is also part of this ritual. So, next time I’m out (which won’t be long since I spend parts of every day out in the natural world), I will remember you, and that you are also feeling peace and offering thanks. Blessings!
Jennifer, thank you so much for your kind reply! It truly touched my heart.? Blessings to you, also and I will joyfully remember you when I am out in nature.?
Thank you for also carrying me in your heart as you go out into nature, Sheila.
Life is certainly not business as usual. Many of us are actually blessed to be freed from busy-ness and may be realizing that physical isolation brings us face to face with our thought processes. Eckhart Tolle addresses this phenomenon by quoting Shakespeare:”Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” Our current situation is not necessarily pleasant but we need to differentiate between our situation and the thoughts we are having about our situation. I try to ask myself frequently: What is your mental commentary these days? What self talk are you experiencing? How would I experience this moment if I refrained from labeling it good or bad? I do my best to refrain from any fearful narratives my mind is creating. Tolle says to forsake the narratives and experience the bare “isness” of now. Your article is a trip into “isnesss.” It is most helpful and hopeful. Thank you.
Hello Carol, and thank you very much for your comment. Indeed, a number of my mentors over the years also speak to that liminal space of refraining from labeling as a path to freedom into the beautiful depths of now. I am so grateful that you felt the “isness” of my article; just being present with whatever is up is something I practice every day – since long before our current crisis. Ahhh, what relief in it!
“If you enjoy nature, you are already a Buddha.” –Thich Nhat Hanh
What a beautiful gift for words you have. I think I’ll go snow shoeing.
Good afternoon to you, Miguelie. Thank you for comments with the beautiful TNH quotation and your commitment to yourself to go snowshoeing. May you find your immersion in nature’s glory to be of the greatest personal renewal.