Nature Spirituality

This is the first day of September.

I have never liked summer until I moved to the mountains. And then…

My heart is full when I tune in to what’s happening in the season. Sometimes it overrides the rhythm and the routines of the day.

It’s not that by noticing nature, my life becomes better, or I’m just always happier. I have a lot of down days.

But by allowing joy and wonder to sometimes take precedence over the routines, there’s that little release. That little feeling of release and rebellion, and grasping onto what is present.

Seasonal Shift

After moving to the mountains, the amount of daylight becomes such a big part of the seasons. It affects driving conditions, it affects the commute to town, and because it’s so dark here after hours, night and day is really distinct.

I feel more restricted, but also more in tune with the natural daylight.

As the summer ends, I find myself grasping onto that freedom, that relaxed feeling, that sense of safety of having longer daylight hours, and not having to worry about it getting dark.

As summer comes to a close, I get a little nervous thinking about how I’m going feel cooped up in winter. It’s not even extreme here, but it’s a new pattern I’m trying to get used to. In the winter, if I go to town, I have to start heading back around 3 p.m., otherwise I’ll be driving with lower visibility.

So this is making me treasure the summer daylight. I wasn’t ready to let it go.

But then the temperature pattern’s starting to change. During the day, the afternoon, it still gets hot outside. The house is still very warm. But the mornings begin with a need for a sweater, and the evening gets chilly as well. And that to me is the signal of autumn arriving.

That opened up new wonders, a different environment to enjoy, and it moved my grasping onto the summer hours into enjoying something that is very present right here, that is also transient.

The pleasantness of autumn is not going be here for long. Now I have the balance of pleasant temperature outside, and enough hours to stay outside comfortably. And soon it might start getting a little colder, needing more planning.

The Tension of Modern Life

One thing I couldn’t fit well into the structure of society is our working hours. Nine to five, or whatever daytime hours or cubicle hours it is. It is the most joyous time, and we spend the majority of it sitting at a desk indoors, away from nature or natural rhythm.

I’ve noticed this even more now, maybe my body’s at that age—when I used to sit for a few hours at work, it would be just a little bit of grumpiness and needing to drink water. Now, recently, if I sit down for one or two hours at a time without standing up, after I do, my legs are numb. And they stay numb for a while. They feel puffy and rigid.

The new, louder, more persistent sensations grabs me by surprise, showing that my body is starting to react stronger to inactivity, to sitting down all the time.

So my rebellion continues for health, physical and mental, and for this instinctual as well as spiritual connection to the earth we live on. I can’t say that working and responsibility at work always take priority over connecting with nature.

Presence Practice

There are different things we experience between a one-minute break, a 10-minute break, half an hour, or a camping trip. And between relaxing through activities and practicing being present, just noticing what’s around us without doing other things.

We often see elements of nature often as a background to whatever we’re actually doing. But nature is reality and connects us to reality. You can turn the activity of sensing nature into the foreground, and make it come alive as it magically does in beautiful animations or immersive movies.

There’s sound. Sound of wind or breeze through whatever vegetation is around you. Wind sounds different when it’s blowing through deciduous trees versus pine. There’s the critters and the birds. Some sounds you know so well that you can see it in your minds eye, and some sounds you can’t identify and raises curiosity.

There’s your breathing connecting you to air, and to other subtle rhythms. Take deep breaths, and notice the smells around you. If you’re surrounded by traffic, that is hard to do because there are indeed many things we don’t want to breathe deeply in. But just being inside a park, a little green oasis, or in your home breathing next to the window where fresh air comes in—that’s where you can challenge your senses, see what you can notice. I might get closer to a plant to see if there’s anything that might surprise me.

And there’s body sensations, senses of touch, Even being aware of how comfortable or uncomfortable you’re feeling in nature. Some things pass by, they come in waves. If a cloud’s moving and blocking the sun, then sometimes it’s too hot, sometimes it’s too cold. By paying attention, you are connected with that impermanence of things.

And sometimes the elements are constant, like the constant existence of flies flying around you. Then you find different attitudes you can explore, like going from being annoyed or cautious to trying out being life together, side by side, thinking about how you might maintain your human habitat, set boundaries, or design for each other’s wellbeing.

Today it was the rain that attracted me outside. Or rather the green and humidity after the rain.

I’ve been not very used to humidity, because it’s always so dry here. So just a tiny bit of humidity feels like discomfort. But then outside, everything looks alive, and everything feels so alive. The glistening light and reflection adds so many dimensions. I became aware of the birds and critters being active.

And that, with the chilly air of September, made my heart full.

Letting Go

No matter how the larger pattern of our lives, or the world, or history is going, there is the never giving up of what is present. I might be going to an awful stage in my life, but not every second will be awful. There’s always going to be different things sprinkled in between days and hours. Something pleasant, then something unpleasant. We can always count on something beautiful, that could help widen our eyes and soften our hearts, coming “later.”

The squirrels and chipmunks out here are very cute. It’s nice to see them grabbing food, or jumping between grasses, trying to hold on to the flowers. They are also a nuisance when it feels like they’re checking out our deck, trying to get inside maybe, looking for a warm place. I worry about mice building a nest in our house, in our garage. But with this being a really dry year, I also worry about them, how they’ll make it through the rest of the year. Have their babies. Enjoy the world. Sustain the ecosystem.

That’s why holding on to feeling things are bad, or feelings things are great and I don’t want that to change, is really more draining than we realize. Holding on to anything is probably rarely worth it. It’s rarely worth more than letting things go and find a broader perspective, and taking a sigh of relief, which often turns into sighs of hope and confidence.

There’s a deep connection with self, and connecting with truth, when we do feel all our emotions of losing stability. But there is so much joy in knowing the benefits of changing, trying out a different perspective, adapting, and not giving up on the joys and the joyful moments. Seeing the ebb and flow and inevitable turn of events that’ll keep us surprised and alive. That is going be my way of life, as much as I can, for now.

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Thanks for being here. I hope you enjoy this month at the beginning of autumn.