Morning Fog

Before dawn, fog moves up from the river, through the forest, and fills the woods behind my house. It’s a bit gloomy. Yesterday we had sunshine, and the brightness brought a surge of energy. Today, not so much. I want to put on a sweater, sit in a soft chair by the window, drink hot tea, and read a book about someone else’s adventures.

As the sun rises slowly, the white particles of mist float and turn on the whims of the breeze. At first glance, it looks like fine snow is drifting down.

Then I see it.

Boundaries

(photo of the top of Yosemite Falls in winter)

I do not make the transition between seasons easily. I get comfortable with the season I’m in, having rediscovered its unique beauty, and I don’t want to let it go. All winter, without leaves on the trees behind my house, I’ve been able to see across the valley to the hill on the other side. This week, with a little rain and warmer weather, the leaves have begun to emerge and close off my view. I miss the beauty of the snow and being able to see the contours of the land that soon will be hidden by the forest.

Making any transition has never been easy. I remember one fall when I was hiking in Yosemite in late October anticipating a week of dry days and cool, but sunny weather. One night a snow storm moved in. The next day I went on my hike, as planned.

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On the Yosemite Falls Trail going up the canyon wall, a scattering of snow begins to appear at the 6000-foot level. It gets deeper the higher I go, making the upward hike slippery and a little dangerous. I go around a bend and hit a cold wind funneling down, and think of the French voyageurs battling harsh weather as they canoed across Lake Superior. Then I think of Sigurd Olson canoeing there after them, in the Boundary Waters between Minnesota and Canada, listening to the voices of nature around him.

Old Trees

There’s a street near my house that used to have large, majestic trees hanging over the road that provided cool shade even on the hottest summer day. For one block it felt like I was driving through what I imagine Sherwood Forest would look like.

Now half the trees are gone, trimmed back or cut down because they were old, and dead limbs were breaking off in storms. The street has a different feel to it, and it’s become every other streamlined road that takes me from here to there. I used to take a deep breath on that road to center me to something solid, real, and a little magical as I drove off to start my day.

The land we live on influences how we relate to others and deal with the day’s challenges.

Walking With Senses Open

To really experience nature, I need to have all of my senses working. I want to be aware of the large, carnivorous animals moving through the woods before I run into them, of course, but I also want to see beyond the generalities of woods, sky, and river and see their specifics.

I want to look at the individual trees, and see how they are different — the roughness of the bark, the shape of their leaves, and if they have nuts. I want to watch the interaction between the river and its bank and see what creatures live there. I want to listen to the quieter sounds of what is going on around me, and find the creek that is trickling somewhere nearby. I want to watch the movements of a vole walking under the leaves that is making them twitch. I want to have a feeling for the landscape, so that when I come around the bend I will instinctively know if it is going to rise or go down, be in sunlight or in shade.

Spring Trees

Tiny buds that I can’t see on trees in the distance are giving the woods behind my house a light green sheen.

Last week I noticed a beautiful bare tree. Without any leaves, everything was visible —the trunk, main branches, even the smaller branches as they extended thinner and thinner into thousands of fingers. The tree was so symmetrical that I gazed at it in admiration, then had to leave because I was at a stop light.

We are like trees and the branches are our lives –relationships, projects, work, and all of our interests over the years. As some of our interests end, those branches die and fall off. As people we knew in high school move away, those branches never develop any further. When we start new interests and relationships, new branches appear and grow. The roots and the trunk of who we’ve been remain strong and provide support for our new ventures.

Hiking Alone in Nature

We aren’t alone when we hike by ourselves in nature because nature goes with us. Nature is a companion who walks at our pace, and has stored treasures around each bend in the trail. Sometimes nature converses so loudly that we can’t hear ourselves think, like when we’re standing at the bottom of a waterfall, feeling the earth vibrate from the pounding water. Sometimes it murmurs so quietly that we have to get down on our knees and lean in close to hear what it’s saying.

Often we don’t have to hike very far to feel nature’s presence. All we have to do is find a spot that feels right, sit, and let nature come to us. After half an hour, the birds and animals will set their caution aside, and resume what they were doing, and we can watch them go about their daily lives.

We can also hike on and on without stopping until our senses go on overload and we go numb with the onslaught of amazing image after image.

Wilderness Prayer

Mindfulness is camping in the wilderness, rising at dawn, and listening to nature wake up around you as you cook breakfast over a fire.

Prayer is a conversation we have with the mountains and rivers, with ravens and coyotes. We share our thoughts and feelings, and as we listen to the Other, our perceptions about ourselves and the world change and deepen. As we watch the lives of nature, we grow in compassion for all creatures.

Send Them Outside to Play

If you have no relationship with nature,

you have no relationship with humanity.

-- Krishnamurti

The landscape of one’s home is always sacramental.

 It molds our character. It’s the soil out of which we grow.

 It’s where we either encounter the divine

or we never make the connection.

-- Seamus Heaney

If we have a relationship with nature, we do better in relationships with people because we realize that the health of our community depends on the health of our environment. We realize there are bigger truths in the world than our own personal truths. Nature also has a way of humbling us, and reminding us that we’re not in control outdoors. In nature we become aware of a greater power.

In the Darkness

In the darkness before dawn, in the quiet of the hours before people rise out of their beds, before the sound of traffic on the street picks up, even before the sunlight rises over the hill to wake the birds to come to the feeder, there is a delicious silence. 

In the fullness of this silence, I open myself to the universe, to whatever it wants to share with me today. In the darkness before dawn, I believe that all things are possible.

Nature as Revelation

John Burroughs wanted people to go outside and enjoy the nature that existed around them wherever they were, whether this was forest, farmland, ocean, desert, or a city park. He was concerned that people were staying indoors too much. He wrote this in the late 1800s. I think he’d be more concerned today.