Spring Beginnings: Nature Reconnection & Time
Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash
Happy May! May is one of my favorite months. So many trees and flowers are starting to bloom. With every new beginning there is so much potential. The energy of spring feels like a quickening to me. And when I’m not careful, my mind will grab right onto that energy and run. Before I know it, I am rushing around to all of these commitments with little time to be present and enjoy spring. With every unrealistic expectation I set, I am equally likely to be disappointed. For instance, I never posted to my blog in April! This post is the very late consequence of too many commitments and unrealistic expectations. I could easily give myself a hard time about this and I certainly would have in the past. I probably would have forced myself to finish it, all the while feeling tired and rushed. Instead, I recognized that I was out of sync with nature and my own body’s pace and I adjusted. I had some things that were a greater priority so I let this fall behind. Because it's still important to me, I waited until the spark of creativity was there. Nature reconnection offers us the opportunity to be more mindful of time and how we relate to it.
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
Exploring your natural pace.
Have you ever asked yourself what your natural pace is? Are you more of a turtle or more of a hare? And, is that your mind speaking or your body’s truth? Through my own nature reconnection practice, I’ve started to realize that my mind is used to operating at what feels like the speed of an asteroid hurtling through space. And with good reason! I, like many of us, have been socially conditioned to operate at that speed consistently until we simply cannot operate any longer. However, I’ve noticed that my body would much rather move like a manatee. Floating in the warm waters, rolling around, gathering moss on my back, and enjoying a lot of greens. Nature reconnection teaches us that every creature has its own pace. Sometimes this changes over time, like with the pace of the seasons. When we are present and actively embodying the pace of other creatures, we can try it on and see how it feels. I know that I get some pretty clear signals from my body when I am moving too fast or when I’ve been sitting for too long. How does your body tell you when your pacing is off and what do you do with that information?
“Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.”
Re-learning presence.
It’s easy for us to give our minds a hard time. It’s also very normal to feel frustrated and anxious about how loud and persistent our thoughts get. Have you ever been on a nature walk or a hike and walk a mile before realizing that you weren’t really present but were just thinking the whole time? Yeah, me too. But, what if our minds are really just trying to help in the best way they know how? Minds are always trying to tell stories, categorize things, predict what may happen and protect us from doing something dangerous (among the many other things). They probably have helped us along the way. For instance, not too long ago, we had to be able to plan in preparation for the winter so that we didn’t eat the whole harvest and starve when there was no fresh food coming in. That’s pretty important. However, we don’t want to live beholden to our thoughts explaining the past or predicting the future because we miss out on the beauty of the present moment. Especially when these thoughts are part of a story that has been given to us about ourselves from dominant culture. These are the mental prisons and ancestral trauma we get stuck in that I discussed in my last blog post. When the stories floating through our minds are no longer true or helpful, we can attend to breath. The breath is always present. I say that this work is a re-learning because we aren’t born thinking ourselves into oblivion. We can re-learn presence. When we are reacting to a past trauma in the moment, we can ground ourselves with our back against a supportive tree until we feel present again.
“The mind is a place where the soul goes to hide from the heart.”
When time is precious, what matters most?
It’s a funny thing that as we shift our attention away from our thoughts and toward our bodies and our hearts, we come into deeper connection with what matters to us. But, it’s not always an easy journey. As a highly sensitive person, I know that when I am present I am often going to be feeling some strong emotions. Have you ever been filled with so much awe and beauty at the sunlight through trees that you well over into tears? There are times when this feels overwhelming. Especially when I am faced with the reality of deforestation and habitat loss. Through the grief, we find love. We learn to nurture and protect what we care about. In fact, The Work That Reconnects by Joanna Macy teaches us that our grief can actually fuel our action. If we live in our minds and not our hearts, we do not have the opportunity to love in action. To have compassion for yourself takes patience. To see things as they are takes trust. To go against the rhythm of society takes courage.
“Walk boldly through your life with an open, broken heart.”