Nature

April 8, 2011

What is it about Nature that thrills the soul? We all feel it, especially in the Spring. All of nature seems to be coming awake - including us.

Yesterday I saw a bird I'd never seen before and with the help of a Facebook friend discovered it was a Grackle. I sat and stared at the iridescence of the purple and blue colors of his feathers. The other night as I was closing my bedroom blinds, I saw four deer walking through the trees in the moonlight. I stood and stared at their beauty and quiet grace. A short time ago I saw two foxes playing in the snow. I watched them chase each other and play fight - and the next morning I was delighted as I saw the tracks of their play in the snow. I saw hawks very close while walking and stood and watched them swoop on the wind. Each time a frisson of excitement went through me. It was like a peek into another world. A world of freedom and grace and play.

You might think I live in the country, away from other houses, but I don't - I live in a townhome in a rather populated suburban area. It has a lot of green space in back and a brook.

Maybe Nature thrills us, because of these things:
Nature demands a stillness to observe it. We have to stop and pay attention. We have to let everything go and just be with it.
Nature soothes us - it doesn't hurry, yet everything is accomplished. It reminds us that everything really is all right. Everything is happening just the way it should.
Nature refreshes us. Taking a problem outside, after breathing good air and being in nature, especially in trees, we get a new understanding.
Nature honors us each time we honor it. Seeing wildlife up close is like being given a great gift.
Nature brings peace to our soul.

George Washington Carver wrote: "I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.

This is what Spring is to me -- a reminder to tune in.

SPIRITUAL MIND TREATMENT

There is Peace is our Universe. Peace is God. It is serene and calm and Divine Right Order is everywhere. This is true about Nature and true about us. Nature is the body of God and we are part of Nature.

Today, whether I get physically outside or not, I allow myself to contemplate Nature and all Its beauty, Its grace, Its rhythms. I let these be integrated into who I am, and what I am doing and I breathe deeply and feel the Peace.

How grateful I am to be able to say like e. e. cummings: "I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."

And so it is.