I have recently been learning a way of connecting with nature by using my heart wisdom rather than my brain intelligence. This new insight began when I re-discovered a book by Stephen Harrod Buhner called, The Secret Teachings of Plants. Buhner is one of my favorite authors and I purchased this book years ago before I began this journey of the oracle, but apparently was not ready then to learn about connecting with nature through my heart.
Now when I go for my daily walk, I stop near some part of the forest that calls my attention: a cedar giant, a clump of moss sparkling with rain, a twisty community of salal. I wait in meditative quiet, focusing my awareness in my heart as well as on the place in nature, until I feel a warm sensation of opening, of permission to be present with the life here. I "come to my senses" in my heart awareness and then ask myself "How am I feeling at this moment?" I understand that this feeling tone is flowing from this place in nature, and connecting me to its "ensparkedness" through my heart as an organ of perception. I don't ask for anything, or intend to take anything, I just stand in the dripping January forest and feel the deep down freshness in our shared aliveness.
I offer my breath as thank you to the place for letting me be present with it and often as I walk on I remember one of my favorite quotes from John Muir: "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
I offer my breath as thank you to the place for letting me be present with it and often as I walk on I remember one of my favorite quotes from John Muir: "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."
