For as long as I can recall I have loved to be
outdoors and have found it to be tremendously restorative to my spirit and self
as a whole. As the years have passed and the cares of life increased for me I have
repeatedly let myself get too far from what I so desperately require for
renewal. Reconnecting with the natural world has only ever proven to mean
reconnection with what is deepest within me.
The way the snow of late hangs heavy upon the
evergreens in our backyard has reminded me once again to return to nature as
part of a return to myself. Last
evening, after a most delightful tromp through our little back woods with our two youngest children, I once again proved to myself that despite my age and what the world might
say, I am not yet too old to lie down in a bank of snow, to crawl under a thick
canopy of fluffy, white snow- laden evergreen branches under a night sky and feel the cool
caress of the earth wrapped around me in stillness and silence.
Looking back through some old notes I found a passage
from a friend which speaks so eloquently to my own deep experience of nature as
restorative.
Here is the short passage a friend of mine sent me in
early 2009 from a memoir written in 1883 by Richard Jefferies called The
Story of My Heart:
"There was a time when a weary
restlessness came upon me, perhaps fro too-long-continued labour. It was like a
drought, as if I had been absent for many years from the sources of life and
hope. The inner nature was faint, and all was dry and tasteless. Then, some
instinctive, uncontrollable feeling drove me to the sea.
Alone I went down to the sea. I
stood where the foam came to my feet, and looked out over the sunlit
waters....The life of the earth and the sea, the glow of the sun filled me. The
wind came sweet and strong from the waves. I touched the surge with my hands, I
lifted my face to the sun, I opened my lips to the wind....my soul was strong
as the sea and prayed with the sea's might, "Give me fulness of life like
to the sea and the sun, to the earth and the air; give me my inexpressible
desire which dwells in me like a tide -- give it to me with all the force of
the sea.
So deep was the inhalation of life
that day, that it seemed to remain in me for years." Richard Jefferies
And my early 2009 response to it: (I
actually believe it was PEI's first celebration of Islander Day hence the reference when I wrote
this response.)
"What
an exquisitely beautiful piece of writing! So incredibly evocative of the
mystics sense of God and self in the natural world! How many times I've felt
that need so strong and desperate! Most
often this occurs after a time of sustained alienation from self and beauty.
I've been dragged by that "uncontrollable
feeling" out into sub-zero temperatures just to lay on the ground and
feel the icy winds and snow blow over my prostrate body and at other times to
the woods to breathe deep the bracken, fern scented air. Over and over again I
let myself get to that place of "weary
restlessness" by something damned within my human nature... and not
ever has nature failed to restore my slackened soul.
Summertime
wildflowers, the slant of late afternoon sun on marshland in November,
songbirds at the feeder in winter; all breaths of new life... good for the
soul! Like Jefferies, I know well the desire to be in direct physical
contact with the natural elements...the need to immerse oneself in the entirety
of the experience. I find myself restored not unlike when I rest myself on my
beloved's chest. Oh, what a glorious description his was! I love when someone
writes so clearly that there is no time! That writing could have been spoken by
anyone, at anytime on any beautiful shore! What a gift! On this day of
celebrating being an Islander I am eternally grateful for this Island and it's
never ending responsiveness to my pleadings for its beauty. "
May you too know well the restorative power the natural elements have on the spirit!
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
