More Connections

Following on from the last post, a key element of connecting is actually getting out and the old saying is still valid, 'the first step is the hardest'. It is often too easy to say 'it's raining', 'I'm busy', 'it'll be dark soon'. The key to the healing power of Nature, to be connected to the animate and inanimate world we a part of and to be healed by it is to get out and notice!

Views from 'bathing' benches in the Galloway Forest

Even if you visit the same place everyday there will always be something different to see, and again this means you have to be there, you have to look, to notice, to develop your observational skills. We can all notice something by accident, whether a view, a sunset, an eagle or a flower. The way we heal ourselves in nature is to keep repeating the accident! To notice not just the big, the dramatic but the subtle, more mundane as well. As always we need to be there, to notice, to reflect. To be mindful of all around us.

Preparing lunch!

We can spot creatures of all sizes

Another lunch time option!

Sometimes the colour palette presented is enough to help calm, develop a sense of appreciation

Language

Another great Kendal Mountain Festival #kendal18. Inspired by the great work of the amazing outdoor equipment company Patagonia, The Rivers Trust, Save Our Rivers and others including some terrific climbers, kayakers and mountaineers, we are now looking at how we can participate in more action to help protect and sustain our planet.

We also attended a session entitled Connection to Nature which was a discussion with a number of authors including Jay Armstrong, editor of the Elementum Journal. The idea was to discuss what is so important about the embodied experience in nature? To discuss what it is like to go out into the wilds (however you define or experience them) and how we come back and share our stories. There was some reticence from the panel about discussing Healing and Nature. While some found this surprising, to me, and certainly in the philosophy and practices of Naturally Mindful and Tao Mountain it is not Nature which heals (remembering that we too are part of Nature and sometimes Nature can be vicious, destructive and deadly). Instead it is our connection, our engagement, our respect and support for the world around us which is healing. In other words to feel well, to feel whole, we need to engage, to come away from our screens, to look up and notice, feel, smell, taste, listen, to the waves, the wind the rain, the rutting of stags, the cry of the peregrine. When we do this our perspective changes and we start to heal ourselves by recognising our place in the Nature of things.

A wet, windy day above Ullswater, not the typical healing space
 but  one that engaged all the senses, provided a sense
 of achievement and helped us feel we belonged in this space

Get Active

Great weekend at the Kendal Mountain Festival, our chosen theme was environmental activism. It was great to see the good work being done by adventure activists around the world. Big thanks to Patagonia for sponsoring some of the event and speakers.