My soul is filled when I’m in the trees. I was explaining to my students the other day how to look at things with poet’s eyes; to look for small moments with big feelings and explore that and the thing I came back to over and over is how my heart swells like a sponge in a rainstorm when I breathe hard and sweat in the forest. Hiking is my my prayer at my church with cathedral trees and wildlife parishioners. Sometimes I’m moved to tears, but almost always I feel healed and whole afterwards. When we are cruising along on longer hikes I allow myself to deeply daydream, meditate and breathe independently as I make my way up the mountainside, with my people but totally in my own world. It sounds a little cheesy, but things that are pure like that usually are often uncomfortably so. This weekend I got to go with my Gigi. We held hands, chatted, giggled, were quiet, thoughtful and reigned in the dog while we hustled down to the water then back up again. I remarked that we know one another as runners now and know when to walk and when to run together; our secret language. I loved her pretty deep, too. I should always go, even when it rains in yucky, muddy, cold, dark February. I need to remember what it does for me. I loved today.❤️
All I can say is wow. I find being out “in nature” a true resource to lowering my stress & anxiety levels. We have been doing our share of hiking lately. It has been wonderful,