Life Comes FULL CIRCLE — Contemplations 003

It never ceases to amaze me how much life comes full circle. Ever since my friends and I started to live out our dreams of building a communal life for ourselves in the country, I found myself taking time to be with nature again, just as I had done before I set off for college. It's made me appreciate how much our environment inspires and influences our daily activities. Here, the outdoors beckons you. I want to be fully present for the sunrises, the sunsets, windstorms, rainstorms, the snow days. I want to be there for all of it. When I'm not working or gardening, I like to go for walks around the land. I don't go looking for anything in particular, but it's always such a gift when you find something special or unexpected, like a feather or an animal track or a fossil. It reveals a clue as to who passed here before you, and serves as a little reminder that the land is not really yours, but is shared by many, and therefore should be kept in mind when making decisions of how one stewards the land. As a kid, I would collect found objects from the outdoors. Abandoned bird's nests, unique stones and fossils, bird feathers, seed heads, and beautiful pieces of wood. These found objects gave me purpose. I would sit with my books and try to identify each one, and familiarize myself with their origins and natural history. With feathers, I would label them and keep them in a Ziploc bag, organized neatly in a shoebox beneath my bed. I also liked to go out and collect all the different plants I could find, and press them between the pages of books when I ran out of space in my plant press, which often happened, particularly in the height of summer or early fall, when it felt as if the whole world was either in seed or bloom. Years later, when I flipped through my books, maybe to idea a plant or find a favorite recipe, I would happen upon a pressed leaf or flower, and I would instantaneously be transported to the time and place when I had collected it. Like catching up with a long-lost friend, I found that I have returned to these simple but satisfying activities. Creating space for the simplest of pleasures is so vital. Stepping away from life's ever-present distractions, like emails and text messages, social media, general screen time, phone calls, news headlines, and even other people, can give you the headspace you require to appreciate the quiet, contemplative, and healing energies Mother Nature blesses us with every day. So instead of the constant and unsatisfactory short-term hits of dopamine every time we refresh our feeds, we are instead feeding our souls with the refreshing satisfaction of a long-term relationship with ourselves and with nature. I sometimes feel a sense of guilt, however, when I'm not working. I tell myself that I'm not being productive, that I'm not working towards my overall goals in life. But then I am reminded to be kind to myself, that enjoyment comes not necessarily through productivity and efficiency and goal-setting, but by allowing one's feet and mind and spirit to wander from time to time. This becomes a moving meditation of sorts, and I find that it clears the mind, repairs broken spirits, assuages anxiety, and sparks joy and imagination. I must have intuitively known this as a child, as a child often does, but I could only find expression of these thoughts upon a walk in the woods as an adult. It never ceases to amaze me how much life comes full circle.