Creating Your Nature Space
by Meredith Young-Sowers
One
of the best ways to heal a physical problem or reduce emotional stress is to
interrupt our daily routines with experiences that reacquaint us with Nature. As
we are swept up, captivated, and enthralled by the displays of Nature's wonder,
we sense the immutable balance that is our own source of creation, our Spirit.
The difference between normal recreation and experiencing Nature's creative
expressions is that in seeking Nature for our own delight, we pay attention to
the rejuvenation it inspires us to feel inside. We enter Nature's creative arena
in order to recognize our union with it and to be regenerated.
Everything about Nature is impressive, from the bumblebees that aren't
supposed to be able to fly but do, to the intricacies of flowers, the wonders of
giant redwoods, and the brilliance of the sun glinting off a streambed filled
with glistening stones. Everywhere we look we see that Nature is our greatest
teacher. Engaging Nature means engaging our roots, which tie deeply into our
heritage and allow us to appreciate our Earth home.
Imagine renting a canoe or kayak and going out for a paddle. We quickly
settle into a different inner rhythm. Our arms move in harmony with the current,
and we forget our worries and become part of the life around us -- an intimate
part. When we use chalk, watercolors, or oil paints to express the beauty of our
gardens, hills, or snow banks, we flow into the images as we create them. What
we depict in images has a greater impact on us than mere words.
Our lives become richer when we allow our senses to be stimulated by the
images, sights, and sounds of the natural world. In experiencing Nature's
creativity, we open our own vibrant inspiration. Our Life Steward energy is
trying to get us to be creative, to participate in Nature's playground. We're in
it for the fun of it -- to calm our nerves, to awaken our delight in life, and
to get out of our heads and into our bodies.
All of our creative efforts involve Nature in one way or another. When people
say that they are uncomfortable in Nature, they are saying they have lost the
fit with their own most basic source of creative expression. We have become city
dwellers and business people. But first we were cave dwellers and
hunter-gatherers. The Earth and the natural world are imprinted in the core of
our being.
Finding inner balance comes from returning to the images of Nature and moving
in harmony with life around us, not remaining locked away in constructions of
concrete and cinder block. It is in our blood, our genes, to be Life Stewards --
stewards and caretakers of the land around us and within us.
When we play music, walk in Nature, garden, hike, or sit quietly in majestic
places, we redesign our lives more powerfully than we can through all the
thinking and planning and articulating of great and lofty plans. When we find
what we love and share it with others we love, our futures find us. When we move
out of our inner harmonies by trying too hard, planning too much, wanting too
badly, we drop the ball of momentum in our lives.
Activity without the need for achievement or control is the real nourishment.
When we do something creative, we're reawakening the rhythms of our lives that
are essential to us.
Creating Your Own Nature Space
A Nature space is any place -- large or small, wild or planned, in your
office, in your home, greenhouse, or back yard -- that takes you into Nature's
splendid mystery.
Spend ten minutes before work admiring or tending your indoor plants in your
living room, greenhouse, or porch. Whether you have one plant or twenty-five
doesn't matter.
Create window boxes or gardens that can be your Nature spaces, where you
attend to yourself by attending to Nature.
Enjoy Nature's wild spaces by sharing a few moments on the way to work
admiring and enjoying the sun shimmering through a stand of white pines, a
freshly turned farmer's field, or a turtle crossing the road. On your way to
work, find and pause for a few moments to breathe deeply, relax, enjoy, extend
yourself into the Nature space around you and find renewal there.
If you find yourself too busy to take time in the morning or evening to
develop a Nature space, take five minutes before or after lunch to look around
your office, or the place where you spend most of your day, and see where Nature
spaces appear. Is it in the picture of the Grand Canyon on your wall calendar,
or in the bouquet of flowers on your table? Is Nature in the water in your
glass, or is the music you hear a takeoff on Nature's sounds? Is Nature in the
crackers and cheese on your plate, or in the ant crawling across the carpet?
Find Nature around you, and enjoy the moment.
This
article was excerpted from:
 Wisdom Bowls: Overcoming Fear and Coming Home to Your Authentic Self
by Meredith
Young-Sowers.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher,
Stillpoint Publishing. ©2002. www.stillpoint.org
Info/Order this book.
More books and items by this author.
About the Author
Meredith
Young-Sowers is the author of the best-selling books
Agartha: A Journey to the Stars
and the
Angelic Messenger Cards. She is
also the Director of the Stillpoint Institute and the Stillpoint School of
Advanced Energy Healing. Visit her website at
www.meredithyoung-sowers.com, www.wisdombowls.com
as well as www.wisdombowls.com.
More articles by this author.
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