DON'T TAKE A WALK IN THE WOODS

[MARCIA KOSTERKA]

There are times in everyone’s life when a moment, an event, or something you hear, creates an “Ahhhhh moment” that compels you to say or think, “I get it, I see a perspective I have never seen before.” It may be something that is and always has been, right under your nose. I came to realize such a new doorway into understanding several years ago while visiting “my thinking stream” where I have been inspired to write many times. In that setting, the words would flow, just like the water flowing down the winding hillside. In nature, our surroundings can give us insight into everyday realities, no matter the landscape or the activity.

As I sat on a flat rock at the edge of the stream, I noticed cars on the country road that winds through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in East Tennessee. They all seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere. Most contained vacationers from vast distances, coming there to see the sights. Yet, there I was, sitting still, seeing everything they were passing by. This doorway of understanding suddenly opened up to me, and I realized that when we are on the move, we see 2D pictures of everything we pass by. When we are in that mode, we are surface dwellers. We skim across the surface and only see still pictures of a world that is very much alive.

If you want to see the forest, do not take a walk in the forest, but instead, go sit down in the forest. While sitting there on that rock, the forest came alive in a way it is not revealed if you were on a brisk walk or driving through. I began to notice things like a gentle breeze working between the trees and leaves fluttering and twisting as the air stirs and then ceases. I see a colony of ants in a procession along the ground carrying a morsel of food back to their nest. I turn and notice a squirrel digging in the leaves, perhaps looking for a nut he buried months ago. Looking up in the trees, I can see a bird that just landed on a branch. He breaks into song and dance. He is likely a male putting on a mating show for a female that does not seem to be interested. I notice a single leaf that the breeze separated from the rest of the leaves on a branch. It slowly flutters back and forth and down into the stream below and is carried far away from whence it lived its life. When you become part of nature, nature becomes a part of you, and you carry it with you wherever you go. You are in touch with your inner self. Some may invoke the term, “Stop and smell the roses.” Whatever term you use, that doorway to a 3D view, is ever present wherever you are, or wherever you go. It is there on a park bench in a downtown city, an open desert, or even in or around your own home. We come to learn and understand far more by what we see and observe, than what we are told or hear about. Go take a front row seat to a world far bigger than you ever imagined.

Captain Ron 65

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