Tag: nature

decisions on instinct

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

My therapist
encouraged me to practice making decisions
faster
and based on my instincts.
Not every decision needs to be
weighed and analyzed
for hours
before reaching a conclusion –
a novel concept
for my brain to comprehend.

I took her advice;
I could hear her voice in my head
gently pushing me
out of my head
and into my body.

Warm air, sunshine-soaked sky
lured me to be outside
and move,
while listening.
I want to walk through the park,
I want to explore a new trail,
I want to recreate a small sliver of wild
I chase and revel in elsewhere.

I laugh at myself
as I walk along the trail
at this series of decisions
being the most impulsive I have been
in months.

When did I become so scared of living?

the unique becomes the universal

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Trees, forests, water
and time away from home
pulled my heart to the north,
to Waskesiu.

For years
I have heard, from people countless,
of Waskesiu being included in their summer plans
and each spoke of the place
with such fondness
that it made me want to stay away.
I did not want to find joy
in the same place as so many others
for fear that doing so
would render me ‘common’, ‘basic’,
or ‘just the same as everyone else’.
I fiercely believed
I needed to be different;
I needed to find a different place
to nourish myself
so I could stand apart from the crowd.
My mind told my heart
I was not allowed to go there;
I would not be happy in being the same.

With shifting priorities and family structures
this year, Waskesiu made sense
and yet,
I remained determined to spend the time
in a way that afterwards
when I shared my story
it would land outside what I assumed to be
the ‘typical’ experience.

We rented a cabin,
we brought our five-and-a-half month-old puppy,
we cooked our own food,
we hiked kilometers of trails.

We encountered hundreds of people
and dozens of dogs
and as I observed my surroundings
I saw people
laughing and talking and playing together,
running, reading, chasing after each other,
enjoying time alone,
in family gatherings spanning generations.

My eyes scanned the beaches
painted with rainbows of towels, umbrellas and bathing suits,
picnic tables holding families and food,
and hiking trails leading the way
deep into the forests
otherwise unseen from the main roads.

As I watched these hundreds of people
each in their own way
connecting with nature,
I felt my need for competition,
my need to be different,
my fear of fitting in,
fade away.
Instead, I began to think about
how many people
every summer
come to places like this
to be amongst the trees, on the sand, in the water,
away from home –
somehow
hundreds, if not thousands,
of people find some degree of reprieve and restoration
in coming here.

The unique becomes the universal.

I began to understand
the scenes before my eyes
illustrated a commonality
connecting us to our humanity –
that being in nature,
feeling the sun on our skin,
squeezing sand between our toes,
breathing in the pine of the forest
and living amongst the wilderness
are perhaps inherent needs
to us as human beings.

Perhaps it’s a need for me to wholly embrace,
rather than hold at an arm’s distance
in fear of this collective commonality,
what I need to nourish my soul.

Sameness is not always the enemy.

find out where we’re going when we get there

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Let us walk down the street
read the shop signs and peek in the windows
lean into our intuition
of where we can nourish our minds and bodies.

We don’t need to make a plan
ahead of time.
We can allow our bodies to connect to nature;
the changing directions of the wind,
the building heat from the sun’s rays
as she ascends high into the sky
beyond the mountain peaks,
the winding trails through trees, along streams,
connecting to wonder.

Let us step into ourselves, into the world,
and find out where we’re going
when we get there.

listening to nature

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

I hear the birds and I hear the branches
I hear the vehicles and I hear the leaves
I hear the people, the animals
and the machinery to keep us cool
and still
I seek to understand, to objectify, to name,
to satisfy my mind.

When my mind nudges in
for a turn at the microphone
she reminds me, again,
of past thoughts, past concerns
and future anxieties
I am trying to let fly away with the birds
I cannot see.

I hear these sounds,
I hear the music they orchestrate
but apart from the trees and leaves
I cannot see their sources.

I cannot see their source
and yet they are there,
they still reach my ears
somehow.

They come and go,
bending off and into each other
seamlessly
as if following a score
or being led by a conductor at the podium.
They trust in each other.
I close my eyes, expand my ears,
trusting the sounds will reach me
in nature’s perfection
without a need for rationality or manipulation.

Imagine, just for a moment,
the freedom, the weightlessness,
the joy,
of trusting that life will unfold as it is meant
if we are open enough
to hear it
to receive it
and to accept it.

nature defies stagnancy

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

It does little good to plan out ahead of time
how events will transpire
when you do not know
outside of this moment,
anything.

Everything changes. Change is the constant.
From minute to minute
we are reborn.

We may look ahead to the waters we can see
on our projected path
but have you never seen
the unrelenting evolution of water,
its constant movement,
even when the surface appears to be still
enough to resemble glass?
The waters will change by the time you get there,
as will you,
so tell me, what the point is, in
trying to plan and control for things
that do not and may never exist?
Those who attempt this control
allow heartbreak and anxiety and fear
to anchor them in the water,
though the waves and currents and flow of life persist;
nature defies stagnancy.

Relinquish the need for control
and watch the anchors reel back up into the boat.
Allow movement and fluidity and
uncertainty to become your allies.
You can trust them, wholeheartedly,
they will not abandon you
nor lead you to harm.

Trust in the constant of change:
the only constant we know.

natural duality

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

The moon rests at the peak of its cycle
full, and bright,
shining radiant white light
down upon the world.
Contrasting against the enveloping jet black night
it calls forward shapes, animals,
out from the dark and into my view.
I hardly need my headlights
as I travel down the highway.

I marvel at this natural duality
of light and dark,
at the dualities surrounding me.
I can see the light, I can see the dark,
vast they are, in all they invite to live
within them.
Welcoming and accepting they must be,
for I see dark in light, and light in dark.
Perspective matters.

Choice also matters.
When I can see the light and the dark
and their inter-connectedness,
choice matters
and the choice is mine.

Listen to the birds

~ jennadawn ~ Leave a comment

Listen to the birds,
how they gently chirp and sing
with each other
to each other
their voices trailing in and out
amongst the breeze.

Try to emulate them.
Change your volume, tone,
and pace
to harmonize with the Earth,
not overpower.

Watch how your mind softens
your mind calms
your breath lengthens.

Experience, and embrace,
the transformation.