Nature can remind us that idleness is restoring and that slowing down to watch the rhythms of the natural world can be medicine for our stressed and maxed-out nervous systems. If you are seeking clarity, go spend time outdoors, even in your yard or neighborhood park. Turn off your phone. Turn up your awareness. You will start to hear something deep inside. Listen.
The Summer Day
by Mary Oliver
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?Photo by Eric Bégin, shared via Flickr
Many times all we need to do is to tune out of the humdrum of life and tune into nature and re-energize, de-stress and be reborn again!!!Simplify and re-focus!!! Truly great formula!!!