Savoring Nature

Fly fishing in the Flat Tops Wilderness!

There is a rhythm in nature that calls to us - sometimes subtly, sometimes like a yearning. I’ve felt it again and again: in the hush before sunrise, in sunsets over mountains that seem to pause time, in the sound of doves cooing their familiar refrain. Nature speaks a language older than words.

Lately, I’ve been craving nature - not just the view from a window, but the full-body immersion of it. The kind where the sun fills the pores of skin and bones, where warm, gentle breezes wrap around you like a favorite sweater. The kind where you feel both your smallness and your significance.

Being by a river in the Flat Tops Wilderness recently reminded me of that. Fly fishing (if you can call it that), when all I caught was a willow branch and a rock, made me laugh at myself. Then came the quiet. Not silence, but a deeper quiet that held the rustle of chipmunks, the hovering blur of about ten hummingbirds, and the distant hum of wind through trees. I found myself resenting the sound of an airplane far above—as though it would fracture the sacredness of the moment. I wanted nature to take control. I wanted to remember that I didn’t have to be in control and didn’t want to be in control. 

Robin Wall Kimmerer, in her wonderful book Braiding Sweetgrass, reminds us that “The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.” That quote lives in me now. It urges me to notice more. To pay attention. To learn from what’s already offering its wisdom, whether it be a sudden breeze that shifts perspective, or the slow unfolding of a storm cloud over the mountains.

The sun will rise tomorrow. We know this, and yet each sunrise is a miracle. In that constancy lies healing. In that rhythm lies renewal. When we allow nature to guide us, to teach us, we discover the depth of possibilities...not in striving, but in being. In letting go of control. In being quiet enough to hear what’s always been true.

Three questions for your own reflection:

1. What is nature trying to teach you right now, if you slow down and listen?

2. When was the last time you allowed quiet to be enough?

3. Where in your life are you ready to release control and let something greater guide?

In Your Corner,

Linda