Nature's Timeless Embrace

A walk in nature, walks the soul back home. – Mary Davis Someone asked me why recently. Why do I hike so much, why do I focus on nature & hiking all the time? It was hard to think of why because there are too many reasons. Nature reminds me of who I am, who WE are. We are cyclical, flowing, living beings. Not hustle machines, built for constant doing, fighting and resisting. I realized that since 14, and every 10 years after, I’ve had major crises in my life that all lead me back to nature. And in between each of these, I forgot. I left her and thought I knew how to handle my life best. At 14, I was sent to a wilderness program, backpacked for 7 week straight and found out who I was for the first time in my life. At 24, I got sober after 10 years of destruction and I just so happened to live in one of the most beautiful mountain towns in the world. There, I healed again. From 32-33, my body crashed after extreme burn out from my business & covid-related anxiety. I ended up needing 2 surgeries in 2 months -I know in my heart that my body was telling me to stop what I was doing- and decided I needed to slow down again. I started walking outside more, hiking again consistently, building a community. Here I am today, after losing my sweet dog Lua and losing a pregnancy within 2 months of each other this year -and losing a job which feels very secondary to the above- and I’m OK. Why? Because I’ve been dong the work of trusting, slowing down, being in nature, and traditional therapy even when things are getting better. Because life is cyclical. Everything that can happen will happen. Life will be hard again. But nature is always there for us. She teaches us that everything gets accomplished perfectly without having to fight it. Why is nature important to you? . . .