love liberated

Attending the 2023 Nature Summit has deepened our wonder | wander | women appreciation for our early morning walks through our pocket village back home. 

There is a boundless liberation where love emerges - an expansion occurs that is all encompassing yet totally freeing. 

daylight full moon in May

We realize that love is a flexible fabric - the web of life, the atmosphere that surrounds us. Being out in nature offers us this alternative. 

We release the fun flimsy fantasy of certainty and liberate ourselves from the need to control or predict what matters to us. Everyone can learn this skill and share it out in the world we live in.

the joy & bliss in our private owl park

We made a mistake - we equated the self with the individual. We have a modern culture which really pushes for individualism. It is killing us - it does not work. 

Let us course correct and begin again - make the great turning a reality. Buddhist practice calls awareness the host and calls our body the guest. 

golden morning light through the leafy canopy

If the host doesn't have a guest there's no way that awareness can manifest and move through the world without sense organs. If the guest doesn't know there's a host there's no way to get to any kind of transcendental understanding. 

Nature makes it easier for us to access the fullness of our self by immersing and connecting with it. Somatic therapy develops resources within to self-regulate emotions or to move out of the fight, flight, freeze response and into a higher-functioning mode of clarity and balance. 

a soft slow bend along a secluded shady lane

Their combined practice leads to what advocates refer to with the acronym AWE - attention, weight, exhale.

The A stands for attention - as we go about our day we are encouraged to focus on beauty. Whatever strikes us as beautiful in the moment.

The W is for weight - sit with it a bit. Assigning substance and value to the object of our attention.

The E reminds us to exhale - really attend to it for a couple of breath cycles. Keep that exhale longer than the inhale to help activate de-stressing mechanisms.

morning sun! morning sun! come our way!

This combined practice takes only a minute or two to achieve the desired results. Do it a couple of times a day and we become more prone to seeing beauty all around.

Happy trails! May this lead you to more mindful and enjoyable walks through nature.

heading back - refreshed & attuned in our world