“The mind is more comfortable in a landscaped park because it has been planned through thought; it has not grown organically. There is an order here that the mind can understand. In the forest, there is an incomprehensible order that to the mind looks like chaos. It is beyond the mental categories of good and bad. You cannot understand it through thought, but you can sense it when you let go of thought become still and alert and don’t try to understand or explain. Only then can you be aware of the sacredness of the forest. As soon as you sense that hidden harmony, that sacredness, you realize you are not separate from it, and when you realize that, you become a conscious participant in it. In this way, nature can help you become realigned with the wholeness of life.”
Eckhart Tolle ~ Oneness With All Life Treasury Edition – Inspirational Selections from A New Earth 2008
Is there a special place where you can let go
and become still and alert to feel
a sense of connection to nature?
Perhaps it is not a forest.
Perhaps it that same sense of stillness
and heightened awareness
when you pause to look at flowers or rocks.
What are you naturally attracted to?
The are several places I go, even nearest my home. Probably the one I love best is an old log at the bottom of the Scarborough Bluffs on a warm summer's day. Just my dog and I five kilometres of rugged beach and bluff stretching out in either direction. We are right in the middle of the City of Toronto and yet we are alone with the lake and the trees and the wind.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of trees, I love your picture.
Canada is lovely for such things,or at least the parts I've seen. This southern metroplex is too concrete. Forests of concrete and steele.
ReplyDeleteBut there is a little garden I like to tend here. Stillness is there.
I wish I remembered it more often.
Lovely blog :)
Thanks for sharing !!
ReplyDeleteNoticing a place where we are naturally attracted visit and feel some sort of contentment or peace or joy is comforting ~ a 'coming home' of sorts.
Ginger states, "Forests of concrete and steel", this has become a common environment for most of society.
What if we could inspire our global neighbours to notice the cracks in the concrete and steel,what would we notice?
What pokes out? creeps through? pours into?
How could we point out these natural strengths to young children or anyone?
How do these acts create wonder and spark imagination?
When we were up in Canada in 2003 I totally felt that. It is absolutely so beautiful. It is truely amazing how beautiful the whole world is. I had this same feeling a couple weekends ago when I went flying over the Phoenix area. Gorgeous...that is the only thing that I can say.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting quote. I have spent many hours on art that tries to work out that balance--and definition--between chaos and order.
ReplyDelete