5 Contemplative Ways To Connect With Nature

AL 95 Thank you for joining me today on Learning to Pray and Meditate.

I invite you to listen and participate as we discuss contemplative ways to connect with nature.

I've been praying and meditating outdoors for as long as I can remember.

I'll just give you a few different examples.

One time,

And I'm not sure how old I was,

I was probably 11 or 12 years old,

I climbed up this hill.

We were out at a place called Harrison Hot Springs.

And I remember wanting to have some sort of an experience,

You know,

Maybe like Moses and the burning bush.

I climbed up on this hill and sat in the woods for a while and then went home again as I can kind of remember,

Maybe a little bit disappointed because obviously the burning bush didn't show up and I didn't have that kind of an experience.

But what's important is that that was an expression of my desire for a connection with something greater than myself.

And I think we all have that.

And unfortunately,

Because of our loss of connection with nature today,

We don't have as many opportunities to connect with nature and the divine or whatever you may call it in some sort of way.

At 16,

I did have an experience.

And this time I wasn't looking for it.

It just sort of happened.

I got to participate in this wonderful outdoor education class where every month or so we would go on some sort of hiking or climbing or skiing adventure.

And on this particular day,

We were up at a place called Elfin Lakes,

Which is near Squamish,

BC.

And there was a full moon.

And we went out and on our cross country skis decided to ski around for a while.

And it was like being on the moon.

Really,

Really cool.

Like there was enough light to see off in the distance.

And at one point off in the distance,

I actually saw an avalanche.

It was far,

Far away.

It wasn't any sort of a threat.

And just blown away by the whole scene.

And I think just shortly after seeing that avalanche,

I just had this thing well up inside of me.

And I just thought,

There has to be a God.

And that's not a theological statement.

I'm not trying to get you to believe in any sort of deity.

But I have to say,

And as subjective as it is,

That at that moment,

I think I felt some sort of connection with the Creator of all of this.

Sometime in my mid to early 30s,

I started praying outside,

Outdoors.

And I've been doing it ever since then.

I'm 57 at the time of this recording.

And I started with Centering Prayer back then.

And Centering Prayer,

If you're not aware of it,

Was started by Father Thomas Keating.

And it's really just a way of letting go and opening yourself up to the Divine.

And I started doing it outdoors,

And doing it in one particular part of a certain trail.

And I found it to be a great way to just be open and to connect with nature.

At one point,

I don't remember how old I was,

Again,

I had some sort of an experience.

I wasn't looking for it per se.

I just decided to be as still as I possibly could.

And to this day,

I don't know exactly what happened,

But I had an experience of what I would call oneness.

I just somehow saw and knew in my spirit that all things are connected.

When I got out onto the trail,

I heard the words of the psalm,

Be still and know that I am God.

And I nearly fell over,

Seriously,

I just got weak in the knees and teary-eyed.

It was quite an experience that I'm still unpacking to this day.

And probably will unpack for the rest of my life.

And that happened outdoors and in nature.

I find that today we have to be intentional about something that we didn't used to have to be intentional about.

For most of Earth's history,

There was an agrarian society.

And now,

As you know,

And if you're anything like me,

I live primarily indoors and I have to be very intentional about getting outdoors.

And for the most part,

Unless I'm intentional about it,

I don't have that connection on a daily basis.

Except I do because I am intentional about it and I do get outdoors.

I know working and living downtown for a while,

It was sure my experience that people,

Especially people who were living in poverty,

They didn't have that same opportunity to get out of the city and experience nature.

And we actually,

At the organization I worked with,

We would do a yearly camping trip and just saw that firsthand and what that connection with nature could do and did and does for people.

In the introduction to Christine Vaulter Painter's book called Earth,

The Original Monastery,

She says we live in what we might call an age of forgetting.

We have forgotten who we are in relation to everything else.

The creatures,

The plants,

The mountains,

The forest,

The oceans,

One another,

And even ourselves.

She says one of the fruits of contemplative practice is the remembrance of our wholeness.

We are able to see past the divisions we create with our egos and minds and rediscover the truth that we are all one creation.

She says that her book is an attempt at the recovery of that and an invitation to remembering.

Through contemplative practice,

And I'm going to suggest particularly in the outdoors,

We remember.

We remember our wholeness.

We remember that we are invited to let go of our egos.

And as in my case,

And I admit it was a total gift,

We experience oneness.

Rumi says out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in the grass,

The world is too full to talk about.

I love this quote.

It's non-dual.

It reminds me that nature treats everyone the same.

That nature is just so full and generous that words fail.

There's nothing to do but be silent and take it all in.

I find the key to connection and connection outdoors is to create the space for connecting.

And that's our job.

And I want to share the following practices to help you do that.

Before I do that,

Just one more quote here.

Thomas Keating famously said that silence is the language of God.

And as with so many things in our lives,

We need to create space in order for a deep connection to occur.

We do our part by simply getting out of the way.

I'm going to invite you to participate in several practices in a moment that have helped me to do that.

And I hope will help you do the same.

If you can,

And I know it's not always possible,

But if you have earphones and can listen to this on your phone,

I invite you to listen to this outdoors and to put into practice each meditation.

Okay,

Let's begin.

For our first one,

We're going to let go of any agenda or expectations we might have.

Nature is difficult to control and a lot of times is beyond our control.

Also,

We can't control our neighbors,

Our fellow walkers,

Hikers,

Or park goers.

So let go of your expectation of others and nature herself.

Become aware of any expectations you might have at this present moment.

Observe it.

Feel it.

And let it go.

Just to name several expectations you might be having,

I invite you to let go of your desire for spiritual experience.

Let go of the weather.

Let go of the noises you hear internally and externally.

And one final time,

Let go of expectation.

And just be.

Next,

I want to invite you to use your senses.

Let's practice running through each sense.

Take your time with each one.

And this can be done inside or outside.

But I find it to be quite helpful to connect with nature through your body and through your senses when you do it outside.

As you do these,

Just observe them.

Don't judge them.

You might make a mental note.

For example,

The air feels cool on my skin,

But don't go any further with it.

Just observe.

To begin with,

Become aware of the temperature of the air on your skin.

Smell the air.

What do you see?

What do you hear close by?

What do you hear in the distance?

Scan your body and look for what the dominant feeling is inside of you right now.

Again,

I invite you to just be with it.

Now I want to invite you to do something a little bit different.

The best way to say it is to do a whole body sensing.

See if you can just use all of your senses at the same time.

Hear,

Listen,

Smell,

Feel,

Taste.

We forgot to do taste.

And just be one with your surroundings.

Next has to do with our thoughts.

Sometimes when we walk and we want to be a little bit more meditative or be present,

We're up in our heads.

One of the really simple things is to observe our thoughts and to let them go.

Thinking is natural and obviously the goal of meditation is to not stop thoughts.

We just don't want to be overrun by them.

And we want to be present to our surroundings,

Particularly when we're outdoors.

If we're outdoors,

We need to get out of our heads in order to connect.

And so now whether you are walking or sitting,

Become aware of your thoughts and label them as thinking.

It might help to just say the word thinking as a thought comes to your mind.

And once you place the label on a thought,

Focus on your breath and let it out.

Immediately after that breath,

That out breath,

There might be a bit of a gap and you can just rest in that gap.

Another way to do this is to label your thoughts again.

So become aware of your thoughts and say the word thinking as a thought comes to your mind.

Breathe out and focus your attention on your surroundings and just naturally be.

Let's do that one again.

Become aware of thoughts,

Label it thinking,

Breathe out,

And as you do focus your attention on your surroundings and just naturally be.

Another practice,

And this is the fourth one on our list,

Just one more to go after this,

Is to be with whatever it is that you are observing without judgment or thought.

Just be with what you observe.

If something catches your attention,

Stop and be with it.

Sometimes this is hard,

Particularly when we're walking and we have an agenda,

But we've already let go of that.

But I admit it can be difficult to stop.

That's why it's important to let go of your agenda first.

So now if you're outdoors or even if you're indoors,

Just look for something that catches your attention and stop and simply be with it.

Don't judge it.

Don't analyze it.

Try not to even think about it.

Just give it your presence.

You can even be open to what something might have to say to you.

There's an ancient cottonwood tree on my walk.

It's probably 10 feet in diameter and it's hard for me to estimate how tall it is,

But let's say it's 100 feet tall.

And this is going to sound crazy,

But sometimes I talk to that tree as I walk by.

And one day I was walking by that tree and I think I heard it say,

Not an audible voice of course,

But it said,

I am here.

I am here.

And that was really profound and I began to practice that myself and still do from time to time and pass that tree almost every single day.

And I'm reminded of that.

And that phrase has become so helpful to help me to become present and to just be like trees and so much of nature are.

Trees just are.

They're just there doing their job,

Not asking for anything,

Breathing in and breathing out.

And to this day,

That statement centers me and helps me to be present.

But this isn't about me,

So I just want to invite you to just listen.

Don't try to push the river.

Don't try to have an experience.

Just be open and you never know.

It'll be much more meaningful if you hear something.

Our final practice is walking meditation.

And if you're outdoors and you have headphones on,

I just invite you to do it.

If you have the opportunity,

Just look for Thich Nhat Hanh videos on walking meditation.

He's a wonderful teacher of this method.

So you're not going to walk fast.

You're just going to take really slow steps.

And one thing you can do is just time each step with your breath.

So as you take your first step,

Let's say it's with your left foot,

Take a step and breathe in.

And then take another step with your right foot and breathe out.

Left foot,

Breathe in.

Right foot,

Breathe out.

Left foot,

Breathe in.

Right foot,

Breathe out.

I'm told I'm not an expert at breathing meditation,

But if you want to do each breath to the count of four,

I'm told that that's a good way to just stay centered.

Now with that same rhythm,

I invite you to be conscious of each step.

Be conscious of your foot touching the ground.

If you want,

It can be helpful to go barefoot when you do this.

Living here in Canada,

There's not many months of the year where we can do that.

Or I can do it indoors,

I suppose.

So going barefoot just provides an even deeper and more rich experience as you do this.

So again,

Just be conscious of your foot touching the ground.

Take good care.

You