Looking through the window this morning, it was snowing very lightly and the sun penetrated the thin clouds making the snowflakes look like gently falling glitter. It was beautiful and cause for me to pause and enjoy the moment. There are so many times throughout my day when I can stop to appreciate what is beautiful, what is amusing, what is interesting, and what is amazing in this world. As I look out of any one of my three large windows, choosing any of three different directions, I count my blessings. Many people spend their days in tiny cubicles without windows and with only artificial light. They leave their houses in the morning before the sun has risen and do not go home until after it has set. They miss out on the best part of the day. They miss so much.
When I was much younger, I would often be depressed. The long months of winter and attending public school as a girl, enveloped me in a gloomy cloud much of the time. Eventually, I discovered that I loved to be outside. Cloudy days were not as dismal from outside where the clouds were mere curtains for the light that still managed to sift through them. As long as I was involved in physical activity and dressed in several layers, the cold did not bother me. I learned that if I temporarily fell under the spell of melancholy, all I needed to do was go outside in the fresh air to walk or shovel snow or empty the compost. Admittedly, it takes a bit more self-encouragement living in this place where the wind blows almost incessantly, dropping the temperature by several degrees.
The need to connect with nature every day is vital to our mental health, regardless of the season. In the preface to his co-written work, The Living Landscape, Rick Darke states, “It isn’t easy to write a book about combining beauty and biodiversity in garden design without constantly referencing Nature (with a capital “N”), but we’ve done our best. Why? Because the traditional idea of Nature is rooted in separatism – in the dichotomy of Man and Nature – and this book is about connection.”
We are not separate from nature! We are part of nature, as is everything that makes up the scenery in our lives’ ongoing play. It is time to shelve the idea that we are bigger, smarter, or better than other living things. That was a humungous lie that began with the Christian church more than two thousand years ago. The truth that we are all ONE is being revealed to us every day as more and more people wake up to the world that is all around them. From now on, I will not capitalize the “n” in nature because I know that I, too, am nature.
