Picture 1 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Picture 2 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Picture 3 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Picture 4 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Picture 5 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Picture 5 - Taken by me in Wales, in the UK a while ago.
Introduction
From listening to the rhythms of the water on the rocks on one of my many coastal walks to the sighing of the wind across the Moors on a summer's day as the scent of heather rides the breeze, nature is the ultimate healer IMO.
In my experience 'nature bathing', as I call it, is extremely effective in negating chronic depression/anxiety.
So, let me take you on a little photographic journey.
Each of the photos I've shared above has a healing event/feeling attached to them which might make it clearer what I mean by 'nature bathing'.
Pic 1: Gorse on the Hill & A Bumble Bee Teacher
As I sat by this gorse bush I observed the bees in their early morning nectar-gathering mission, and I realised that business is just part of nature. We as humans are the only animal, I think, who create concepts/judgements/stresses around the busy aspect of living.
After all, the bee doesn't stress about the day's work ahead. This is because the bee works hard at what it was born to do. We as humans have created a multitude of meaningless jobs that bring no satisfaction, that bring nothing of merit to the world or directly fly in the face of what might make us happy. The word marketing is rapidly springing to my lips 🤣
It is a rare thing in this day and age to find a person staying in a job for a lifetime, that they actually enjoy.
Watching these tiny insects taught me the importance that a majority of humankind find a way of doing something that is in their nature, personality-wise, to do for work. In a world with an increasing level of mechanisation, this point becomes even more prevalent and true. This is the only way we will learn to live in harmony with our environment, to live in harmony with ourselves, if we ever do.
Pic 2: Hobbiton in Wales, or Perhaps the Misty Mountains 😉
As I walked in the dawn chorus, sun burning away the early morning mists, the meadows opened out in sun-born bliss. This is where I find my quiet place in nature. Summertime in Wales is a brief explosion of viridity. The once rain-soaked fells come alive with insects and birds.
The Hobbiton-esque landscape speaks of lazy days, meandering through the woods; recalls that special childhood wonder of exploring stream beds for dappled stones and playing hide’n’seek amongst the trunks of trees. This sort of nostalgic mussing is part of what keeps me returning to wild places.
As I walked through this meadow I looked upon the granite bones of these hills in the distance, pocked with hollows and green hummocks where buzzard, and Sparrow hawks can be seen preying on both the woodland birds and smaller mammals.
Pic: 3 4 & 5: The Language of Water & a Hillside Satori
I zigzagged my way up a steep path to reach this vantage point among the proliferation of heather and mosses. Various streams wound their way down the side of the hill like the veins of the hills crisscrossing the slopes in a chattering melody. I stopped to listen to their music at one point and almost felt like I could understand their language, like excited children when they're speaking too fast for you to understand.
It was at this point while rehydrating from my water bottle that I had a moment of utter stillness, no thoughts were running through my mind. It was like I'd become a completely sensory being, all sound sight and the flow of energy pumping through my blood. I felt at one with the veins of the hills, and I realised I had understood the language of those babbling brooks.
The water does not think, it is a substance acting upon a living environment, this is a lesson that nature can teach you in myriad ways, how to become still, a natural satori as Zen Buddhists call it.
The path wound on, my daydreams mingling with the calls of a lone buzzard circling high in the morning sun. I watched it for a time through my rather shoddy binoculars, catching a lift in the currents of my mussing, soaring on the wings of its hash caws. The following quote by Jack Kerouac exemplifies how I feel about scaling the high places of the world. How the hills and mountains speak to me and nourish my soul -
To me a mountain is a buddha. think of the patience, hundreds of thousands of years just sittin there bein perfectly perfectly silent and like praying for all living creatures in that silence and just waitin for us to stop all our frettin and foolin.
– Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
Although I am not a practicing Buddhist I am a practitioner of walking meditation. Or, to put it better, a practitioner of moving meditation, movement through nature.
Pic 5: Out on the Edge of the World
Once I reached the top I lay back on the heather looking out over Wales to the island of Anglesey, mind still as a rock as hardy mountain sheep cautiously grazed between the Heather patches near to me.
I gazed out into the sun-backed haze, the glaze of the midday heat shimmer made the valley dance in my sight and as I sat down as I got that peculiar optical illusion which comes on when looking out from a high place after staring at the slope in front of your feet for so long.
I don't know if it was the exertion of the climb, the animal life I had encountered, the fact that I was the only person for many miles around or listening to the sounds of nature, but I felt completely at peace. Perhaps it was all of these things that blended into one overriding feeling of grounding.
This is 'Nature Bathing' at its finest.
Thanks for reading 🙂🌿
All images in this post are my property, taken in Wales in the UK. The design work for all banners was made by me using the free GIMP photo editor.
Camera used - Samsung S7 Smartphone
If you have enjoyed this spiritual photographic journey, please check out my homepage @raj808 for similar content.
I would like to give a big shout-out to @stickupcurator (and @stickupboys) for their amazing contribution to supporting music, art and all things creative on hive. If you haven't already, you should go check out their account for music, crypto podcasts and much more 🙂👍
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Hi @raj808,
Thank you for participating in the #teamuk curated tag. We have upvoted your quality content.
For more information visit our discord https://discord.gg/8CVx2Am
You're welcome @teamuksupport
I appreciate the support as things are pretty tight in the UK right now, and I've been scrambling for pennies a few times since this 'cost of living crisis' and I think everything is boiling up to some type of breaking point in regard to hyperinflation and money printing by governments/banks.
Anyway, my selfish hope is that if the recession hits, it does so 6-8 months after the next halvening, perhaps boosting BTC up by 1000 of percent like in 2017. I'm not holding my breath, but this is my hope.
A transfer of wealth, and balancing out between all these billionaire nutcases, and other nutcases, like us crypto folks 😉😂
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