Article originally published in Free Press Journal.
Nature is the most powerful healer, for people and for itself too. Nature has restorative power and is always giving without asking anything in return. Nature is the resource available to us in abundance at no cost. The modern life which we all are used to finds it difficult to align with nature. The speed of life forces us to ignore Nature, the most wonderful resource.
Our overdependence on technology for entertainment and money for food and other distractions makes us go further away from nature. We have distanced ourselves from Nature, the wholesome life-giver in exchange for a very superficial enjoyable yet dissatisfied modern life.
It is rare to find a person who will not feel the stillness and silence of the mind while travelling through a forest or while sitting by a lake or a riverbank. It makes us look inward to explore who we are. A part that has always been neglected or ignored during our daily routine.
Nature is the food for our souls. We cannot ignore the food that nature provides for the physical body. Nature’s food with its varied colours comes in abundance and can also be grown by ourselves. This natural food, simple yet colourful increases our life span and provide us with simple energy that makes us feel more alive and more at peace.
Nature has the power of slowing us down in a positive sense. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.” We’re lucky that our breath happens involuntarily, if we had to remember to breathe, we might forget to breathe in our busy schedule. Nature’s calming effect brings our focus back to the breath and body, which is meditation.
Nature encompasses everything. This can be an incredibly invigorating realization when we feel stressed and stretched by the frantic and relentless sensory stimulation of modern living. We ourselves “adopt the pace of nature”, as mentioned by Emerson and slow down. We can tune into ourselves and find calmness and tranquillity even in chaos as that is our own deepest nature.
Humanity evolved with nature so interdependently and with such great support, yet we are ignoring it to the extremes. Trees give us oxygen and we cut them. Rivers give us water and we continue to pollute them. These are just two examples. Money will not be of any help when we don’t even have a life. If we are to evolve from a species and soul perspective, being with nature could be the medium. That’s the Power of Nature.