Today’s blog is about bringing the mindfulness experience outside into Nature. Your favorite outdoor spots (and the beings that dwell there) can become amazing teachers and supports for cultivating mindful connection. While you are there exploring, your senses act as a personal doorway to the unfolding of each moment.
This week I visited one of my own favorite Nature spots, a forested creek area on the outskirts of town. What unfolded during this wander reminded me of the power of meditating in Nature, and how getting to know one place deeply can bring so many gifts into our lives.
Making Space to Arrive and Mindfully Attune to Nature
The day had been a bit hectic, and I was glad to have a bit of time to get into the woods before the sun set. Before I started on the footpath into the forest, I paused to take a moment and attune to the larger flow of life around me that I was about to flow into.
Extended my hearing into the distance, I heard the soft murmur of the creek down slope, and was greeted by the gentle movement of the leaves in the canopy. The forest soundscape was fairly quiet, not unusual for the end of the summer as the birds turn from raising their young and shift towards the rigors of migration and the new fall movement patterns. The air was fairly still, a bit humid and cool.
This brief pause also allowed me a moment to check in with myself. I took a few deep belly breaths to release the busyness of the afternoon and settle myself closer to the slower rhythm of the forest (Learn more techniques for the process of Arriving into mindfulness in my book, Conscious Nature: The Art and Neuroscience of Meditating In Nature).
Mindfulness Connects Us to Intuition
It had been a few weeks at least since I’d visited this spot. Wandering further towards the creek, my eyes took in the first hints of the approaching autumn. A few trees and shrubs here and there flashed bits of yellow on their leaves, and the oaks on the hillsides had already begun dropping some of this year’s first acorns.
After noting the past day’s deer traffic from pointed hoof marks set in the muddy trail, I worked my way towards a favorite meditation spot. On an earlier visit, I had discovered the remnants of an old dam, with a couple of large concrete slabs still laying ajar across the creek. The gentle slope of the structure afforded a comfortable angle to sit cross legged, complete with a cushion of green moss.
As I clambered up one of the relics, feeling the cool moss under my palms, a vivid image suddenly rushed into my mind’s eye. It was the picture of a mink hanging out on the old dam, pausing on its journey along the creek corridor. I noted the image with curiosity and let it go, ready to sit down and meditate for a bit.
After some time of relaxing and nourishing in the ambiance of the trickling water that surrounded me, I stood up and surveyed the creek bed. Beneath me in the mud was a clear set of prints, so I climbed down to investigate. Mink tracks!
Some part of my awareness had picked up the presence of the animal and triggered the arisal of the image in my mind earlier. Perhaps the tracks had registered in the corner of my eye, or maybe the feeling of the habitat had sparked an association from past experience. Or, perhaps some even more mysterious aspect of my intuition had come into resonance with the animal’s trail.
In the past, I used to be astonished by such mysterious intuitive information that later proved correct. Now, after many years of tracking and noting such experiences, I just accept with amusement that this is a normal part of deeply attuning to Nature. The functioning of intuition is still amazing to me, but so is the working of any other part of the human perceptual system. Mindfulness invites us to become aware of our entire beingness, which naturally includes the subtle voices of the instinct and intuition.
Tracking the Intuitive Sense
I’ve come to realize that the intuitive sense is at work all of the time – the question is whether we are aware of it, and whether we come to learn how it works for us as unique individuals.
I’ve had coaching clients who sought so hard to attune to their intuition, but were getting in their own way because they had an idea in their mind of what intuition was “supposed” to look like. When we dug into what they were actually sensing, they came to realize their intuition was working just fine, it just wasn’t feeding back to them in the way they expected!
Intuition may register as a gut feeling, a subtle sense of presence or a pull to go a certain way, a direct knowing, an energetic impulse, or as a static picture or movie playing in the mind’s eye. A memory may even arise similar to whatever is being sensed. There are many variations and interplays of these and other internal representational modes that one may experience.
However intuition works for you, the unconscious is bubbling with a resonance related to something happening in the environment (or in response to a thought); sensory systems in the brain are enlivened, triggering connections with related memories. Entire neural webs are awakened as tens of thousands of neurons fire, bringing the information (hopefully) into the conscious awareness.
This moment with the mink reminded me of all the times I had experienced a past connection with this sleek animal, and the fact that now I carry these connections with me wherever I go, housed in my neural circuitry and within the fabric of my being. Each mindful moment generated a potent sensory impression, weaving together into a neural web of connections around the mink. Today was another chance to deepen this web and discover more about this mysterious animal…
Wildlife Tracking – A Mindful Sensory Wander
Nature provides endless opportunities to mindfully expand the senses. On this day, I was gifted the chance to explore the creek that was part of this mink’s home. Each sensory impression would take me a step closer to better understanding this animal’s world, and reflect back something about my own inner workings – if I paid attention.
Studying the creek corridor, I noted the multitude of smooth dark stones lining the brook, and took in the rich scent of the waterway. The water had receded over the last weeks to a small but consistent flow in the center of the creek.
Intermittent late summer rains had not provided enough water to cover the entire creek bed, exposing the stepping stones that would allow me to zigzag my way downstream without getting soaking wet. The light, sandy shallows teemed with minnows and crayfish, putting into relief the deeper shadowy pools; there, I sensed the larger fish lurking out of sight in the undercuts beneath the bank’s tree roots. A perfect place for a mink to explore!
Memories of past creek explorations and mink encounters in other locations flooded my mind. These lithe members of the weasel family constantly patrol their local waterways, bounding energetically along the bank or right through the water itself. I’ve had them zoom right by me without concern, so long as I remained still and quiet.
On one occasion, friends and I even swam nearby a pair of mink that were perched on a boulder in the middle of a river, contenting themselves by gorging on crayfish. Are these furry bundles of energy amiable, or simply daring? I’m still not certain, but I always enjoy an impromptu meeting. Today, however, I sensed that the maker of the tracks was further off, though I remained watchful.
Tracking the Web of Being
Working my way down creek, I spent a few minutes mesmerized by the play of concentric rings cast across the surface, created by the water striders gliding back and forth over their watery domain.
A little further down, tiny tracks indented in the silt caught my attention; scurrying back and forth under the cover of a rock, a mouse had left a highway of tracks during its nighttime harvesting.
No sign was present of the mouse’s food cache, though I eyed the oak trees on the nearby slope with curiosity, as the newly dropped acorns would make a tempting meal for a rodent such as this.
I also considered the mouse as a potential meal for the mink, along with the crayfish and abundant minnows that darted along the shallows. In fact, each discovery I made along the creek seemed to feed into the larger web of the mink’s world, giving me new insights into the life of this wild neighbor.
Though I had to turn back before reaching the wetland area that the creek fed into, I left the forest feeling more attuned not only to myself and to the peace within my being, but also to the interwoven lives of the animals and the land that supports them.
Perhaps there is a place waiting for you, with mysteries ready to be mindfully discovered… what will you find? The only way to know is to go find out!
Deepen Your Journey Into Nature
Experience mindful meditations for connecting more deeply with the Nature within and around you
Expand your senses as you relax into Nature’s patterns
Feel more at home in the outdoors, and more grounded in your body wherever you go
Learn how to harness the Five Key Brainstates of Awareness for well-being and creativity
