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How Nature Resets Our Minds and Bodies
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
Where I live I'm surrounded by nature ie. bush, birdsong, crickets, cicadas and the ocean.. I never take all this for granted, waking up to the sounds of the wild, it's just part of the norm...
Scientists are looking into the benefits of "Getting back to nature" ie, being in nature as a natural medicine especially for 'stress relief'...
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/how-nature-resets-our-minds-and-bodies/274455/
I know there's been the new agy thing with sounds of the wild music, I liked listening to the sound of whales (whale song) when I lived in the city....
Are you getting your fix ?
Do you live close to nature ?
Have you found that nature sounds enhance meditation ? Or disrupt it ?
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I love being in Nature, I live in a city where we have access to numerous parks and hiking trails. I find that meditating outdoors with the sounds of nature around me is much more pleasing to the senses than when trying to meditate indoors, with all the sounds of the house in the background, although I can incorporate these into my mindfulness practice just as easily.
I used to live in a house that was surrounded by cedar forest. Sitting in the back yard to the sounds of the wind in the trees and the fragrance of cedar was a great way to get into meditation mode. Running a lawn sprinkler in a patch of sun would bring the birds down out of the trees to splash happily in the water, adding an extra sound effect of background chirping. I didn't need to go anywhere to get into nature, I lived in the middle of it. And this was in the city of Seattle.
I live in the sticks, in a very small town on the edge of a federally protected wilderness area where no motors, no roads, no buildings are allowed over 1 million acres. So, I have plenty of nature right outside my door. We have deer on our deck, wolves that howl all night, and bears that com to check out the trash offerings (not in the winter though, lol). I lived in "the city" for about 10 years and about lost my mind. There are pros and cons to living anywhere, but I wouldn't trade my life for the few pros of city living (like the cost and variety of food available). My great grandparents settled here,and it's so much home that it's pretty much in my DNA at this point. I can find my way in the woods no matter where I am without having ever been in that spot before, but can't figure out why I can see the grocery store, but can't find the entrance in a bigger city,
However, whether it helps or hinders my meditation depends on the day. I get distracted by the senses quite a bit, whether it's the wind, the sun, the scents, the animals, or whatever. But just being outside is a form of meditation for me, even on days it's -40 and blowing snow. It's not the same kind as sitting meditation, but beneficial anyhow. I feel blessed to live in an area that a lot of people wait all year to visit just for a few days to recharge their spirits. My daily life is someone else's vacation, so it's hard to beat that.
I try to pay attention to what I experience in nature so that I can create those experiences outside of what is referred to as nature.
I am wary of the way things affect me. Music, nature, etc. While enjoyable as long as I don't pay attention to what is happening inside of me, the moment I do turn my attention inward I find myself capable of becoming disappointed that an outside influence changed 'me' without my implicit permission and awareness.
This was just shared on another forum and I signed in to share with you::
Nice music & visual @silver thank you.......
Try to make sure there is ground beneath me and sky above. The sun seems to shine light through a window, which I am lucky enough to have. Narcissi and heather in flower on the kitchen table . . .
Always seem to find nature around me . . . though my nearest urban fox has recently left to cry at night elsewhere . . .
What a great thread
@lobster, it's all an illusion, be it a very persistent one
BTW try playing both youtube clips Rainforest sounds and those of the ocean... well under it) at the same time, it's magical
Sounds lovely. I walk by the sea everyday, I love the changing moods and colours. I always keep an eye out for seals and porpoises.
I am sometimes woken up noisy seagulls, they are ruffians and steal sandwiches from unsuspecting tourists.
I've lived in cities and found it's easy to get quite disconnected from nature, too much concrete.
We have lots of birds and bunnies and house cats and house dogs. Also in the season there are a lot of ducks and geese. We recently in the past year have turkeys roaming around which is a strange sight.
Wild turkeys?
That's really interesting thought pattern. Just relaying I used to get a wave of seemingly xenophobia whenever a car went by like hatred in a sense against whoever entered my space. I am less like that now but not sure why. I do know that I didn't want to feel the way of anger and maybe in the span of years that wish to be welcoming to strangers was cultivated.
Well I enjoy communing daily with the ravens here. I will sometimes call out as they fly by. Hey Raven.
I talk to the animal friends, too
they get to know your voice if they are regular visitors.The deer will come right up on our deck and watch us eat dinner through our patio door, lol. I like to listen to all the birds talking to each other from across the trees.
My neighbour has a pet seagull called Archie.
I have a great love of nature, especially the edible bits.
@karasti. I have learned that ravens have 26 different calls. At the location I visit they ride on the thermals. As though at play.
Being along the Great Lakes we are in a major migration path and also we get the arctic visitors from farther north. We get a wonderful variety of birds, especially in late winter and early spring. Coming soon! We had a lovely pine grosbeak the other day, which added a bit of color to our white and gray winter!
I cycled round a local lake, and stopped to feed the lake birds. There were coots, Moorhens, Canada Geese and Swans.
The big boys came right out of the water and stood less than a foot away from me, eager both to be fed, and hostile with their warning hisses.
Holy crap those boys are big. And standing eye to eye with a cob swan is somewhat intimidating.
Honestly, I could have easily grabbed its neck and wrestled it under my arm, had I wanted/needed to, but somehow thought the better of it....
I scattered what remained of the bread I had, an while they were suitably diverted, made a hasty retreat on my sturdy faithful two-wheeled steed....
Wonderful tale, @Federica. I'm fairly tall (5'7") and can't imagine looking eye to eye with any sort of bird! [not saying it in a questioning sort of way] Those geese are assertive though, aren't they. My son and I used to take regular walks at a park that had 2 smallish lakes with all sorts of birds.
I grew up on 10 acres, half of which was a meadow, half of which was used for planting veggies in season. I have just too many tales to tell about wildlife from that alone. There was a gigantic horse pasture that was a short hike from my house and went there many times. It's probably all filled in with houses now, sad to say. After being in southern Cal for a few years, I lost my ability to feel comfortable in 'the wilds' I grew up in (north-central Pa) - as I discovered. I was never bothered by any kind of bugs, but on one trip home a long time ago, as I walked through the old familiar horse pasture, there was a gigantic spider on a wild daisy and I high-tailed it out of there, and I felt so sad that I no longer had that ability to wade through all the tangled grasses and wildflowers without a care in the world.
Great stories guys
I love hearing how people, feed, interact and talk to nature.
Animals seem to react favourably to the metta orientation and non threat level of the ahimsa orientated. The calmer we are, the calmer the wildlife around us.
Today it was warm enough to see a butterfly in winter. Last year saw one in winter January. It was a good sign.
I don't practice to effect animals but a side effect of practice is soothing the wild . . .
http://www.buddhanet.net/metta06.htm
a few days ago in the corner of our local pond, hardly noticeable, these two fellas were doing a bit of bathing . . . splashing and shaking water everywhere . . . similar birds come to the bowl in front of our Garden Buddha . . .
One of the greatest experiences I have ever had was swimming with seals in New Zealand. It was wonderful! They would swim right up to you and look you in the eye then zip away underneath you. It was amazing.
I am lucky enough to live a ten minute drive from Mount Meru aka the You Yangs (see below).
I try and get up there and sit as often as possible.
We have gray wolves and black bears here. The bears are pretty elusive, it's quite rare to see one in the wild though they 'll leave your campsite in shambles if you don't prepare ahead of time. But you will fairly often see wolves, and I adore them. We hear them howl at night, and it's a lovely melody. We also have the common loon, and as much as I love them, their cries are still quite haunting at night.
Here, the best signal of spring is the return of the geese and swans as they migrate north. They land on the river in front of our house, and we can tell spring is coming when we hear them honking away. Hoping that is soon, it's quite cold out today
One of my favorite experiences was being out in the boat last summer, and seeing a bald eagle protecting a nest. We went around the island (you have to keep a distance from them as it's illegal to disturb them) but we were able to watch her dive into the water for fish, and go back to the nest to feed her 2 babies. Eagle babies are huge! :O We have lots of wildlife pictures...lol.
What is unnatural about anything you experience in life?
Lions, tigers and bears Aha... Arrrgh!
Vagabonds, litter and stairs... ha ha... errrrgh!
...\lol/...
I saw a fascinating special on crows and ravens by David Attenborough. They are among the best tool makers in the animal kingdom, and incredibly smart despite having comparatively small brains.
Now add this into the background for a tribal human element @shoshin...
or try this little mix, where a little western human anxiety is thrown in:
Just focus on the background music
or lets go a little deeper and analyse male-female polarity:
Unfortunately you have to listen to the whole track to get the dualistic polarising nature of the lyrics...
I hate to be the party-pooper here, but frankly, I'd just rather revel in the silence or enjoy the natural sounds I hear.
To me, those kinds of sounds are intrusive and unnecessary.
Why do we always believe we need noise to fill the quiet?
Why not let the silence resonate and give us what it has, with no artificial additives, flavours or colourings?
Then don't listen to the music @federica
But that is the point - being nothing is in itself unsatisfactory...
Be nothing and you are nothing.
Nothing has as it's own defining characteristics: nothing, and whilst it is what it is, it is nothing, yet it gives rise to everything... And is overflowing...
When any one appreciates that, I appreciate life for what it is.
So back to the music:
Don't take that as an offensive comment - it's one of natures sounds!
Wow.
Eagles and seals. Wolves and . . . extraordinary.
Yesterday walking in a nearby park, everyone was complaining about the noisy parakeets, which are now very common in London. Beautiful birds. They even hide inside warmer places than other birds. Here is one I pictured making his way home in through a warehouse vent . . .
you iz becoming an artist I fear @lobster...
I'm amazed at the music nature makes on it's own, though sometimes when I walk I take my ipod, depending on the goal of my walk. There is a trail in town we walk very often, and I use the ipod to drown out the noisy cars and ATVs. When I am hiking I generally don't bring music because I don't really like to come around the corner to a foraging bear that I didn't hear! But I can also walk a short distance (especially in winter on snowshoes) and be in an area that no person has walked in months. It's much more fun to observe nature in all ways in such a situation. For me, anyhow. I might bring an emergency beacon depending how far I am hiking, but I never bring music, or even my cell phone, into the woods. It ruins the experience for me to bring the things I dislike being tethered to in my daily life into the wilds.
I don't know how you can bear living there
There are quite a few sightings of Dolphins Orcas and Mantarays around the island, the dolphins come into the bay to play/swim with the funny looking mammals that live on the land "humans"....
I miss the wildlife of Oz the snakes, spiders, crocodiles, the big reds...I remember when a friend and I were hitchhiking, back in the 1970s we heard a noise and when we looked there were two Kangaroos boxing on the lawn, this was on the outskirts of a small town (I think in SA) . And not forgetting the Emus that hung out at the homesteads/truckstops .....
I love walking and paying attention to what's going on with the senses...I walk to one of my jobs (It's a 15 to 20 minute walk) however walking home I take a slight detour and walk around the Esplanade where there's a mixture of the sound of the ocean waves along with birdsong, squawking of the seagulls, or the chatter of the Oystercatchers as they go about their business...
Getting back to 'conventional' nature is beneficial and rewarding, however getting back to 'Buddha' Nature is (so I've been told) the "Ultimate" reward....
Wow, that must have been something. I've been fairly close to seals but never swum with them like that. On land they look cumbersome, but they can sure move quick in the water!
That would describe humans quite nicely.
That's a nice looking bird, we get some interesting ones here on the coast. When I do my porpoise watching bird-watchers sometimes come up for a chat, they assume I'm a fellow twitcher, they ask me if I have seen the rare lesser spotted [insert obscure bird name], I say "No, sorry" which is code for "I have no idea what you just said and only recognise seagulls and starlings".
Even in the concrete jungle that I live in, we are surrounded by wildlife, here is some sort of pigeon or similar (heron) that I photographed a few weeks back.
My favourite place for solitude is a local cemetery where foxes hunt, birds call and death reminders abound . . .
Warm bum! Birds are clever like that. Where I live the seagulls nest in between the chimney pots, all very Mary Poppins.
Lovely pictures, @Shoshin! Looks like a lovely place to walk.
Thanks @karasti,
The black volcanic sand beaches are on this side of the island, the others side is where the white sand beaches are...
Oystercatchers just hanging around (The Esplanade in the background)
Looking back towards the local Marae buildings
White sand beach ...The earlier youtube clip of the dolphins playing is from this beach (I didn't take the video) You have to 'go bush' to get to it, or climb around the rocks from the main beach, it's my favorite beach-not that I really have favourites
@lobster,
I spent the first 16 years of my life in the concrete jungle of south east London (a mile from Tower Bridge)...
One time when I had taken two of my children back to visit my family, we were walking back from the supermarket with my sister ( she lived near Surrey Quays at the time) and lo and behold what a pleasant surprise, a fox came running out of the bushes by the park (it was in a busy built up area) then darted back in again...So foxes are a live and well in the concrete jungle
One of my brothers lives in kent and to his neighbours annoyance, he would feed the foxes who came into his garden each night...
Those urban foxes are very smart, I've seen them in cities several times.
I wonder if the wolves and bears will return....
Doubtless if we had them, they would.
Can't they be smuggled in via the chunnel ?