My friend Amy and I like to walk and talk. We're very good at it. We have a lot to say and our conversations are no-holds-barred. You absolutely need people in your life with whom you can talk about anything and everything and when you can do that while walking in nature, all the better.
We went hiking at Raven Run this morning. The temperature has dropped just enough to make being outside bearable. Even though the creek beds were dry, the trails were lush with life: spider webs glistened in the sunlight, damsel flies and butterflies swirled around us.
We sat for a while at the overlook by the river.
Lately, I have felt a pull toward the trees. I find myself daydreaming about cabins in the woods, campfires, window screens, the canopy of stars, smoke rising from chimneys. Perhaps it's my usual late summer longing for fall, but I feel so strongly this need to live closer to nature for a few days or a week, to spend my days walking with the leaves and bark, listening to the animal music.
This, I've come to understand, is an essential part of my spiritual practice, one of the primary ways I connect and know mystery. The back yard is good; into the woods is better. We are a part of this energy; the pulsing cyclical nature of nature. We don't live on top of the earth, we are a part of it.
And nature speaks.
It's the heartbeat I need to hear; the place I need to place my head; the embrace I crave.
I was urged to commune with the earth mama today and I got the opportunity to do it in friendship. There was no peak experience, except that every moment is a peak experience.
Thank you, blue butterfly. Thank you for the whisper I can hear in my soul.
for the August Break.















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