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Welcome! This is a place to share how we celebrate & deepen our relationship to Nature. Here you will find stories, images, & ideas about wilderness, human nature, & soulfulness. Drawing from the experiences of everyday living, the topics on this blog include: forays into the natural world, the writing life, community service, meditation, creativity, grief & loss, inspiration, & whatever else emerges from these. I invite you on this exploration of the wild within & outside of us: the inner/outer landscape.



Friday, January 10, 2014

Be-ing...what happens in a week of intention

(From journal entries over the last seven days)


To be is not just “to have existence.” It is to have life or reality; to live; to be alive; to be present; to be extant; to remain, stay, rest; to continue; to dwell; to flow, constitute, survive. It even means to coruscate, sparkle, scintillate.

***

I become awed by the hummingbird's flash of red, the iridescence of his little body, the blur of his wingbeats. Whatever I was saying to whomever on the telephone is taken from me and all I can do is to stare at the tiny miracle just inches from my arm. 

***

We do not say “do creative;” we say “be creative.” That is the place from which we can get more whole, more free, selves: for writing, art-making, being in nature, being with self.  It is all about be-ing. This leads me back to the crux of what I seek for my own life and encourage in others’. It is where I can abide in my own depths – being creative, being still, being quiet, being reflective, being in solitude, being peaceful, being in the moment, being present. I don’t use “doing” before any of these. I would never write: I am doing reflection, doing stillness, doing quiet or solitude or peace. Always these call me into being.

***


I had to get away from the computer and, worse, the half-finished bits and pieces of conversations in my head that kept interrupting my concentration. I needed space, movement, air. I had a longing to feel my muscles stretch and move. Mostly, I had the overwhelming need to abide in nature…As I crested the hill midway in our miles-long hike, I was struck into total stillness by the Utter Silence around me. Traffic, people’s voices, dogs’ sniffing and barking, even the swooshing wind vanished. It was all gone. And for several blissful moments I heard not even the usually-welcome birdsong. Just pure quiet. What was outside of me seeped within and there, too – in my innermost being – I experienced complete silence. It was in that instant that I truly experienced the power of how silence heals.












All blog images created and/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.