Monday, June 21, 2010

Have you ever heard the trees?

For the most part I have been feeling rather philosophical. This is probably due to the fact that I am beginning to write a new chapter to my life. While I do reflect on my life during times like this, lately I have found that I often will rather sit back and enjoy the little things.

My new “hobby” I guess you can call it is to just go out and take a walk around a local park. Its funny, I have lived by this park my entire life and overall I love going to it and just walking along its bike path, usually with the company of my family or close friends.

These social walks are always fun and a relaxing way to spend time with others. I find it difficult however to listen to the sounds of nature when I’m with the company of others and you can never really enjoy the serenity of the woods this way.

Which brings me to the title of this entry, have you ever heard the trees?

Now that sentence sound completely nuts to anyone who may be reading this. Believe me I thought I was going nuts the first time I actually listened on one of my walks. But I swear the trees can talk. Not in the conventional way we humans communicate but they can express some, for lack of a better word, emotion.

Twice now I have gone walking just before it rained, and twice I felt similar feelings emanating from the woods.

The trees get excited when they know the rain is coming. Their leaves begin to rustle vigorously with only a light breeze blowing. Just the whole atmosphere changes. Before the rain, the woods had a quiet energy to them and once a rainstorm approaches the woods felt charged up. Once the rain begins to fall you almost feel their elation at the downpour of life sustaining water.

Even the birds and the bugs are different. The birds all start looking for cover as do the bugs. I never would have thought any of this was possible, had I not gone walking on my own to listen and absorb the energy of the world around me.

I encourage anyone to take some time out of their days, even if its just 20 min to just go out and take in some fresh air. Enjoy the sounds of the world and feel the harmony of the earth.

I ask again, have you ever heard the trees?

~Meg

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

-Lord (George Gordon) Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

I've got to have a place where I can find peace of mind.

-Princess of Wales Diana