Nature opens your childlike heart

Nature has served me well at every juncture in my life, and never more so than during this period of social isolation and restricted travel. I see nature as a multi-layered health care treatment for the body and mind. It lifts our spirits and always rewards us.

I seek time for restoration in nature, for rejuvenation, and I believe nature in its way seeks me. Nature remembers the beginning of all things, it remembers us before we were sophisticated, and it reaches out to us, and we sense nature longing to reconnect with us. Our memory of nature is calling us back, wishing to reclaim our souls.

When we were children being out in the wet was pure and simple fun, and for me the rain still speaks of childhood freedom, the letting go of control, abandoning ourselves to the elements instead of hiding away. As adults we weigh up the weather so seriously, instead of just venturing out!

The spaces and patterns created by nature are organic and unpredictable and profoundly relaxing to our eyes and brain. To slow down and focus on the beauty of nature’s curious details can be mesmerising and we find ourselves invited deeper into a state of awe and wonder.

Wide open spaces such as Hardwick Scrub allow our brains and eyes to relax, relieved by the vast expanse of the horizon. In our daily use of small handheld computers we focus on what is almost in our faces and our eye muscles tense up and our necks ache from craning over our devices.

Nature is completely excluded, our behaviour is unnatural. A line of tension from the eyes through the neck and to the shoulders and back is created. Walking in open spaces alleviates these stresses, restores balance to our bodies and minds and draws us out of our internal dialogue into a more expansive, relaxed state.

Contact with nature improves our mood and produces a relaxed and soothed state of mind. We develop a sense of belonging and feel reconnected to our origins, with an increased sense of awe and wonder. And from somewhere over the horizon yet deep within us, the memory of nature calls.