Nature, the Witness Mind and Change

All things change…

One of the most powerful side effects of living close to nature is the developed power of the witness mind, and of recognizing how our emotional and physical states are always changing.

 
Nature and its rhythms are constantly changing, regardless if you are in the desert sun, ocean front, or mountain top. While the sun of the desert may be relentless in summer, there is under the sand the life of creatures escaping the heat, water buried deep running through, and plants extending up and down to reach their sources of vitality. The ocean rises and falls, unchanging in its constantly changing wave, and the mountains rise up with their trees to the sun, wind and snow, overtime eroding from the heights of the Himalayas to the tempered beauty of Appalachia.
 
So too are our emotions, the people in our lives, and how we live and treat each other. We go in, we go out, we rise up to peaks of joy and fall to valleys of grief. We love, we get angry, we come together, we are left.
 
In remembering that all things must change, and keeping the heart open, we can fully appreciate the people we are with. Initimacy falters when we remember that all things change yet contract, harden, and become fearful as a reaction to change. 
 
Learning to witness and observe one’s emotional and mental thought reactions in nature is a matter of life and death in many ways, and so to for the heart. The witness mind is truly the basis for optimal health as it affords the ability to see with clarity and without grasping for the results we wish for but instead what is best for what we are here to do.
 
Staying in connection with a grounding practice like breathing as we navigate constant change, observing with the witness mind and keeping the Metta practice helps us to value our process, another’s, and all creatures around us which will sustain us…keep things vital and joyful…and even out the peaks of highs and lows.
 
May you be blessed with the witness mind, a connection to nature outside and your true nature inside.
 
May all be well and happy.