"Common experience tells us that a solitary walk by the river or
ocean, a few calm hours in the woods restore the spirit and may
produce more insight.... than the best labors of the professional
analyst." ___ Theodore Roszak, "The Voice of the Earth,"
cited in Paul Devereux, "Reclaiming the Earth"
Now that the light is growing stronger and the first signs of spring are becoming apparent, it is good to explore the countryside and see its beauty with our own eyes. Nature is the best therapist for putting things into perspective. When we go purposefully outdoors, we enter our true, living context, becoming once more part of a world that is always there but whose gifts are excluded when we live entirely within walls, under a roof. Early Irish poetry speaks again and again of Spirit as the thatcher who roofs the sky with stars and keeps all things under divine protection. When exchange a tiled roof for the roof of the heavens, our soul has more room to expand.
The ancients understoon about taking problems for a walk: the measured pace of walking, the juxtaposition of the problem against natural surroundings, the submiersion of abolition of worry in the face of the beauties and wonders of nature - all these factors enable us to discover a new perspective. Being under the mantle of nature, we receive a truer reflection of help, a more tolerant understanding, a more profound solution that encompasses not only our labyrinthine mental contortions but our physical discomforts and our emotional longings.
'Take your own problems for a walk and be open to wider solutions and perspectives."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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