We are part of nature, and nature is a part of us. We as a collective whole have forgotten this fact. We see ourselves as separate from nature, however we live on this planet as part of the creation of nature.

Therefore, not only are we part of nature, but we are intimately connected and intertwined with it. There is a beauty in this realization, because to realize we are a part of nature is also to realize that we are part of something deeper …

Spending time in nature allows us to get a glimpse into who we truly are. It takes us away from the tasks of everyday life that make us forget, and lose ourselves in doing. Nature is already exactly as it is meant to be, authentically and wholly. This is why the natural world is a catalyst for spiritual awakening, it is our soul reflected out in the world, therefore it acts like a mirror to us.

I never used to see the beauty in nature. I was constantly bombarded with anxiety induced thoughts. They took over my world. I hadn’t even known what the weather was like, unless someone pointed it out to me, I wouldn’t have noticed. I didn’t even care to look. I spent my time speed walking through life, not taking a second to slow down and look around. My thoughts were the complete and total centre of my world, filling me with the feeling that I was not safe and therefore must constantly be hyper vigilant to my thoughts. My life went on this way for years.

With anxiety taking over my life, I no longer found much happiness in life. I started becoming more isolated and having trouble connecting with anyone. I didn’t spend much time outside in nature, rather I was completely tuned in to my self limiting beliefs and feelings of not being safe and unworthiness.

This is the reality for a lot of us currently on this planet, but also, who can blame us or judge us. Our thoughts are an accumulation our endless years of conditioning, which tend to make us feel that we are not good enough, that we must constantly strive to get more and do more, that this moment isn’t safe or good enough. That only in the future we can actually be present and enjoy our lives. It makes us feel that there is always somewhere else we should be and something else we should be doing. That is why we struggle to see the true beauty in nature, we are not energetically aligned to it when these thoughts are all consuming and so unaligned with the natural world.

Nature energetically is in a frequency of peace, letting go, and complete presence. A cherry tree is never striving to be in a different moment, it has nowhere to go only complete and whole in every moment. It yields to all the cycles of its life, and that is what makes it so beautiful.

I don’t know when we lose this ability … the ability to look and live in awe and wonder of the world around us. I have a feeling, depending on the condition of ones early years, one loses this ability sometime in their childhood. This is the reality for a lot of us. The flowers we looked at that once sparked curiosity, awe and joy, become numb to the senses … and slowly but surely we don’t even notice anymore. There are much more pressing things we need to attend to.

“Life is what happens when we are busy making other plans.” — John Lennon

The energy of nature is an energy we must learn to embody in our everyday lives in order to find peace. To reconnect with nature is to reconnect with our soul. This is a key to our awakening … to come back to the way which is most natural for us.

This doesn’t mean one must go and climb a mountain that is hours away or go on a retreat somewhere far away in nature. Nature is everywhere. Nature is in our backyard, in that tree that we walk past every day on our way to work. It is the dandelions that we ignore as we are going to the grocery store. To connect with nature is to observe the nature we see in our everyday lives. Nature is in the sky above us. What I love about the sky is that no matter where one is in the world there is nature when looking up … it is a beautiful, vast canvas that is always changing.

It is unfortunate because of air pollution that in certain parts of the world it is becoming more and more difficult to see the sky. Evidently, the climate change crisis is also the way that our internal world is reflected into nature. The chaos and frequency our minds are operating on is seeping into the natural world, deteriorating it.

In noticing the natural world in our day to day lives, we find a moment of relief from the turmoil in our minds, as we come into contact with a mirror into our true self, if even just a brief moment, that we wake up from our chaotic world into the calmness, tranquillity and presence of nature. Reminding us that we are already whole, we are already beautiful and part of the creation of life. Nature calls for our presence. This is why nature is fundamental to the journey of spiritual awakening.