So Sylvie

"In recent years, studies have shown that meditation-like thought (an exercise in the very attentional control that forms the center of mindfulness), for as little as fifteen minutes a day, can shift frontal brain activity toward a pattern that has been associated with more positive and more approach-oriented emotional states, and that looking at scenes of nature, for even a short while, can help us become more insightful, more creative, and more productive."

~ Maria Konnikova, Master-Mind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes

 

Being in nature, rather than merely "looking at scenes", is easy for me. I do it every day without effort, as a routine, as a ritual. I'm blessed to live on the border of thousands of acres of wilderness. I can easily walk for hours without any signs of civilization. I walk on deer trails that meander gracefully along hillsides beneath redwood, oak, cedar, alder, maple, cottonwood, fir, madrone and surrounded by wild roses, violets, forget-me-nots and thyme. I feel more at ease walking past bobcat and mountain lion dens than I do walking downtown.

 

 

Sometimes Marcel joins me. He's a natural at tuning-out and slowing down and he'll scale any steep slope that I choose, without hesitation. He's a wonderful hiking companion.

 

Today I decided to walk to the meadow and commune with the cows. Their energy relaxes me, like that of horses and deer, and reminds me why they are sacred animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one was very curious about me. I think he remembers last spring when I fed him forget-me-nots (how could he forget!). He came up behind me while I sat on the ground and kept 'kissing' me on the back.

 

His Mama…

 

 

 

I love their curly winter coats…

 

It was a beautiful winter's day…

"There is pleasure in the pathless woods; There is 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 Byron