First Foray into the Forest
This morning I stuck my face out the back door to see what the air felt like. It wasn’t quite crisp but it was cool. Ever since the storm ended, I’ve been dying to venture out into the woods. I haven’t been back there since early April because of You Know What… the ticks, snakes, mosquitoes, poison ivy, and all the other nefarious elements that make it ridiculous to even try.
But today I thought: It’s time.
Donning my rubber boots and garden gloves just in case, I made a hasty exit out the back door.
I looked around for my trusty sidekick, but he was nowhere to be found. No doubt he was already walking the beat. I knew we’d run into each other at some point.
With Summer finally behind us and Fall officially around the corner, I was eager to start my morning ritual walk in the woods, or as the Japanese call it, “forest bathing”.
The forest is always so pristine after a storm. The wet, glossy sheen covering the grass and trees makes all the colors stand out. The air feels fresh and smells clean. Even the birds seem livelier than usual, as if they too feel nature’s cleansing renewal. My senses were coming alive and I actually felt lighter, like my vibrational level was rising.
Do Not Enter
I got to the entrance to the woods, peered beyond the still-green canopy of branches and vines, and suddenly my gut said: “No, it’s not time yet.”
I instinctively skirted the woods and continued my walk through the pasture instead, musing to myself: that was decidedly a “gut decision”, my brain had nothing to do with it. Actually, it was my brain that was saying, “Oh go ahead, you’re fine.” I knew, though, that my gut was correct: it was still too lush back there.
This felt like a deeper, more intuitive response that couldn’t really be explained. Intuition, it seems, is linked to the gut somehow. I said to myself, “Hmm… Sometimes it’s better to leave the brain behind.”
I knew there’d be other opportunities to walk in the woods and even venture beyond the woods to the pond. But that was for another day. I decided to get back to the house to do some research on the Gut-Brain connection, as I suspected this was important information (Aside, I found out later that the human gut basically has its own brain, so to speak. To find out more, click here.)
Stay Home, Minion!
When I got back home, Mr. Gray, my trusty sidekick, was lounging in his catnip planter with a look on his face that said, “I could’ve told you that, minion.”
Comments