Nature's Remedy: Being Itself
The rewards of stillness
As my cold started to slowly recede at the end of last week (thank you well-wishers and movie suggesters!), I could feel that itch to take an early morning hike.
Fresh air and being outside always restores me, so I thought it might speed up my recovery. But I also knew if I hiked, I’d just overdo it and set myself back.
So I bundled up and went bird-watching instead.
There’s a well-known birding hotspot literally two minutes from my house and it’s migration season—an especially good time to see a variety of birds.
So far, I’ve seen very few migrators (too early? too late?) except for a handful of lovely evening grosbeaks and a powerful band of vultures roosting at the top of a giant tree.
I did get to watch lots of beautiful local birds living life to the fullest in their spring plumage—belting out songs and staking out territory, gathering nesting materials, even mating. And three times I saw a beaver quietly swimming away from me as she got off her night shift.
Watching their doing and being takes me out of the stories in my head and reminds me that I’m a mammal on the planet and just as much a part of nature as the plant and animal life all around me.
Being Still
I’m a casual, inexperienced birder, but I love how it’s all about looking, seeing, watching, noticing. It makes me so aware of my eyesight—the ways it’s radically superior to my binoculars, and the ways it isn’t.
Birding is also all about being still and waiting. You are almost always rewarded by seeing something you wouldn’t have—perhaps a glint of iridescent blue-green from a mallard’s head as he floats quietly amongst the reeds, or glimpsing that beaver silently dart across one part of this wetland to another, endlessly editing her riparian masterpiece.
But I could feel in myself a diminished capacity for being still—something I blame on my overuse of social media and other digital distractions. Creators everywhere are constantly told that social media is essential to any kind of independent art career. I recently forgot that’s just a toxic empty promise and participated in a 90 day “challenge” on using Substack’s internal social media (called “Notes”) that triggered all my insecurities and turned me back into a constant update checker. Ugh.
And as one who has always hated the suspended animation of “waiting,” I see how frequently I sedate myself through any interstitial moment with my handheld distraction tool. My smart phone is a constant invitation to my mind to not pay attention to my surroundings, to not be present in the moment, to avoid boredom at all costs.
Young people can never know what life was like before this omnipresent cultural vehicle redefined our social rhythms—one that always pitches connection and closeness but in reality usually just offers separation and distance.
I know that’s probably been true with each technological “advancement,” but this one intersects so seamlessly with our human desire for communication and expression that it seems to have morphed into a kind of mass drug without our consent.
Strangely, it wasn’t created to be a drug; it became one. It’s like Silicon Valley realized—through our usage—its powerful potential as a drug, and then they ruthlessly capitalized on those qualities in pursuit of obscene profits.
And while I might not hold up a 7-Eleven to support my particular phone habit, my overuse and reliance on it still feels like a surrendering of my personal sovereignty.
Good Medicine
These birding sessions remind me that connecting to nature is always my medicine for that ailment. It feeds my soul and shows me what I need to do.
As I tend to my lingering cough and low energy, I’ll continue my early morning visits through migration season. Perhaps I’ll see how long Mrs. Northern Flicker stays perched on her eggs. Or glimpse some transient warblers. Or spot my beaver friend again.
No matter what happens, I know the good medicine of sitting still on the cool earth and connecting my heart to my surroundings will nourish me like eating beans, greens, and rice after binging on too many gum drops and Mexican cokes.
Digital dessert can be nice and I reckon it has its uses, but for me, it’s mostly empty calories. Nature, on the other hand, can’t help but feed my soul.
How about you? Do you overuse your smart phone too? Or maybe worry about your kids or grandkids coping in the coldness of a digital culture? What’s your balance between physical and digital life?
What’s your good medicine for what might ail you?
Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear.
The Next Creative Change-Makers Zoom Party
The May Creative Change-Makers Zoom call will be on Tuesday, May 20th at 4pm Pacific, 5pm Mountain, 6pm Central, and 7pm Eastern.
We’ll be making tiny protest or resistance signs for the produce section of the grocery store, egg cartons, the shelf of your library, the mini-mart rest room, etc. By the end of the call, we’ll all have signs to slyly tape in public places.
The session will be a free and easy creating party where we keep each other company as we make our tiny signs. Drink wine! Eat snacks! Use markers! Download a fun font!
But I’ll also be answering questions and sharing examples, so don’t worry if you don’t havve any ideas.
Looking ahead, June’s Zoom session will be a hands-on zine making workshop.
These monthly events are free for my paid subscribers. You don’t need to have attended the first one to attend this one. I’d love for you to join us.
Paid subscribers—there’s a link to register for the call at the top and bottom of this email.
If you’re not already a paid subscriber, it’s just 36.00 for the year. You can sign up here:
I overused my digital device this morning by taking the time from my own writing to read your post. But sometimes it’s worth it, because, in this case, your post was so well written it gave me the sense of being out there birding at Baca Park right alongside you. Of sitting on the cool Earth and looking at you to say, “Wow, it’s pretty wonderful we made ourselves get outside to play in nature.”
Great shot of the flicker. I’ve long admired the species but have never seen a mother nesting on her eggs. 🪺
Thanks, Sarah.
I spend a lot of my resting time scrolling fb and listening to ytbs, I am addicted to them, because I want to know what my fellow humans are doing, and of course, I want to know when something 'big' may affect 'me'... all while reminding myself that what will be will be, and always enlarging my view of 'what is' ... how we all got here ...who we are... what's the plan...the more I listen, the more a part of it all I feel...there are so many things I could be 'doing', making, creating, but with my low energy, it has redirected me from all that to just addapting to the imediate things in my life that require my 'full health' attention along with the basic 'functioning' required to live the basic...and lately have finally dropped the guilt of not achieving more than that, perhaps that is the real form of 'retirement' haha ...yes, nature holds the answers, watching and listening to it, if nothing else 'feeling' it's real peace...