Happy in Nature

May 12, 2005 on 3:21 pm | In Abstractions |

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.  Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.   The winds will blow their own freshness into you and the storms their energy while cares drop off like autumn leaves.” -John Muir

Not so long ago, maybe it has been about fifteen years now, I started to open myself up to my surroundings and know a feeling of happiness that was like nothing I have ever experienced before.  I grew up in rural Pennsylvania with nature all around me and sometimes the only friends to be made were the flora and fauna that surrounded me. I couldn’t avoid them, so I learned their names and cured my lingering loneliness with the help of my newfound friends.  I was fortunate in this respect because I formed an intimate relationship with nature, the greatest friend and best psychologist anyone could ask for.  What a feeling, to be in constant amazement and awe every single day at what to others may seem like the simplest of things.  The miracle of a flower, a rainstorm, a spider, and a tree, of the glittering stars above unobstructed by man-made light: of the mysterious sounds of the night.  Of all the sights, sounds, and smells of my forest.  I would lie down and listen to the spring peepers for hours and just surrender, accepting their invitation to a very peaceful and joyful place.  I stepped beyond experience alone and found the needs of my soul this way.  I have pondered my role in nature and feel good about any conclusions I have come upon.  I let my friends speak to me.  My feelings of interconnectness are the grandest things in my life and have shown me a happiness that exceeds all others.  One truth I seem to have found is that we have always been far more a part of the mystery of the world than our fearful egos can tolerate knowing.

I was reading the article on happiness on this website and it seemed like common sense to me.   Physical people are happier, but then I hike or jog or ride my bike nearly every day and so do most of the people I see day in and day out.  I am surrounded by a bunch of physically active folks and they all seem pretty happy pretty much all of the time.  One difference I noted is that for me and many of my companions, being active goes to another level of not just being active but being active in the out of doors.  I’m active outside, with my friend nature and through my activities I am able to reconnect myself to my planet and find happiness and inspiration on a daily basis.  To be honest, I feel like I know a happiness that some people may have never fathomed.  A more ecstatic happiness, if you will, and one that is rooted in my relationship with my world.  So I pose the question, am I happier than most folks?  I think I am, but then who am I to judge the depth of another’s happiness?  I do know that I have friends who use to play with me in the realm of ecstatic happiness, who in their adulthood have been swept away from it by their corporate jobs, their families, their city environments, or plain and simple rough times like divorce.  In our youth there was always time for a hike or ride and more than that, to just be in our surroundings in love with everything.  I am so fortunate that my work revolves around biking.  Having a lifestyle that revolves around owning and operating a bike shop has many benefits, like always being able to stay active.  It is the lifestyle my husband made possible for us and he can feel good about having an important role in protecting the environment through bicycle advocacy. It’s no wonder I am so flippen happy.   Many of our old friends busy lives don’t leave time for biking or hiking anymore moreover any advocacy for things close to the soul.  As a result, that connection they once knew gets put on the back burner way to long.  An occasional weekend get away just doesn’t cut it anymore because it just allows only a glimpse into the connection they once knew and leaves them wanting more.  I wonder if somehow they were able to take a hike every evening and made a point of it, they might find it somehow therapeutic, moreover inspiring.  Perhaps that one mountain bike ride a week would rekindle an old love affair.

I believe physical activity greatly increases your senses and could serve as a reintroduction to an old friend.  Imagine Getting out on the trail on your mountain bike.  Hurting atfirst, but letting go after the lactic acid burns away.  Realizing that you are indeed strong and that your legs still work pretty damn good.  Imagine climbing steep single track and getting over a few obstacles successfully.  You begin to descend and you are flying through rhododendron tunnels, gliding over streams just filled with magnificent energy.  You are on a mountaintop overlooking the valleys below, rhodendron in full bloom, pure beautiful color.  Your in a pine forest, soft trail beneath you, riding by a waterfall, a rock formation, hey there is a spiderwort, an Indian pipe, a boxer turtle.  Hello old friends!  I love this!  Physical activity like some drug opening closed doorways and you embrace your beautiful planet in a moment of ecstatic happiness.  The connection you feel be it through biking, jogging, paddling… takes you to that level of happiness that you got to know so well on those quiet contemplative days of discovery under an old oak tree that was your special place growing up.  A sacred place.  Maybe you never had such an enriching feeling of ecstasy and want to give it a shot.  Everyone should step beyond the outer limits of existence and embrace them.  As Socrates said; “an unexamined life is not worth living.”  Maybe our modern day bouts with anxiety and depression are  rooted in the separation we have created between the planet and ourselves.  Perhaps we should be trading in our paxil and Zoloft for a bike or a pair of hiking boots.  It certaily couldn’t hurt, but what if your just not able to fit in in your busy schedule.  Then maybe its time to pose the questions to yourself that you don’t want to face.  What is my job doing for me other than creating a paycheck?  What is more important, the things my television shows and commercials and magazines tell me I need.  Maybe what I actually need is free of cost.  Maybe I don’t need to work so much and then I can make time to be outside and to do the things that really mater to me.  Scary? Yes unfortunately for some it is but it’s not out of the realm of possibility.   Like the survey says, people active in the outdoors rank among the happiest, and what I am suggesting is that the root of that happiness lies within nature itself.  Perhaps human existence and the natural world have a unique unity, which needs to be present in our lives for the sake of our happiness and sanity.  Perhaps we need the aesthetic beauty of the world and that a separation from it may actually cause unnecessary neurosis.  Ecopsychology is an entire field of study on such ideas and many adventurous psychologists are finding huge successes using the environment as therapy.

We need access to wilderness and natural wonders.  We need the companionship of trees nd beasts; we need the reverence we experience in these inhumanly magnificent surroundings.  Worked for me and as far as I can tell I’m just another person not privy to any special secret that someone else doesn’t ave access to.  Give me a pair of hiking boots, a bike to ride, a boat to paddle and I am smiling big.  Give me an intimate moment with nature, and I damn near explode!