All summer season I’ve been studying Barry Lopez’s e-book, “Arctic Goals” — it’s very, very lengthy and I nonetheless have a methods to go — and the opposite night time, I learn this line which I’m very grateful for:
Watching animals at all times slows you down.
As somebody who’s at all times seeking to decelerate on a number of ranges, I used to be actually struck by by the suggestion that there’s one thing on the market that may “at all times” sluggish me down, a minimum of in line with Lopez. In my very own expertise this has been fairly true, though I’d by no means thought of it this fashion.
I used to be up at our household’s cabin the night time I learn this line, and the following day, I seen that certainly, each time I noticed wild animals — butterflies, bees, moths, hawks, salamanders, toads, rabbits, deer, many various songbirds, crows, and even a bear within the distance — my inside psychological world immediately downshifted into one thing slower and extra targeted.
I wasn’t actively bird-watching or monitoring or something like that, simply sitting on the porch or driving or strolling alongside. I noticed that the animals I noticed have been really altering my inside world by disrupting the psychological noise and dashing ideas with a sudden dawning of sluggish and quiet focus.
It was such a blessing to note this, to obtain this present of deeper consciousness from Lopez and from the animals round me. I feel it’s fascinating and beautiful that simply “watching” them can do that.
It was beautiful, too, to notice that this has been occurring all my life, soothing, therapeutic, calming me beneath my aware consciousness. Maybe this is without doubt one of the causes I’m so drawn to wild locations and the pure world.
