Into the Woods

I am a runner and a walker. I love to go to Lackawanna State Park, I would go every day if I could, and either walk or run.  Most of the time I run, I want to cover as much ground as I can in the time I have.  Sometimes, even when I start out walking, I run for portions of the time, I want to "hurry up".  Today, I put my running clothes on, but I ran yesterday, so my intention was to walk.  I told myself, actually, that I would walk the whole time, and notice how that felt.  Even if I felt bored and wanted to run, today I was going to walk.

So today, as I walked, I paid attention to how I felt, I tried to remain present to what was right in front of me and all around me.  I was open to the blue sky and all the trees and the green grass and the lake and I took it all in on a deeper level.  That is not something I can do while I run.  When I am running, I am thinking about my breathing, my body, how tired I am, how much energy I have that particular day.  I am more internally focused.  Running is good, its good cardio, and it is good for my stress level too, but mindful walking in the woods connects me to the outside world.

One thing I have discovered is that being outside, especially at a park like this one, helps my stress level, I don't know if it is all the green I am surrounded with, the birdsong, or sweet smell of the grass, it is important to me to have time outside.  It has been that way from since I can remember.  When I was a tiny girl, I begged my brother and my sisters to take me into the woods, and sometimes they obliged. I remember the fence and the gate that separated our yard from the woods, and I think there was a shed for cows not too far in.  I loved to walk to the little stream and sometimes we would cross it.  When I was older and we lived down the hill, Janie and I played in the woods in back of our house, there was a stream and a tiny waterfall with an even tinier cave underneath.  Some of my happiest childhood memories were camping at Cutler Lake with the whole family.

These memories of safety in green spaces reminds me that I do have a precedent for feeling safe, which translates into a fledgling belief that the world is safe.  This is a core belief that I am trying to cultivate and, up until now, was having trouble visioning.  Yes, this is why, deep down, this is so important to me. I felt safe, secure, and loved in the woods, even when I did not feel safe in my own home. I have known, it seems to me, from a very early age that the universe, God is loving and on my side.  While I had so much difficulty and chaos at home, I had a refuge in the woods right outside of my house, and now some 50 years later, I can still draw on the calm, the serenity that I find there.