The Healing Powers of Nature
The Healing powers of Nature
There is something about the great outdoors that instantly brings me a sense of calm. Growing up my dad always took me and my brother out into nature. My childhood was filled with scuba diving trips around the Philippines, hiking in distant mountain ranges and stargazing under camp sites roasting marshmallows. These are some of the best memories of my life to this day. Growing up, we weren’t as dependent on technology for entertainment. My phone was a Nokia until I was in college and I was thrilled playing Snake. At times I believe it was better that way. Technology has amped up the way we connect, the way we interact and left the younger generation lonelier and more materialistic than ever. I’m lucky to consider myself a hybrid of a millennial and an old soul. It’s seems difficult in this day and age to raise children in this kind of society. A society that can hardly survive without wifi or a screen and obsessed with celebrities, likes, Tik Tok or Instagram.
One of my favorite places to go when the world is unbearably noisy is nature. When i’m hiking up trails on a mountainside like Mt. Pulag, Mt. Pinatubo or Mt Batulao its just so peaceful. All you hear are the birds chirping, the winds howling as you reach closer to summit, the skies changing from blue to pinkish orange and finally exploding into a sky full of diamonds- stars. Lying there on your sleeping bag, far away from distant cities, the stars are so incredibly bright and you wonder, how could I never have noticed how beautiful the stars and the moon are?
The energy I feel when I’m in nature is so incredibly powerful. At the top of the mountain peaks, or at the bottom of the depths of the oceans, that’s where I feel most alive. Those are the moments I can bring out a notebook and say, yes God is real, God is alive. No man could have crafted this magnificent mountain range or vast ocean on his own. These are the moments I am humbled to a Higher power.
The destruction on nature through earthquakes, flash floods, droughts, forest fires, volcanic eruptions is one of the few things I really fear. And which I believe is an Act of God as punishment for destroying the environment. As much as Mother Earth or Gaia can heal us with calm beautiful seas for us to fish in, or magnificent mountains to grow food on it can be equally destructive.
Hopefully the youth learns to take time to appreciate the magnificent beauty of Nature. It’s only through experience that we are truly connected. You can hardly relate or give advice to something you’ve never experienced like Mental Health with Clinical Depression or Social Anxiety. The same goes with Nature, its something you really need to witness in order to care deeply about. Once you begin appreciating the mountains, the stars, the trees and oceans you realize you’ve been valuing the wrong things and you will want to disconnect much more often. Being in nature is not only healing it is liberating.
If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. —Laura Ingalls Wilder
Namaste