A walk in the woods

I was discombobulated on Saturday.

I went to a local golf clubhouse / bar in the morning, where they have a TrackMan golf simulator. Word about it hasn’t gotten out; the price is low for indoor golf, especially considering the real-deal Trackman equipment, so hooray. I had something I’d discovered in my swing and I wanted the data: was I right? Did I mine those extra 15 yards?

Nah.

Shank, blade, pull. I think I hit two good shots the whole time. There it was, the sinking feeling of failure, of helplessness, of “why do I bother?” which, after a few valiant resets of optimism are dashed, takes me down. Fine. Another day.

Throughout the afternoon I tried to do some “me work”. I couldn’t focus on my books; could not read a whole paragraph. I couldn’t write. Couldn’t even do more than a third of a page of penmanship practice. You know, because my cursive lower case ‘a’s and ‘c’s are indistinguishable. Rote practice, get the strokes in, notice the technique, go slower, use the arm. Bah. Worse than golf. I wrote that “my body would not focus on a task” and let it all go for the day. I couldn’t even read a page in the book I’m reading.

Sunday morning, half a cup of coffee in, and I tried again. Yes, I was rested, yes I could read and comprehend at the same time. Campbell said something that linked creation and the nature of men and women in a single sentence (...she is the lure that moved the Self-brooding Absolute to the act of creation) and things made sense. I took my time and thought about things.

I tried again with Ferrucci’s chapter 17, Beauty, and the first paragraph reflected my exact present-day experience. I needed some beauty. He talked about an exercise he had done in group sessions, laying out prints of art, and how even that quick exposure to beauty had provided a few seconds of experience, of meditation on beauty.

I could go grab one of the coffee table books from the next room. Look at Thomas Hart Benton paintings.

But that seemed a false step. I picked up a pen from my desk. There’s beauty in this. Spend a few minutes with it. It is heavy. It’s design combined materials. The cap snaps on magnetically - snick! The colors, the textures, the clip rocks side to side. At the top of the cap is a double mountain stamped logo. Monte Verde is the brand. Green mountain. I thought of Vermont. I picked up another pen and remembered the excitement of receiving it as a Christmas gift.

That’s right: I’m raising my vibes. I need to take the time to contemplate beauty.

I looked at the potted plants on my desk. Felt their leaves. Stuck my finger in their dirt: cool, moist. My wife watered them for me. Thank you. I looked out the window at the gray sky, the bare trees, the snow on the ground.

I need to slow down. The woods. I haven’t been in the woods since hunting season began. What, six, eight weeks ago?

The effort to dress for the cold; decide about boots, snowshoes, skis? No. But I have a monitor behind me, and there are infinite 4k videos of nature. I swivel-chaired and searched and was (after skipping a Ford! commercial) was taken to a gorgeous landscape shot from a drone rising along the surf.

That’s beautiful. Look at the -

BAM! The scene changed.

A mountain, the forest, the majestic sweep of its -

BAM! The scene changed.

I don’t want this. This is not beauty. Slow down.

Never enough time
To see what could, should be seen
Slowly: take it in

I need to immerse. New search. I remember that I’ve seen hikes in the woods. Surely someone has done that. Yes. Along a river. Time to see the mountain from the path.

It’s clearly fall. Headphones. Wow! the river is loud! Look at those down trees; chain-sawed chunks cast aside to clear the path, just like in my own woods. The river is getting quieter with each step. Pause. Those twisted limbs, every which way. Look!

This was 11:30 in to the video.

But something was still wrong. A minute or so later the birds started calling. They were added in. At the Denver Zoo this spring, they had bird calls piped in over tinny loudspeakers throughout the park. At the zoo.

So I looked further. And found Redwood Forest Soundscape | 4K Forest Walk, Not AI | Natural Ambience | Study & Meditation They had to put that it was real in the title, which is its own depressing thought.

Can you forest bathe through a screen?

Yes.

The red morning light on the redwoods.

The creator commented that he specifically went there for the dawn chorus. “During the majority of the day, you only hear wind through the needles of redwood trees and the occasional chirping of birds. The dawn chorus is the most active sonic time of the day in most environments, but certainly so in a Redwood Forest”

And the Dawn Chorus clicked for me. I know it. I hear it from bed on summer mornings, after long hot nights with intermittent sleep.

Is it dawn already? Must I? Yes. But first, open your eyes, look out the window, over the shade, to the trees’ tops, to see the sun lighting them slowly climbing down as it levers itself up into the sky.

Arise, dawn chorus!
Chatter, wail! Start each new day
I hear you from bed

Though I didn’t walk in the woods yesterday, I walked in the woods yesterday, and it gave me peace.

By looking at beauty, by taking the time to see it, hear it, touch it.