Nature:

a Refuge and Church

"The aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast. The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship".

Emerson

Learn more about why Nature is so healing and inspirational to us all, with an emphasis on various writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alan Watts, Richard Feynman, Anthony Storr, The Desert Fathers, and Others.

Nature ....

I spent a year off from school,

after Kindergarten in Detroit,

in the woods of North Carolina.

Collected turtles, crayfish,

leaves.

A few years later,

was making Plaster of Paris casts

of animal tracks,

and at ten, had a rock tumbler

going in the closet.

Also, I spent most of my childhood summers

on my grandparents' farm - they were from Europe,

and spoke no English, so I again was

"on my own" in Nature.

Hiked with The Sierra Club

in my twenties in California,

but it took many years to be able to

Hike "Alone with my thoughts"...

In my fifties, I spent

one hundred Saturday mornings at

Shambhala Meditation Center https://shambhala.org/

and in my sixties,

I visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery

five times,

hiked on the Appalachian Trail for the first time,

and also started photographing

in the states of Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia,

and of course, the state of

Kentucky...

I was baptized in a creek in West Virginia.

"Alan Watts - Man and Nature"

"When You Feel Like A Stranger In The World - Alan Watts On The Mystic Experience"

Alan Watts

We Surely Benefit From Unplugging from the Hustle and Bustle of Life ...

"Why Pascal Was Right | Benefits of Being Alone"

"How Loneliness Can Be Your Secret Strength - Socrates, Buddha, Marcus Aurelius, Friedrich Nietzsche"

"Learning to Enjoy Being Alone is a Superpower | Joe Rogan and Naval Ravikant"