Your Secret Hideaway is Calling: The Importance of Connecting with Nature ~ Dr. Will Tuttle

[Carolyn Bailey]

In a few days I’m going to pack a tent and sleeping bag into our inflatable kayak and paddle to an uninhabited mangrove island here in the Florida Keys. It reliably freshens my heart, relaxes my mind, and nourishes my spirit to spend time alone in a secret hideaway in nature. Inner peace, joy, gratitude, and deeper understanding flow more easily when I’m surrounded by the silent benevolence of trees, rivers, oceans, mountains, and wildflowers and when my closest neighbors are birds, deer, squirrels, fish, and dragonflies, and I feel connected to the green Earth and to the stars and moon, and the vastness of the sky.

I admit we have an unusual life that affords some unique opportunities. We’re now in our seventeenth year living full-time in a 220 square foot “rolling home,” slowly traveling around North America spreading a message. Living in this tiny home on wheels together with my spouse Madeleine has its advantages. It has a tiny ecofootprint to match (we love our solar panels & hand-crank clothes washer). The view and yard change every couple of days, and there’s little need for either air conditioning or heating, since we head south in the autumn and north in the spring. It encourages being organized, inventive and aware. No room for inessentials, either. If I want to buy a new pair of pants, I first must give away a pair of pants. Also, it tends to build patience, sensitivity, and humility to share a small space with another, and it also urges us to step into the beckoning arms of the beautiful and ever-changing natural world outside our door.

While on one hand we’re busy as heck, traveling and presenting about 150 events annually, we also take time every day to meditate and to connect with nature. The weekends usually find us camping in more urban or suburban environs, and during the week we like to head for the state parks and other wilder lands where the natural world still dances, sings, and whispers her secrets to anyone who appreciates her enough to stop and listen.

Continue reading, and watch the video of Will's retreat here.

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/lifestyle/your-secret-hideaway-is-calling-the-importance-of-connecting-with-nature/

Dr. Will Tuttle, educator, author, pianist, and composer, presents 150 lectures, workshops, and concerts yearly throughout North America and Europe. Author of the acclaimed best-seller, The World Peace Diet, he is a recipient of the Peace Abbey’s Courage of Conscience Award, and is the co-founder of Circle of Compassion ministry. A vegan since 1980, he is a Dharma Master in the Zen tradition, and has created eight CD albums of uplifting original piano music.