On spending more time outdoors
Morning moon
It’s hard to spend abundant time outdoors nowadays, unless you are someone who works outdoors or doesn’t work at all – walks and birdwatching galore! Having made a clear link between being outdoors and my own sanity and joy, I am trying to get outdoors in some meaningful way every day. Being outdoors and meandering along often sends my brain to a meandering place itself. A good meandering place, rather than an anxious one. Ideas come to me too – things I’d like to do or try, insights, realisations, creative ideas. Apparently, it is our ‘default mode network’ that brings about this sense of things arising seemingly out of nowhere – an area of the brain that is active during passive moments. It can be switched on on demand or when we are cognitively thinking or racing towards a deadline. It is that slow, precious place that we find in the mundane and the glorious – folding clean laundry, walking along the beach, doing yoga, in the shower, chopping vegetables, exercising. To access it, though, we need to slow down and take time to do nothing, and it’s not easy in our world of distractions.
So I’m trying to make sure I’m spending meaningful time outdoors, not only because it’s fun being in this brain state, but also because it brings me such deep joy! Jacob is outside a lot, even when it’s cold and I have the heating on. I’ll find him in his puffer jacket and hat drinking a beer and watching the sunset. He is wonderful in the way he reminds me to go outside more. I fear we are now those annoying people who say ‘There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing’ (thanks Alfred Wainwright for that one!).
In my quest to be outside more, I’ve started having my morning tea at the top of the front garden, wrapped in a blanket. It’s winter at the moment, but it never gets very cold here. Still, it’s refreshing and crisp. Hearing the starlings whistle and beep and click and seeing the kākā screech as they flap in pairs across the sky is a real treat. I remember that humans have woken up and stepped right into nature for most of our history as a species (and millions of humans still do). It is only more recently that we, in the Western world at least, wake up wrapped in wood, concrete, glass and plaster. While it’s nice to be warmer (except if you wake up in a New Zealand home!), there’s something about waking up and sitting amongst the trees and the animals and the sun that feels just… right.
Anyway, here’s some photos from a couple of weekends ago – morning tea and a walk through Zealandia, Wellington’s wildlife ecosanctuary,
Tea break!
I feel like there is nothing more magical than sunlight coming through the canopy and lighting up the leaves. I wish I could capture this in a way that does it justice but nature always evades our attempts to capture its perfection!
