I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery–air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, “This is what it is to be happy.”
The Bell Jar by Sylvia path
The words capture me. I read them again, “I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery …”. A surging rush forward of mesmerizing colors and sounds. I breathe it in, nature that is. My senses quicken. Yes, this is what it is to be happy, I say to myself.
Nature is the living, visible garment of God.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I am a peripatetic soul. I’m at my creative best when I’m moving about outdoors. Nature, sunlight and movement inspire me. I walk out my imagination in creation.
Ninety-three percent of all communication is non-verbal, the researchers say. For me, movement in nature is a means of non-verbal communication with God. I move into a state of flow, a place of deconcentration that opens The Way to something bigger, something beyond my own self.
Something natural, something spiritual, something peaceful happens while moving in nature. I become wrapped in the living, visible garment of God and for me, that is what it is to be happy.
“For in him we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28.
Love & Peace,
About Sylvia Plath, whose quote I reference above…
Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) is a poet whose troubled life and powerful work remains a source of controversy. Plath suffered from bouts of severe depression throughout her life, her first serious breakdown occurring in 1953 and later remembered in her autobiographical novel The Bell Jar (1963). During an extraordinary burst of creativity in the autumn of 1962 Plath wrote most of the poems on which her reputation now rests. However, that winter was particularly severe and Plath became increasingly isolated and depressed: on February 11th 1963 she committed suicide by gassing herself in the kitchen of her flat. https://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/sylvia-plath
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones. 1-800-273-8255.
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