Immerse Yourself in Nature - Mary Oliver - An Intellectual Ancestor

The Ponds

Every year, the lilies are so perfect
I can hardly believe their lapped light

crowding the black, mid-summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them -- the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that rife and wild.
But what in this world is perfect?

I bend closer and see how this one is clearly lopsided --
and that one wears an orange blight --
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away --
and that one is a slumped purse, full of its own unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled --
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing --
that the light is everything -- that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

From: House of Light

Video - Mary Oliver reading, photos and video by Beth McKinlay

Forest Bathing offers opportunities to engage with nature in the way Mary Oliver describes in her poem, "How I go into the Woods"

However, there are also opportunities to smile and talk!

Barred Owl

photo credit - Scott McKinlay

How I Go Into the Woods

Ordinarily I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend,

for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds

or hugging the old black oak tree.

I have my ways of praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone, I can become invisible.

I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,

until the foxes run by unconcerned.

I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me,

I must love you very much.