Skip to main content

The Need to Walk Amongst Trees

Image
By
Walking is more than movement — it is a return, a quiet homecoming. Before words, before thought, there was this: the body in motion, footsteps pressing into the earth, the world unfolding with each step. To walk in nature is to nourish something deep within us, a hunger we often do not name, but feel — the hunger to belong, to breathe, to be whole again.

Perhaps we seek solitude — not the heavy solitude of locked rooms and stagnant air, but one that is alive, that breathes with the trees and hums with the wind. In nature, we are alone yet never lonely. The sky stretches vast above us, untroubled by our worries. The rustling leaves whisper that we need not rush. Here, in this quiet, there is a rare gift: the freedom to simply be.

Or is it movement we long for? The body, so often contained — trapped in chairs, stiffened by routine, shaped to fit a world of straight lines — rediscovers its grace in the simple act of walking. The spine unfurls, the breath deepens, the arms swing loose, and suddenly, we remember: we were made for this. To move, to stretch, to inhabit our own rhythm, as natural as the wind shifting through branches.

And then there is the rhythm itself — the steady pulse of step after step, a heartbeat in harmony with the living world. This is where thoughts loosen, where the mind exhales, where new ideas arrive as lightly as birds settling on a branch. Here, clarity is not forced; it emerges, gently, as if it had been waiting for us all along.

But perhaps, above all, we walk to remember that we are held. Not by walls or hands, but by something vaster, something eternal. A tree’s silent endurance, a river’s ceaseless journey — these things whisper of time beyond our own, of a rhythm older than our worries, a belonging that does not waver. We are small, yes, but we are part of something immense and kind.

But belonging is not only found in movement — it is also in the stillness of night, in the quiet glow of a campfire. As day folds into night, as the path leads not home but to the quiet glow of a campfire, another kind of belonging emerges. We sit wrapped in blankets, hands cupped around steaming mugs, the scent of woodsmoke curling into the crisp night air. Above us, the sky stretches open, vast and velvet, spattered with stars.

This is where time slows. Where laughter comes softer, where voices lower in reverence, as if not to disturb the sacred hush of the cosmos. The fire flickers golden against familiar faces, and in this gentle glow, we are neither lost nor searching. The earth is firm beneath us, the night tender around us, the universe quietly watching over us.

And so we walk, and we rest. We move, and we pause. Not always knowing why, only that with each step, with each breath beneath the stars, we feel the quiet answer rising from the earth: You are here — and that is enough.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Fallacy of Self‑Sufficiency

By
Some people will tell you — quite loudly, usually — that they are enough. They need no one, thank you very much. Entirely self‑made. A closed circuit. I, too, fancied myself an island at one time. A small, sturdy principality of one. I paid my own bills. Made my own tea. I even spoke aloud to myself in the supermarket queue, which was meant to prove something. But late at night, when all the heroic independence had been done for the day, there it was — a sort of homesickness without a forwarding address. You know the feeling. You’re supposedly sovereign, but you still wish someone would knock. Self‑sufficiency is a word that weighs a bit too much. It sounds like an insurance policy or a piece of camping equipment. It promises freedom, but only the kind you can fit in a box. Like eating an entire birthday cake alone — which, I confess, I’ve done. Because the truth (and it arrives, as truths tend to, when you’ve just burned your toast) is that we are made of others. We are es...
2 comments
Read more

The Progressive Misreading of Silence

By
At 5, I entered rooms like a murmur. I was already listening for something behind the noise — something older than voices, softer than footsteps. “He’s such a well-behaved boy,” they said, smiling with relief. But what they mistook for virtue was only quiet intuition. I was not good. I was attuned. At 11, I had mastered the art of presence without weight. I could sit by the window for hours, watching the wind pass through the trees like thought through the body. “He’s quiet,” they would say — gently, but with a trace of discomfort. They couldn’t name the feeling of someone watching without need. At 17, I was called “mature.” But maturity is not a virtue — it is a scar. I had already seen the shape of endings before others saw beginnings. Friends came to me like tide to stone, hoping to be held. I held them, yes — but not always with words. Sometimes silence is the only honest offering. At 24, my stillness no longer charmed. The world asked for brightness, momentum, performa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Clarity Begins Where Pretence Ends

By
At some quiet juncture, without spectacle or warning, the architecture of one’s life begins to feel misaligned. The roles once worn with ease grow heavy; the rhythm once followed now falters. In that stillness — where noise gives way to unease — emerges a longing not for more, but for truth. Not the polished kind offered by others, but the raw clarity that demands a reckoning with who we are, beneath all that we’ve built. At that point, we no longer seek applause, distraction, or even resolution. What we seek is clarity — elemental, grounding, liberating. But this clarity is not the kind that flatters. It is not decorative. It is not curated for display. It is the kind that requires dismantling illusions, reordering assumptions, and exposing the scaffolding that holds our being together. To know oneself is not a sentimental pursuit. It is an architectural one. Each insight is a cornerstone; each falsehood identified, a wall removed. We begin, not with grand gestures, but wi...
Post a Comment
Read more