How I love forest bathing...

A walk in the forest has to be one of my favourite things. I walk and walk and soon my mind calms down and though I am still 'thinking', my thoughts are mainly about all the beauty I can see around me. That's why being in the forest makes it easier to practice awareness. It's the same on the beach – or anywhere in Nature, in fact. It must be because the contemplation of natural beauty is the closest there is to awareness itself.

It is that 'love' connection. Love of Nature, the beauty and natural environment. And the trees...

Oh the trees. Those noble standing ones. I had to stop every so often to take photos and to commune with them (yes, you know I'm a treehugger).

It was raining lightly, but that didn't matter. In fact it was welcome because it meant that even fewer people were venturing up the track. I like it that way – just me and the trees. The walk was up to the top of Conical Hill in Hanmer Springs. When I got there it was so amazingly beautiful – the mountain landscape with the mist lifting off the conifer trees. I had the look-out shelter to myself and I sat and meditated for a while. The gentle icy touch of a breeze on my face sent me instantly into awareness! Awareness is not about 'tuning out' the world. It's about being in it - in the now. Experiencing it without the dialogue of the mind. So I sat and was present as best I could be, with the dripping of rain from the roof of the shelter; the sounds of distant trucks; the constant song of bellbirds echoing through the forest. And all of it was just as it was. And I met it just as I was.

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