Just Sit There

Think of this as one of those dares friends make: "I'll do it if you'll do it."

I have a very simple and surprisingly challenging--well, challenge for you that I will also accept for the next several months.  Here it is:

Pick a place "in nature" near where you live or work, go there on a regular basis, and sit still and be present.  I suggest starting out at once a week, for at least 10 minutes.

That's it.  Couldn't be simpler: get outside and--to borrow from the title of a popular mindfulness book--Don't Just Do Something, Sit There!  Sit and observe.  Notice what's around you.  Notice what's growing (or decaying).  Notice the birds and the bugs and the new leaves unfurling.  Notice the sky, the wind, the temperature and the feel of the air on your face.  Go to the same place each time, and get to know it.  Oh, and go alone.

In nature connection circles this has a name: it's called a "sit spot."  It's a practice for developing nature awareness--getting good at noticing what's happening in the natural world around you.  It's also a practice of developing a relationship to a place: getting to know how it looks, smells, feels, sounds, and--yes, even how it tastes, possibly!

Why This Will Be Hard

As a boy growing up, it was like moving heaven and earth to get me into the shower.  Each time I managed to overcome my inertia I'd realize I'd been resisting something that was actually pleasant once I gave myself to it.

This is a lot like that (at least for me).  Two summers ago I started this practice after helping to lead a nature immersion workshop.  Since then I have gazed toward my sit spot and come up with reasons not to go there many more times than I've gone there and sat. 

Why is this so?  Well, if you're at all like me, taking on this practice, you'll run into such garden-variety resistances as: fear of slowing down, of boredom, or of being alone with yourself; believing you don't deserve self-care; believing that "doing nothing" is ridiculous or irresponsible--just to name a few.  But, if you hang in there with this practice long enough, you may just bump up against something much bigger and deeper.

Natural Aliens

The winter after I began my sit spot practice heard a man named Jon Young speak about nature connection--and about this practice, in particular.  Mentored as a boy by Tom Brown, Jon has taught and mentored hundreds of youth in the art of nature connection for more than 25 years.

He tells a story of a young mentee I'll call Sam, and his efforts to establish a sit spot practice.  Sam repeatedly shared with Jon how difficult it was for him to maintain his practice.  Even though he could easily list its benefits: he felt more focused, calmer, happier, more motivated.  Even though his wife could always tell when he'd been to his sit spot: he was gentler, more kind and more emotionally available.  With some help, Sam was able to name what really stopped him: the fear that if he deeply connected with nature he would be alone, socially outcast.

This was just one of hundreds of similar reports Jon had heard.  He wondered how a practice so simple, and with such consistently positive results, could be so difficult to keep up, and from whence came this paralyzing fear.  His best explanation went back to the Middle Ages in Europe and the prolonged, often violent, efforts of the Christian church to absorb or abolish "Paganism."  This centuries-long campaign, Jon posits, deeply encoded attitudes toward Nature that continue to be passed down by European-Americans.

Given my experiences in the mountains and woods of New England, this theory makes sense to me.  Each time I immerse myself in Nature, it seems I have to pass through a gauntlet of ingrained alienation, in order to recall and reclaim an even deeper sense of belonging.1

This ancestral wound plus our modern-day "reasons" not to pause and sit still--in nature, or anywhere else--make this "simple" practice a challenge for even the most disciplined among us.

So, Why Do It?

To the benefits listed above (all of which I have experienced consistently), I will add these:

• A sense of belonging in your world and your neck of the woods
• Free therapy: reduced anxiety (sweating the small stuff) and increased perspective (realizing it's all small stuff!)
• Reclaiming living at the speed of life (think Slow Food movement, and then some)
• A connection to "Source," God, Spirit, the Divine
  
• You just might learn something our wounded world needs that nature has already figured out 3
  

I don't have the space here to explain how all of these benefits flow from spending regular time in nature--even with the space I'm not sure I could!  My hope is that you'll give this enough of a whirl to discover for yourself what's in it for you to do this.

Keep it Simple

OK, so let's go over my challenge once more and define our terms. The challenge: pick a place "in nature" near where you live or work, go there on a regular basis, and sit still and be present for at least 10 minutes, at least once a week.

1. a place in nature: this can be the balcony of your 8^th floor apartment--any spot where you can witness nature will do
   
2. near where you live or work: pick a spot that takes little time and effort to get to (so you have one less excuse not to go!)
3. on a regular basis: up to you, of course, but I suggest 1x/week for 10 minutes, to start
4. sit still: so you'll have a better chance of observing what's there--especially wildlife
5. be present: put the emphasis on--and keep returning to--noticing what's around you vs. what's on your To Do list

1  More on nature alienation and nature connection

2 For more on this, check out Biomimicry