Nature the Ultimate Mentor

Since the first time I visited the UK I admired the beauty of its nature. At first, it was the parks that got me. London, for example, has too many parks with a great variety. You can have an incredible view of London from Greenwich Park and you can enjoy the elegance of Holland park with its Japanese simplicity of the Kyoto Garden. Of course, you can feel the vibe of the city, find monuments, take a boat ride in the lake and so on in Hyde Park or you can enjoy the woods of Hampstead Heath. The list could go on for much longer and in fact, from all the cities I have been, none can reach this level, in my opinion. But I wouldn’t avoid mentioning other cities such as Bath with the outstanding Victoria Park which has a magnificent botanical garden among others, the Alexandra Park with a splendid view of the whole city, the Priory Park and even the Parade gardens have a nice touch.

It seems that the wet weather of the island is very helpful in the maintenance of such outstanding environments. As well, the English through the years have been bringing plenty of different plants from their colonies thus the variety has increased amazingly.

This high admiration of mine obviously was what led me to find then something even more enjoyable than that. So not long time ago I realized that all around the UK countryside there exists a huge network of official and unofficial pathways. For example, there is the Thames Path which is an official foot pathway that follows the River Thames from the southeastern side of London to Gloucestershire, a path of approximately 180 miles. Another great thing is that the rail network can easily connect you from the city that you might be coming to the trail. So, for example, you can take the train from London and stop in a station close to the path. Then you can take the train back from another station close to the trail after you have walked some kilometers on the latter.

By walking in these paths you are having the magnificent experience of the English countryside at its best. You are walking next to different kinds of plants, picturesque houses, meadows, animals, lakes, rivers, forests, landscape views from tops of hills. Words would never be enough to describe the experience and since a photo is a thousand words anyway I share some photos in my Instagram account.

 

Coming Closer

 

According to my understanding, it can’t be natural for human beings to be staying away from nature and this might easily have effects in our psychosynthesis. Not only the places we live are made of cement and are far from nature but we don’t usually give the time or we don’t have enough in order to make a visit to the countryside. Fortunately, some cities like London and Berlin offer the opportunity of a small connection with our mother.

So it has become natural to me to hop on a train, take a walk for several hours and before the night falls grab the train back. I may do it alone or with a company. When having walked several kilometers and experienced so many different parts of the countryside, I return home feeling like I was on a trip. My mind is so full of beautiful memories that is like it had been an experience of several days instead of some hours which in fact was.

 

Contemplating when immersed

 

But being among the trees or next to a lake makes me contemplate a lot. And I have learnt many lessons which I was never taught by any school or university. These times the lessons fill my senses and I recognise clearly the practical application of them. At the same time plenty of them look contradictory to what I was taught formally or from what is considered correct and normal by the majority. But whom are we supposed to trust more in the end?

Variety

I raise my head and stare at the hill on the other side. I see many trees but they are so colourful. I take a photo and I am sure that it can’t be the same with what my eyes see. So many different varieties of green, red and yellow! Not even Claud Monet could replicate that. How vast the variance, what a splendour for my heart, how infinite is our world! As I am walking I feel a nice smell, I turn my head and I see the tree that comes from. I continue and sense a different one, this time the tree has blossomed. I touch the leaves, I have never touched this specific texture and I know that the next leave from the other tree will feel different.

Lack of Jealousy

But the plants don’t seem jealous. The tree that hasn’t blossomed yet is not in a hurry to reach the point of the blossomed one. Because its time is different. Isn’t it? I wonder, they have different smells and this amazes us! Why then do we consult people to do the same like everybody else? Why do we oppose everyone that makes different choices with the excuse he won’t have money in his life? Certainly the tulip isn’t going to try to copy the odour of camellia because it is more cool. And imagine how greater is the potential of the human mind compared to a tree. But at the same time how destructive that the mind has reached the opposite point, it seems to be using all its resources to reach the perfection in imitation.

Lack of Comparison

The trees don’t compare with each other. Do they? Some keep their leaves during the winter and others not. That doesn’t make the latter something “better”. The plants depending on their kind grow on different times of the year. The fig that has figs on August doesn’t make fun with the orange tree that makes oranges in the winter because it’s late. Same as the trees we have different pace, we are on different stages and each and everyone of us is taking different lessons from life at any point. Everyone receives pressure that is late all the time and everyone conforms by urging himself to do something more. And after a short period the pressure begins again in order to confirm again and so on. Is there any end in this? Can there be any?

Impossible to Owe

As I walk I see two apple trees, I prefer the right one, the apples are bigger. Will the left one be angry with me because I didn’t choose her? Oh, no, perhaps the left will be because I am taking its apples while I am letting the other one’s intact! Haha, interesting to think of it in the human terms. But how can these apples be eaten for free? There must be a credit card machine on the trunk. Ouf, I know I can eat as many apples as I want from the tree. Even all. Because nature is abundant, she never counts. You can’t owe to nature, you can’t pay interest to her and we can be receiving everything from what she offers. Interestingly, even though she has the real value, we are mislead and give irrelevant value to printed papers made by her woods.

Impossible to Own

However, we say that we own the land, the nature, even though there isn’t much of nature left. Too many people are landlords. What is it to own land? We don’t even own our parts of the body as most processes in them are happening unconsciously while other times some parts of our body don’t follow our instructions, as you know. Is there a way to prove that you have acquired the land from the one that first created it? Also how can you own something that you were always contained in if you think about it? A proverb in Greece says that it’s not possible for the mother fox to be 10 years old while her child fox is 11.

Desiring and Desireless

Nature taught me the paradoxical connection of doing and not doing, or else of being desiring and of being desireless. Lao tzu had written:”Ever desireless one can see the mystery, ever desiring one can see only the manifestations.” Nature works automatically, its processes flow by themselves and we don’t participate much. It teaches us how to let go. How to understand our real loves, the processes that enthusiasm leads us, get in them and then to let ourselves freely take part in the experience by being fully immersed and without thinking too much or having high expectations. When you plant a specific flower of your choice you are putting a seed to the ground and create the appropriate conditions for it to flourish. Then you lay back and wait for the natural processes to unfold. You don’t sit all day every day watching the seed and waiting impatiently when it will grow or how it can grow quicker or why it hasn’t grown enough and so on. Same way with the higher desires. First we have the sincere and deep will and after setting the appropriate conditions we enter the process and let our natural selves unfold with less thinking and more openness.

Everything Flows

I, also, sometimes visit for a second or third time the same part of a trail. I may want to show it to a friend or it is more convenient to go there at that day. But the path is never the same. Some trees have changed colours depending on the period while others might have dropped the leaves they had or the opposite. As Heracletus famously said, everything flows. All experience is a constant change of crystallisations that are understood only because of our senses as a continuous process. Every moment is an opportunity, an opportunity for a decision that is more loving to you than the previous second. Every moment is something entirely new from everything that has happened to you and if you decide it can be left to where it belongs, in the past. Every moment is precious and with high interest because you will never ever experience it exactly as it is. And the more you shed light to its depth (or your inner depth towards it) the more you realise better its significance.

The Water

Whenever I think the conditions are suitable I may go outside the trail and do a customization. Mostly this happens when there is a river or a lake nearby. Obviously on Thames Path there wasn’t a need for that. But I generally have a tendency towards the water, I feel I want to be close to it. It has more substance than the air which means that you can sense it much more. However, it is fluid, it takes the shape of the “cup” that’s into, as Bruce Lee similarly has mentioned. We can be like water, flexible and ready for change of “shape” at any given moment. With a close understanding of our instincts in order to take the appropriate form according to circumstances. Unlimited and free of labels that can only limit us and make us “ice cubes”. At any time I am trying to be as I need to be for this specific moment and not as I generally think I am or as others think I am. Same as reality is crystallised by our senses at any given time we crystallise with our mind the corresponding form that comes intuitively when we are in the flow. Therefore, the river reminds it more symbolically.

However the lakes and the ponds have their own magnificence. They are unmoving and for me is the constancy of the eternal. When all these rivers and waterfalls flow, others heavily and with tremendous sound while others’ waters move slowly, the lake is there unattached maintaining its constancy. It’s like a perfect mirror. When Narcissus looked for the first time at himself on the lake he remained there forever admiring his idol without knowing it was his own. How could I not be like Narcissus when I see the water “painted” so perfectly by the outstanding vastness of the clouds?

At that time the water is as the sky same way like what the greatest Mystic of all times Hermes Trismegistus taught humanity, that as above so below. Any movement of the clouds, any passing plane, any appearance of the sun is clearly projected on the surface of the lake. Anything that is happening inside us we project it in our interactions with our environment and this is I think one main point of focus in order to find out who we are instead of who we think we are. When we are coming from a feeling of despair this is what others feel when they see us and this is what we will perhaps try to see in others. Similarly with fear and with anger. But when you come from feelings of compassion then I have noticed that others come closer and you also see them differently. I can many times now notice that on myself. When I am coming from different emotions I am also forming different judgments. And when I am mindful I don’t make judgments at all, I just observe and accept it as another part of the whole.

 

The Hidden Life of Trees

 

When walking through the trees you may already have noticed that in most areas the trees that are close to each other are in a similar health conditions. In the wonderful book “The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate – Discoveries from a Secret World” Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families: tree parents live together with their children, communicate with them, support them as they grow, share nutrients with those who are sick or struggling, and even warn each other of impending dangers.

Mystery

You see there is so much wisdom in nature and yet looks so much mysterious, it is everywhere and we don’t notice it. It works sublimely but is what guides everything. She’s a mentor that was supposed to nurture us but Man took the choice of trying to handle it. Instead of sitting in silence and listening to her he thought he can go above her, so much his vanity is. Instead of lying in her arms and enjoying the serenity with veneration, Man decided to compete unstoppably ignoring any cost for the sacrifice it takes.

But she is still there, injured though, always ready to regenerate as she has always been doing because above all she is optimistic, so she doesn’t like missing opportunities for growth.