In a world that often espouses the idea of safety in ownership, I must confess that I have never tasted the assumed emotional privileges that come with that.

I have never owned my own house or even my own car, and after my marriage broke down in early 2018, I learned the hard way that there is no real sanctuary or security in phrases such as “till death do us part” or “I do” either.

Within a few months of finalizing my long-awaited divorce in January of 2020, I faced another set of hardships. I had just separated with a person I met unexpectedly after separating from my former spouse, and then we had the onset of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which isolated and fragmented us all in copious ways.

Amid all of the searing pain from my past experiences, the only thing outside of myself I could turn to was the only thing consummate and immediately accessible to me at the time: the woods about 8.9 km from where I lived. With time, the trail became a labyrinth leading me back to my heart. Under the sturdy presence of the towering trees, I felt held when at a time I could barely hold myself. Sometimes as I cried over the sordid details of my down-trodden love life, the birds would gently sing, reminding me that despite my real and perceived challenges, life still goes on; that sadness was only one scene in the big play, in the tapestry of all existence, and that there is a huge world and web of existence out there making all kinds of miraculous and mysterious things happen simultaneously. With that, nature soon became my refuge place. Somehow my human problems felt smaller to me.

Six years later, I still feel the same way. My love for the woods and the outdoors has not diminished or died. In fact, it has grown even stronger.

When I am in the great outdoors, I feel free. Within 15 or 20 minutes of feeling the wind against my cheeks, I begin to feel a strong current of joy coursing through my veins. Finally, I feel alive. Completely and utterly alive. Once again, all of my petty tribulations become like shadows in the presence of the maple, walnut, and white pines that surround me. Once more, I am reminded of my own inherent belonging, and of my human ego, with all of it’s many troubles, placed in the order of all things.

I know I am far from the only one who feels this way. In fact, according to a 2025 article by Psychology Today, regular moments spent in nature offer several solid positive affects on mental and physical health, including lowering stress hormones like cortisol, enhancing sleep, boosting mood, and improving cognitive function. I also strongly believe that a lot of the pain we carry is partially due to our sense of alienation from the natural world. In addition, many great thinkers and philosophers contemplated and attested to the intelligence and splendour of the natural world, including the 18th and 19th century Transcendentalists of New England such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Scottish-born author and naturalist John Muir, and even Friedrich Nietzsche who often frequented the Swiss alps in order to inspire his thinking and writing.

Perhaps now more than ever, we need to spend more time in nature, allowing it to nourish and regulate us physiologically as well as to teach us how to live. I have done this in my own way quite recently.

In fact, one of my most recent moments in the woods inspired an unexpected moment of personal realization.

For the vast majority of my life, I have carried the belief that I am not enough as I am, that I need to accomplish certain things in order to be whole and complete, and that no one could ever truly want me just as I truly am in this seemingly imperfect state. For a moment or two, I held that thought close to my chest. Then, I looked at the rough foliage, the tumbled branches and twigs, the uneven trails, and the brown stream flowing unevenly. I asked myself why, despite all it’s own apparent imperfections, I loved this place so much. Suddenly, the answer occurred to me: I love it not despite it’s imperfections but precisely because it is so complete and unapologetic as itself. It is what it is, and it doesn’t ask for approval or permission to be itself or to exist. It doesn’t have to buy or earn my admiration: it has already found it’s place in my heart for simply being as it is. Furthermore, what I love about it has nothing to do with some ideal. So, I continued, why can’t I live like that? Why can’t I be as unapologetic as all of this before me? Why can’t I accept that perhaps I am whole as I am and not need to earn anyone’s respect, love, or approval? Why can’t I trust in my own timing, my chaotic perfection? This is a thought I continue to ponder when life feels especially rough.

Another perspective that often brings me a great deal of peace is one of my all-time favourite poems written by Wendell Berry, titled, “The Peace of Wild Things.” Here are the first few lines of the poem:

“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives
might be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake…”

You can read the full poem, here.

This poem never fails to transport me to the depth of peace I often feel amid the natural world, alone in the woods on my many solitary walks. And amid those day-blind stars, I illumine my vision and rest, soundly, in my heart.

~

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