The Boundless Embrace of Nature

Winter - Week 10 - On Soft Eyes, Sensory Immersion, and Remembering We Belong

In Her Nature is a year long exploration into the healing power of the natural world. Season by season, setting out to awaken the spirit, and rekindle joy. The weekly journal of a neighborhood, its plants and birds and creatures — and how they are helping repair a heart and rebirth a soul.

Waves crash against the shore, their foamy edges rushing up the beach before retreating in eternal rhythm. I watch as each surge traces a mesmerizing path across the sand, hypnotic and relentless... and my breathing slows. The ocean's roar fills the night air, vibrating deep within my chest, whilst winds carry the essence of the sea inland, caressing my skin with cool, briny fingers. The experience feels visceral, formidable, primal, and is -- one hundred percent manufactured.

This weekend, Pascal and I visited the Art Museum Las Vegas (trying to escape the madness of the Strip!), where their captivating digital installations caught us by surprise. It was a truly unique experience, walking through galleries of immersive digital art which transported us through environments inspired by nature. From thundering waterfalls to tranquil beaches and mysterious forests, each room was a masterful blend of cinematography, sound engineering, and sensory design. Even scents were carefully curated, creating compelling illusions that fooled our senses.

While there could never be a substitute for standing in actual wilderness, the experience made me reflect deeply on why nature itself creates such powerful impressions on us. Unlike the gallery rooms, nature's immersion operates without boundaries or frames. It doesn't just display itself before us, it surrounds us completely, extending beyond peripheral vision in every direction. The wind doesn't stop at an invisible barrier; bird songs don't cut off where our attention ends; textures shift beneath our feet with each step, from soft moss to rough stone to yielding soil. It captives all our senses at the same time.

This boundless quality creates a sense of being enveloped rather than merely observing. Nature demands nothing yet offers everything. Requiring only our quiet presence and attention to unlock its gifts. Then we too become part of an ancient, ongoing story of rhythms and patterns that has unfolded across millennia.

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. … I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.” – Anne Frank

The following day, we found ourselves on the trails of Red Rock Canyon National Conservation, where the desert's embrace offered its own profound immersion. Here among the towering sandstone formations studded with iron-oxide, nature revealed herself in subtle revelations. The whisper of wind through sparse juniper branches, the distant call of a red-tailed hawk, the satisfying crunch of rock beneath my feet. The rust-colored landscape told stories of time's patient artistry, layers of sediment compressed and lifted over eons. And, as the afternoon sun casts long shadows across the canyon walls, highlighting textures impossible to describe and replicate, I felt that rare and genuine connection. Of becoming not just an observer, but part of this ancient desert land.

Immersion doesn't always announce itself dramatically. Nature's most profound offerings often arrive as quiet revelations. Truly sensing the natural world beckons a deliberate quieting of the mind and a pausing of our feet. It's a practice of gentle unwinding, of physically decelerating until our pace matches the ancient rhythm of the landscape. Only then can we truly listen, feel, and ground ourselves upon the earth.

Then with soft eyes our awareness can move beyond the visual. Feeling the sun-warmed stone against palms, smelling the subtle scents of desert sage after morning dew, and tasting the mineral-rich air. In prayer these sensory dimensions reveal themselves not as separate channels but as a unified field of experience that has always been present, waiting just beyond our notice.

Perhaps the most valuable discovery is that immersion in nature isn't something we achieve, but something we remember. A return to a more complete way of experiencing the world that we've often forgotten how to access. This remembering runs deeper than conscious thought, awakening something primal within us. A cellular recognition that we are not separate from the natural world but intrinsically part of it.

When we allow ourselves to sink into this awareness, the artificial boundaries between "self" and "environment" begin to blur. The same elements that compose the earth beneath our feet and the trees stretching toward the sky also flow through our own bodies. The oxygen released by plants becomes our breath; the water that carved canyons also courses through our veins.

This remembering is both ancient and immediate. Our ancestors lived in constant dialogue with landscapes, reading weather patterns in the clouds, following the rhythms of water and soil, and navigating by the stars. And though these skills are no longer necessary, the underlying capacity for a healing sacred connection to the earth remains within us. Like a seed waiting for the right conditions to come alive.

In these moments of reconnection, time shifts, expanding beyond the typical structure our days into something more fluid, responsive, eternal. We become the rhythm that has always been present. The gradual arc of sunlight across canyon walls, the subtle shift in bird calls as afternoon eases toward evening, the way temperature changes alter the desert's scent.

What we're remembering, ultimately, isn't a skill but a birthright. Our fundamental belonging to the world and its belonging to us.

Being in nature immerses us in something greater than ourselves, a living, breathing celebration of life itself. It simultaneously reveals our smallness and temporary existence while offering the profound comfort of belonging to something vast and enduring. It's here where we find ourselves both humbled and exalted, diminished yet somehow complete.

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Your Weekly Nature Rx:

PRESCRIPTION FOR: Full Sensory Immersion in Nature's Boundless Experience

DOSE: Regular practice, especially when feeling digitally overwhelmed

DIRECTIONS:

• Step beyond frames and boundaries into environments that surround you completely

• Deliberately quiet your mind and slow your physical movements

• Activate all senses simultaneously—feel textures beneath your feet, listen to sounds that don't end at attention's edge, breathe in the changing scents of the landscape

• Practice "soft eyes" to extend awareness beyond the visual

• Allow the wind to touch your skin, the earth to support your weight, and hear nature’s sounds

• Let your pace decelerate until it matches the ancient rhythm of the landscape

REFILLS: Unlimited

SIDE EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE: Heightened sensory awareness, dissolution of the boundary between observer and participant, unified field of experience, remembering rather than learning, profound connection to something larger than yourself

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS: For maximum benefit, remove digital distractions entirely. Remember that nature's most profound offerings arrive as quiet revelations rather than dramatic announcements, requiring patient, receptive attention.

—> What moments of natural wonder caught your attention this week? Please share your stories and photos in the comments below. Let's experience nature's gifts together.

As always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me.

Love,

Jane