Slow down to enjoy Nature's sacred healing

In "Nature’s wonders still abound" published in The Sun Chronicle, Betsy Shea-Taylor writes about the soothing balm Nature offers us in these troubled times. She echoes Wordsworth’s lament about our inability to appreciate our surroundings, while quoting Thomas Moore about Nature’s sacredness. Shea-Taylor recounts,

"Tales last week were larded with despair and terror, anger and recrimination: Injured. Busted. Insulted. Doomed. Fails. Upset. Liar. Murdered. Abused. Slump. Urgent. Violence. Recession. Depression. Predicament. Embattled. Crash. Bailout. Flames. Bankruptcy. Trouble. Guilty. Fury.

Ripped from the headlines. Egad, no wonder so many of us feel bad so much of the time. Let's not let ourselves be snookered; this is not all there is.

Forever and ever, poets and philosophers have tried to make sense of what often appears to be our dogged obeisance to all that is wretched, to all that is rushed, to the exclusion of just being. Perhaps it's because to slow down is to be forced to examine that uncharted internal territory of morality, memory, dreams, tenderness, love, timidity, loss and truth.

Thomas Moore in his book, Care of the Soul, intimates this: "We will have to expose ourselves to beauty, risking the irrationality it stirs up and the interference it can place in the way of our march toward technological progress," Moore writes. "We may have to give up many projects that seem important to modern life, in the name of sacred nature and the need for beautiful things. And we may have to do these things both communally and individually, as part of our effort finally to care for the soul."

Shea-Taylor describes Nature’s wonders as we move through winter into spring.