Forest Bathing

Cloud Mountain Retreat Center is located in the coastal range of Washington state, about an hour north of Portland, Oregon.  The meditation hall is nestled on a wooded hillside of Western red cedar, Douglas fir, and Western hemlock. The evergreens of this Evergreen State are tall. Really, really tall.

Walking in the silence beneath the giant trees, I am surrounded by three-foot tall ferns, Oregon grape, moss on the ground, and more moss hanging from the trees. I smell the forest floor. In splotches, I feel hot sun. I am not carrying a camera. My inner naturalist delights at the sight of spiderwebs glistening in a ray of sunlight. A deer ambles across my path and stops and looks at me.

I feel calm. My mind is quieter than usual.

I’m forest bathing.

Perfect

I'm in Portland, Oregon, visiting friends. Every morning, Mary Beth walks her dogs in her neighborhood. One home has a perfect front lawn with flowerbeds of orange marigolds and red begonias and accents of blue lobelia and blue salvia. Spectacular!

My friend says the flowerbeds have the same design every year. It obviously works.

Some people strive for perfect flower beds or perfect bodies or perfect clothes. "Perfect" comes and goes, just like everything else in this material world.

What if everything is perfect--just as it is? Tangled, cluttered, weedy. (I'm thinking of my vegetable garden, which is "weedy" with volunteer flowers.) This beautiful life we are living is just-so.

Perfect.

Blooming Late in the Season

Today i walked through the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden in Portland Oregon with a 91-year-old friend. It's November and rhododendrons are blooming.

I also saw snowdrops and cyclamen.  Throughout the day, i have seen nasturtium, dandelions, chickory, and herb robert. No matter the lateness of the season, some few flowers are beautifully in bloom.

So it is with us. Some of us are still blooming into our 90s. Our friends and relatives have faded and withered away. We alone have somehow survived to enjoy life. This life. Despite feeling rather alone and lonely.