Music ingathers all, yet takes one only
into its secret when the chimes begin.
When that great rain of sound comes down,
the lonely of spirit is elect and enters in.
One evening shines with bells; alone, apart we listen, awed,
to the antiphonal pealing of our hearts.
Music by right is for the solitaries
whom a long silence trains to the profound.
The bells are ours; we come at the first airy
rumor to drench our deserts with their sound.
Yet anyone who listens may become
hermit or anchorite under the shower
when the great chimes -- tree shakes its leaves of light.
~ "The Evening Chimes" from Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers
A walk in nature can help bring about one of the most essential acts a human being can perform: the stilling of the mind. For when the cacophony of disturbances, reactions, and self-talk subsides, like a windswept sea suddenly finding calm, the lens of our lives becomes a still, pure crystalline window for the cosmos to experience itself through... A walk in the natural world, with conscious mindfulness, can help bathe the senses in the implicate ordering of existence. Such a direct and immediate reminder does much to help steer us back to the center of ourselves.
