Nature Meditations( How to Meditate in Nature)

These meditations are done outside in natural surroundings. They help to enliven the basic intelligence of nature in our awareness and physiology. Our being resonates with the sight of a flower, sound of birds, feeling of the breeze. These experiences wake something up inside of us, and help to set our lives into a more natural rhythm. Nature lovers have discovered this secret without ever studying meditation! In the nature meditations, we focus our awareness on the experience of nature — sight, sound, touch, smell (and perhaps even taste). As with every meditation on our website, when the mind wanders from the focus of the meditation, bring it gently back. There are several different ways that this meditation can be done. Experiment and find what works best for you. Basic Nature Meditation — Eyes Closed Find a comfortable position sitting or lying down. Begin with a few deep breaths, breathing deep into the belly, to help you relax and to bring you to the sensations of the present moment. Now close your eyes and be present to what is being experienced with your eyes closed. Notice how your body feels, as well as the activity of your mind and emotions. Experience whatever is present without resisting anything or trying to change it. Do this for about a minute. Now bring your awareness to everything that you can experience in your surroundings. Feel the temperature of the air on your skin, the feeling of the breeze and the sun. Notice the sounds around you — birds, bees, crickets, flowing water. Listen to the symphony of nature. For the rest of the meditation, continue to experience these feelings and sounds. Whenever your mind wanders, gently bring it back to the experience of nature. As you meditate, you can see where your attention is naturally drawn, or purposefully scan for different experiences. You can also focus on one experience and notice the experience in greater detail. If it is a bird’s song — notice the quality of the sound — as if you are going more deeply into the sound. (It may seem to have a shape or texture.) Don’t analyze the sound and label it with your mind — simply notice the quality of it. Once again, whenever you notice that the mind has become absorbed in thoughts, easily bring it back to the sounds and sensations of being in nature. At times both awareness of the sensations from the environment and thoughts will be present. That’s fine. Just easily favor the experiences of nature. Listening Meditation — Variation of Basic Nature Meditation Begin as described in the Basic Nature Meditation, but focus on sound only. Let your awareness be with all the sounds in the environment, noticing them in great detail. You can also focus on one particular sound, such as that of flowing water. Continue to bring your attention back to that particular sound when your mind wanders. Nature Meditation — Eyes Open This meditation can be done while sitting, standing or walking. Time spent in nature can always be a form of meditation when we put our full attention on what is around us — the earth, trees, flowers, animals, fresh air, the breeze… To intensify this experience, allow yourself to experience the sights, sounds and smells without labeling them and becoming mentally involved with them. Notice the tendency of the mind to name and evaluate everything — “Oh, look at that beautiful bird. What kind is it? Is it here all winter or where does it go?” When these kinds of thoughts come up, let them go. Simply experience the colors, shape, sounds, movement of the bird or whatever else you are experiencing. Let it be an experience without meaning and without reference to any other experience. Experience everything with an open awareness, as if you’d never experienced anything like it before. As always, when the mind wanders and becomes caught up in thought, simply bring it back to the experience of nature.

The Girl Who Silenced The World For 5 Minutes

To The Brook

Crunching sound,leaves on ground
Cool fall breeze,Autumn sneeze.

Dragonfly low, mushrooms grow
Warm sunshine, porcupine.

Rock wall,apples fall
Old big pine,fishing line.

Cool air cough,deer bound off
Rippling brook,lost my hook.

Old bear track,heading back
Stubbed my toe,cawing crow.

Up the hill,old saw mill
Path to house,jumping mouse.

Jacket hung,fishing done
Trout in hand,frying pan...Dancingfire


Also want to introduce a new member of our family Dunkin.

Blackfoot Legend

For longer than anyone knows, INDIANS thru out the Americas have smoked tobacco and other plants for pleasure and for praying, as well as for medicinal purposes. The smoke was the Great Spirit's breath taking the prayers up to the Ones Above.With a pipe in hand, a man could speak nothing but truth.Sir Walter Raleigh learned the use of tobacco from the Indians.To the White man,smoking became an addiction;but to the Native American,pipe and tobacco were sacred, and smoking was a holy ritual. If a man had killed a member of his tribe,he was not allowed to smoke ritually with the others; but had to smoke a mean little pipe all by himself---hard punishment.....

There once were four brothers,all spiritual men who had power.In a vision the oldest of them heard a voice saying, "Out there is a sacred weed;pick it and burn it." The man looked around,saw the strange weed,and put it in the fire.It gave off a pleasing aroma.
Then the second brother had a dream in which a voice said;"Take this herb,chop it fine,put it into a hide bag."The man did as the dream had told, and the dried herb in his hide bag was wonderfully fragrant.
The third brother had a vision in which he saw a man hollowing out a bone and putting the strange weed into it.A voice said, "Make four pipes like this,"and the fourth brother carved four pipes out of an animal's leg bones.
Then the youngest of the brothers had a vision.A voice told him ;"You four men light your pipes and smoke. inhale the smoke, exhale it. Let the smoke ascend to the clouds." The voice also taught him the songs and prayers that went with smoking.
So the four medicine men, born of the same mother, smoked together.This was the first time that men had ever smoked,and they sang and prayed together as they did.
The brothers, who called the scared weed,"Nawak'osis",were meant to teach it's use to the people.But Nawak'osis made them powerful,and wise, and clear-minded,and they did not want to share it with the others.
They planted the scared weed in a secret place that only they knew of. They guarded the songs ,prayers, and rituals that went with smoking. They formed a Tobacco Society,just the four of them.
So there was anger, there was war, there was restlessness of spirit, there was impiety.Nawak'osis was meant to calm anger, to make men worship,to make peace,to ease the mind. But without the scared herb,unity and peace was lacking.
A young man called Bulls-by-Himself said to his wife;"These four powerful ones have been given something good to share with the people, but they are keeping it for themselves.So things are bad.I must find a way to plant and reap the scared weed they call, Nawak'osis."

Bulls-by-Himself and his wife went to a scared lake and set up their tipi close by its shore.The man left every day to hunt and look for the plant,Nawak'osis. The woman stayed in the lodge to quill,tan,and prepare food.
One day while she was alone,she heard somebody singing beautifully.She searched everywhere to find the source of the music and discovered that it was coming from a beaver house close by the shore."It must be the beavers singing,"she thought."Their songs are so lovely. I hope they don't stop."
Her husband came home with plenty of meat, but had not found Nawak'osis.The woman called his attention to the music, but he said,"I hear nothing, it's your imagination"."No,she said, I hear it clearly,put your ear to the beaver lodge". He did, but still heard nothing. Then the wife took her knife and made a hole in the beaver lodge.Thru it they could not only hear the beavers sing, but also watch them performing a strange, beautiful dance.
"My young brothers,"the wife called to them,"be of a sharing spirit,Teach me your wonderful song and medicine"The beavers answered,"Close up the hole you have made because it let's the cold in, then we will come out and visit with you."
So she sealed up the hole and that night four beavers came to Bulls-by-Himself's lodge.As soon as they were inside they turned themselves into humans.One asked," What have you come for?" "I have come to find the sacred weed called Nawak'osis,"said Bulls-by -Himself."Then this is the right place",said the man-beaver."We are water people, and Nawak'osis is water medicine."
We will give you this scared herb,but first you must learn the songs, prayers, and the dances and ceremonies that go with it.Here is what you must do.By day ,go out and get the skin of every four legged and two legged creature that lives in and around the water,expect, of course,beaver.You must get the skins of all creatures that represent water. Sun and water mean life,Sun begets life,and water makes it grow."
So everyday Bulls-by-Himself went out for the skins,while his wife scraped,tanned,and smoked them.And every night the four man-beavers came and taught them the prayers,songs,and dances that go with Nawak'osis.
After a while, the beavers said ,"Now all is ready.Now you have all the skins,and now you have all the knowledge.Make the skins, which represents water power, into a bag, into a medicine bundle.Tomorrow night we'll come again for the last time to tell you what to do."
The following night the beavers came as they had promised.They brought with them the sacred weed, Nawak'osis. The top of the stalks was covered with little round seeds, and the man-beavers put the seeds into the medicine bundle the woman had prepared.
"It's planting time now", said the beavers."Don't touch Nawak'osis before you're ready to plant. Choose a place where there is not too much shade and not too much sunlight. Mix plenty of brown earth with plenty of black earth, and keep the soil loose. Say the prayers we have taught you.Then you, Bulls-by-Himself, must take a deer horn and with the point, make holes in the earth, one hole for each seed.And you, his wife, must use a buffalo-horn spoon to drop one seed into each hole.Sing the songs we taught you all the while. Then both of you dance lighty over this earth,tamping down the seeds. After that, you just wait for Nawak'osis to grow.
"The young men left, turning back into beavers as they went.Bulls-by-himself and his wife planted the scared weed as they had been told.
The four medicine-brothers said to one another, "What can this man and his wife be planting?Their songs sound familiar"they sent a spy to find out and he came back and said,"They are planting the scared weed,and doing it in the scared manner." The four brothers began to laugh"No, it can not be, It's some useless weed,no one but us knows the medicine of Nawak'osis."

But when it was time to harvest,a great hailstorm destroyed the secret tobacco patch of the four brothers. Nothing was left, not even a single seed. The four brothers sent a spy to see if Bulls-by-Himself's patch had also been destroyed. The spy came back and said,"The man and his wife had no hail on their field,and this is what they are growing".He showed the brothers some of the leaves he had picked."It is indeed Nawak'osis",they said, and they shook their heads in wonder.
Thus with the help of the beaver people, Bulls-by-Himself and his wife,brought the scared tobacco to the tribes,who have been smoking it in the sacred manner every since.

Bear Star

Bear Star (Bear Clan)
by L.Cota Nupa Maka

In a time beyond time, I was with my mother Ursula. My walk was not of this land, but one of the stars in the multiverse. My mother took me through the Milky Way, the spirit of the sky world, she showed me where to gather the sweet fruit of the many galaxies. Life was good and we where happy, all was safe and at peace. We were many in those days and we held the sky as our world, the galaxy was our place to sleep and dream.

My mother one day said, "It is time for me to place you in your own land. In time you will be alone and I want you to always have your star to come home too." With this said she bit off a piece of the moon and threw it out into the limitless space of time. I watched as it spun off into the darkness and vanished. Next we traveled to the sun and again she bit off a large piece of this molten liquid and threw this out into space. I watched as the shining light of the sun flew into the darkness and united with the small piece of the moon. They spun around and around until they formed between them a round ball of blue and white. This small ball then flew off on its own dancing and spinning between them.

After a long time my mother took me to see this new blue ball that she had created called Ursula or home of the Bear Star.

It was a wonderful place full of water and trees of every kind like the ones we saw in the long lost galaxies that we traveled. There were many plants and animals and fishes. Birds of all colors and size filled the water and the air.

With her claws my mother dug great rivers and made mountains by pulling the soil this way and that until she was pleased with what she had done. In the side of one of the mountains she dug a deep hole into the heated center of the blue ball.

She went in and told me to follow her so I entered this hole in the blue ball and found it warm and comfortable.

There my mother made a bed for me of soft moss, and told me that I was to sleep for many years. She said that I would sleep here until I was awakened. She said my heart would be like the land it would beat and help this place to be strong. She said that one day I would know when it was time to wake up. At that time I would come out of my sleeping space to travel this land and the sky world again. My mother told me I would dream all that was, or ever would be, on this blue ball into being, and that in time there would come others to share this space.

So I lay down and slept the long sleep and dreamed the creation of this blue ball into being.

In time there came the great shaking of the land and the water became bad and the smell entered my sleeping place. The liquids of the land spilled over into my dreams and I became aware that the time had come for me to awake.

When I awoke there was devastation all around me and the beauty that was in my dreams was destroyed by these strange beings that had come to live on the land.

The sun had faded into a thick layer of white mist and the water was freezing into ice on the mountains and the lakes.

I again walked the land that my mother had created with her powers of the sky world and saw the destruction that had taken place in my time of sleeping.

I sat on the mountains and prayed to the sky world to send my mother back to help me find a way to return all of this beauty to the land. I asked the Creation of all things to grant me a vision to help the land my mother had given to me. For days I sat on the mountain and prayed as the thunder of war flashed in the sky over the deserts of the land. I went in my spirit time to these places where all was being burned and devastated. I saw vast forests on fire and deep ruts dug into the land. The water was unclean and the blood of the land was being dug from its heart and in time there was erosion and the water escaped its place of being. I watched the dream that I had dreamed being destroyed and again I prayed for Creator to help me find a way to restore all of the beauty to the land.

In time there came a great calm and quiet and the sky world opened up to show the sun and the moon. They stood in the sky together and I saw tears on the face of the Moon Mother. Father Sun's face was filled with pain, as together they stood watching their child as she too suffered.

I saw a light come from the Milky Way, the spirit path that I once had walked to other lands and planets. This light came like a white path, and touched the land near where I sat praying. The old ones were walking toward me on this spirit path and they entered the land of my mother. Their black coats were filled with stars and they held the wisdom of the universe in their dream time.

The silent stillness lay all around in the frozen land as the old ones sat in council and spoke to me. They handed me a pouch of sacred seeds and gave me instructions as to where and when to plant them. They placed it around my neck and told me to go and plant the seeds for the time had come to heal the land.

After some time had passed I left my place on the mountain and walked three times around the blue ball of this land. As I walked I planted the new medicine plants that would in time would heal the land of all the pain and suffering.

"From this time on the land will have peace," the Elders had said. "The Bear will return to share the ways of the medicine plants and healing. It will be for the Bear to show the new little ones who come the old ways of healing."

The time has come for the healing; the bear once again walks the land and the stars. Let us enter into our dream time and pray this Earth the one they called Ursula the "Old Bear Star" into a world of love and peace.

L.Cota Nupa Maka

NATURE...By Ralph Waldo Emerson

To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.


The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.


When we speak of nature in this manner, we have a distinct but most poetical sense in the mind. We mean the integrity of impression made by manifold natural objects. It is this which distinguishes the stick of timber of the wood-cutter, from the tree of the poet. The charming landscape which I saw this morning, is indubitably made up of some twenty or thirty farms. Miller owns this field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape. There is a property in the horizon which no man has but he whose eye can integrate all the parts, that is, the poet. This is the best part of these men's farms, yet to this their warranty-deeds give no title.

To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Nature says, -- he is my creature, and maugre all his impertinent griefs, he shall be glad with me. Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight. Nature is a setting that fits equally well a comic or a mourning piece. In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.

In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, -- no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, -- my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, -- all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, -- master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unacknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. The waving of the boughs in the storm, is new to me and old. It takes me by surprise, and yet is not unknown. Its effect is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right.


Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. It is necessary to use these pleasures with great temperance. For, nature is not always tricked in holiday attire, but the same scene which yesterday breathed perfume and glittered as for the frolic of the nymphs, is overspread with melancholy today. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit. To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it. Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend. The sky is less grand as it shuts down over less worth in the population.

R.I.P.Cuz...Love You...