HEARTBEAT OF THE WILD

“Keep close to nature’s heart and break clear away, once in a while, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”-John Muir

How many days have you spent this year inside working? What about the amount of time you spend maintaining your home, apartment or place of living? What about your family? Whether large or small there are constant obligations within that dynamic that consume time and energy. After these things take their allotment you are left with very little time for recovery, recreation, and personal time. When there are so few minutes daily it makes it tough to find opportunities to get outdoors. Yes, I said the outdoors. Creation didn’t include computers and cubicles, spread sheets and word documents, appointments, and interviews, but rather grass and trees, rocks and mountains, rivers and oceans. Things of natural beauty that inspire life and joy and passion in its beholders. The life, blood, and even heartbeat that brings us back to the beginning.

I’ve not experienced a summer “break” since I turned 13, back in 2001. Due to my primary choice of career I work a rigorous 8-month season, beginning in February, ending in October if all goes well. Sounds like a strange time frame but that is what the MLB has adopted to be the period each year where 30 teams battle it out for the ever-glorious World Series Championship. Yes, I have played baseball for quite some time now and due to some minor physical ailments, I’ve been sidelined this past year. Sounds like a rather unfortunate year, doesn’t it? I think not. See, we must make time to get away from our constant grind of life to reset. Get our heartbeat back in rhythm with that of nature. I was forced to separate but you have the choice.

How many times have you heard someone come back from a vacation and can’t stop saying, “you should’ve seen _______, or you would never believe how beautiful _______ was,”? I spend most years hearing these very statements from family and friends after they return from trips. Doesn’t it make you want to up and leave and go see for yourself? Perhaps take a 1-year hiatus from work just to see what everyone else is always talking about? Just think about those couple questions. How often do those run through your head, only to be dismissed by the next email or project assignment?

There will always be another thing to pull your attention from the outdoors. That I do understand, but there is something that is essential to reconnecting to the outdoors. Just like the need for food in our bellies and blood in our veins, the outdoors is a lifeline that is of great necessity to our well-being. I cannot begin to embody the feeling you receive the moment you look out over a mountain peak down into a valley full of tall green grass and a beautiful river. These are images that you must get out and experience for yourself. I can assure it is a boost of life to you and your well-being.

So, whether it’s making time to walk the local park in the morning and catch a sunrise, or setting out to summit the tallest peaks in the world, there is life waiting around every corner in nature. Hear its voice, answer the call and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Who knows you may up and quit your day job to chase the next great adventure!

Love the outdoors. Love people. Live generously.

–The Traveling Rooster

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