Tag: seasons

The Complex Simplicity of Nature

“Find those snippets of your day where you can cultivate simplicity”

Jessica Carey at Girraween

This is the transcript from Season 2, Episode 6 of the Outdoors is my Therapy Podcast with my friend Jessica Carey.

The Complex Simplicity of Nature

Kathryn: Hello and welcome back to The Outdoors is My Therapy podcast. I’m your host, Kathryn Walton. This is series two and in each episode you’ll get to meet one of my friends who’ll share what inspires them about the outdoors. Each episode is just a few minutes long, like a little snack of information and inspiration that feeds your mind and your heart and reconnects you with the therapeutic benefits of the outdoor world.

As humans living in the modern age, we are pretty used to being surrounded by buildings with roofs to shelter us from all weather – sun, rain, snow, hail, whatever. The walls of our buildings protect us from the wind, and I guess we’ve kind of learned to feel safe when we’re inside. We snuggle up into our cozy beds at nighttime, often with the windows closed to the natural world outside and having climate controlled conditions inside.

We have heating and cooling, lots of straight, smooth edges, evenly textured surfaces, and we’re surrounded by fabricated comforts and equipment. For many of us, we leave our homes in the morning and jump straight into a car or a train or a bus, and we aim to get the closest park possible or get off at the closest station possible to our school or our work.

So really, we separate ourselves from the very environment that both challenges and sustains us, and that has done so throughout human history. Without a doubt we’ve made incredible advances in technology that aid survival of the individual and survival of our whole human species. But in doing so, we also risk separating ourselves from those aspects of nature that support and nurture our very being.

The industrial age has gifted us with countless benefits, yet we’ve made many sacrifices as well. The human body, the human brain, and nervous system adapted to live in the natural world over tens or even hundreds of thousands of years.

Over the past 200 years, we’ve radically changed our living environment, but our bodies and brains need much longer than that to adapt to the changes that we’ve created in our surroundings.

Now, the natural environment, it’s not all about the tranquility, the peace, and the quiet. There’s much more to it than that. It’s also about the challenges, the risks, and the opportunities to stretch our skills and abilities, and our knowledge and understanding of the complexities of the systems in nature.

It’s also about our ability to tap into the simplicity of nature when we need it. The complex simplicity of nature. It may be an oxymoron, but as you’ll hear from today’s guest, it’s a reflection of human nature as well, and you too can find snippets of your day where you can connect with the complex simplicity of nature.

Jessica Carey is an all round inspiring soul with an infectious smile and laugh. She’s a deep thinker and a passionate nature lover. Jessica was one of our Outdoors is my Therapy Ambassadors when we first launched the initiative back in 2020, and you may have already heard her in Episode 30, Navigating Off Track, when we went a little bit cross country on a bushwalk together.

Jessica has also been a guest on my other podcast Speak Out Loud, Season 2, Episode 12, where she talked about movement and mindset, and particularly about the seasons and the cycles in nature, and how you can build your resilience to manage change. There’s a link to these episodes in the show notes, and I’m sure you’ll love to have a listen in to both of them.

But for now, meet my friend Jessica.

Welcome back to the podcast, Jessica.

Jessica: Thank you, Kathryn. It’s great to be here.

Kathryn: Jessica, what inspires you about nature?

Jessica: Well, that’s quite a loaded question, but what inspires me? Well, for me, nature is where we come from. So on a really big scale, it’s like when you turn and look at the trees or the sky, the grass, laying in the grass, the creek that we are beautifully sitting beside today, or whether it’s a beach or a mountaintop, it, um, I believe it reminds us where we come from and who we are. Uh, it may sound simple, but nature can be complicated and it can come with force or it can be, in a flow state, but it’s complex simplicity. And I think that’s a bit like human nature.

Kathryn: And that reminds me of, you know, some of those really hectic, chaotic days when things just seem really chaotic. How nice it is to just go outside and be with the simplicity of nature.

Jessica: Absolutely. And I think if you can find those snippets of your day where you can cultivate simplicity, and if that’s through watching a sunset or finding a mountain top, or putting your feet in the earth to ground, I think, they’re the moments we can cultivate to support chaos so we can become a more whole human.

Kathryn: Jessica, do you have a favourite space in the outdoors?

Jessica: Oh, a favourite one that’s pretty difficult. Uh, I like many spaces for many different reasons. For me, it depends on how I feel or if I need to let go or what I want to experience, but, mountains are my calling. I, I really appreciate valleys and wide open spaces. If I want to go to the top of a mountain, it’s about the journey there. But the top is, um, the pinnacle of being able to see things from a higher perspective, but then sometimes I let go in the ocean and being able to let go and cleanse and support myself in that. And I’m really wanting to go to the desert, to the red earth this year that’s been calling me at the moment, so I’m not sure what that’s gonna cultivate. But yeah, I believe there’s a different season and cycle that nature supports us in, in all aspects of our life.

Kathryn: Thanks for tuning into The Outdoors is My Therapy podcast. We hope you feel inspired to connect with the outdoors no matter how big or small your adventures might be. If you’re looking for more inspiration or you’d like to connect with others in the outdoors is my therapy community. Check the show notes for all the links.

You can listen to the episode “The Complex Simplicity of Nature” here:

You can listen to Jessica in Episode 30 “Navigating Off Track” here:

You can listen to “Movement and Mindset with Jessica Carey” in Season 2, Episode 12 of the Speak Out Loud podcast here.

LINKS

Contact Kathryn via her website

Grab your free Guide to a Perfect Nature Escape Day when you subscribe to the Grounded Inspiration newsletter (limited time)

“Your Personal Day of Retreat: A guide to planning self-care and stress management that really works” e-book

Contact Jessica Carey

“Movement and Mindset with Jessica Carey” – Transcript from the podcast “Speak Out Loud: Stories of Strength from the Southern Downs” Season 2: Episode 12 (Published 4th April 2022)

Join the Outdoors is my Therapy Facebook Group

Music by Twisterium from Pixabay

Seasons in Life

In the same way that there are seasons in nature, so too there are seasons in life as a human living on Earth today. As I write this blog post, we’re in between climatic seasons. The days are still warm but not as hot as they were a few weeks ago. Some of the nights have a distinct chill in the air so there are whispers that winter is on its way.

seasons in life - autumn leavesThe season of autumn is on its way!

As I was walking last week I passed a tree which had some leaves that had begun yellow. This sign never fails to trigger a sense of joy and anticipation for me. Until I was in my mid to late twenties and had two young children, I’d always lived in temperate coastal regions. Sure, I’d travelled the country a bit, but had never lived anywhere that experienced all four seasons.

From two seasons to four!

When I moved from Brisbane to the Southern Downs region in southern Queensland on the lands of the Gidhabal people, it was mid winter. There was a thick layer of frost on the ground each morning, sometimes till mid-morning and it was such a thrill to see it and feel it underfoot. I’d never seen thick frost before and this white coating on the ground and the cars and the windows was completely foreign to me. When I looked up close I could see the intricate patterns that combined together to form the frosty coating that gave everything an icy cold look. I simply loved it!

My first autumn was equally as exciting as my senses were captivated by the colours and textures of the leaves changing from green to yellow, red, orange and brown. And then slowly the leaves fell away, covering the ground with a striking layer of shapes that scrunched and crunched underfoot. One of my favourite autumn experiences still is to drive down one of the wide suburban streets in my town as the cold southerly wind funnels along the road, picking up the leaves that are delicately hanging onto the trees, and billowing them up into the air, swirling and whirling in a topsy turvy whirlwind until they slowly settle down onto the road and footpath, then scuttling along in waves as the south wind continues to breathe the first of winter.

All these sights, sounds, smells, textures and movements come back to me every autumn, so you can imagine how my body responded last week when I saw the very first signs of some leaves changing colour.

As my heart beat with excitement, I amused myself thinking about how here in Australia we call the coming season autumn, but in many other countries it’s known as fall. In my childhood I really didn’t ‘get’ it. After all, I wasn’t familiar with the leaf fall at the end of summer.

We all have internal seasons

Last week as I walked, I made a connection in my mind which resonated very strongly with me. We all have seasons in life, just as the climate has seasons.

Recently I’ve been working at letting go of some aspects of my life that I no longer need – projects that have completed, services that are no longer part of my core business, belongings that are unnecessarily taking up space. I’ve been in the season of autumn (or fall) and it feels so much lighter! Allowing things to fall away and making a conscious effort to seek out things I can declutter will give me more time and space to hunker down, conserve energy and focus on what matters most at this time in my life.

In the same way that you can’t really see what’s happening below ground or under the bark of the tree once it’s shed its leaves, I too am working away on projects that may not be obvious to anyone else but me. I know that this behind-the-scenes work is invisible but it’s vital. As I come out of my autumn and winter seasons and move into my season of spring, you’ll finally be able to see the new growth, the fruits I’m creating at the moment.

What season in life are you in?

Seasons are a normal and natural part of the outdoors life no matter where you live – whether you have the four seasons of summer, autumn, winter and spring, or perhaps the wet and dry seasons of the tropical regions, or perhaps you have the light and dark seasons if you live closer to the poles.

I wonder, what season are you living in right now? I mean, literally, what climatic season are you in ………..…..

………. and what season in life you are in?

Nature reminds us that seasons in life come and go

Literally or metaphorically, we all experience seasons in life, and connecting with nature all year round is a good reminder that seasons come and go and they each have a purpose. Where there’s an ending or a completion, there’s also a beginning, a renewal. And that means there’s always the opportunity for hope.

connect with nature - connect to self

Send me an email: I’d love to hear your thoughts about seasons in nature and which season in life you’re in right now. I always love to hear from my readers and podcast listeners!

Listen to the audio version of this post in the Outdoors is my Therapy Podcast Episode 26!

Daisy Spoke logoDiscovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections that inform, inspire and empower women to a healthy and active lifestyle.