On the Threshold of Aliveness: Finding Mindful Moments in Nature
Every time I lead a mindful outdoor experience with a group, I always stop and pause at that place where the orchard meets the trail into the forest. Here is a threshold, a doorway, a place of transition from one environment into another. Most of the time in our lives, we blow right through such places without a thought or a pause, as we do when we are hiking or out for fresh air. AirPods in our ears, a podcast pumping words into our brains, our conversation in full swing—we plow into the woods without regard for the potential for a ceremony to be taking place, without an awareness that there are ancient beings underfoot and overhead.
Off the trail as well, our front door marks that transition from the world of work, strangers, and exposure to the realm of warmth, shelter, and family that awaits us on the other side of that door. The threshold that marks the coming of age as children become adults is a transition phase without much clarity in the modern world—fuzzy, blurry, undefined.
There is, perhaps, a lack of specificity in all of this, an overgeneralizing. Tom Waits once said that “a song needs an address,” and a person needs one too. A specific mountain, a well-worn and beloved trail where the trees have names, and the whole living landscape is imbued with memory.
How do we step through those trees into this otherworld?
Marking a threshold while on a walk is a way to reclaim the art of ceremony, to make a habit of pausing, slowing the caffeine-fueled, grinding march of our lives for just a few moments. Let me remove the earbuds that connect me to the world wide web, and let me open my senses to the mysterious and oh-so-real wood-wide web that surrounds and penetrates me as I breathe. The rattle of quaking beech leaves, the distant call of the crow, the frenetic scurry of the grey squirrel, and the rattle of chains and the rumble of a truck going down the bumpy road.
What might I willingly lay down on this ground right now so that I might be a little more open to what the Holy Spirit of this place may have to share with me today? Might I just stand here for a few moments and breathe? This is a good place and a good time to begin that process of slowing down. Slowing my breath, slowing my thoughts, slowing my footsteps.
The internet gives us a hall of mirrors, a maze of reflections, a confusing, overwhelming fire hose of information. It’s so, so wide, but it’s all so shallow. A tall, tall tree with very shallow roots. Tall trees need deep roots. We grow roots, we deepen, when we commit to a place and become intimate with it. When we stay put and allow ourselves to be seen, by fellow human, and fellow tree. We deepen. When we unplug from all of that “human world” stuff and plug into all of that “more-than-human world stuff,” we encounter life. The world is very much alive. It may feel deadened to us sometimes, but that may just be because we are dwelling in dead spaces. When we immerse ourselves in the living world, that aliveness we feel on the land, it starts to stir that sleeping aliveness inside of us.
So, on your next hike or mindful stroll, take those AirPods out and pause when you come to a threshold. It might be a trailhead, a path between two trees, or a boulder with an ancient presence. Streams are also wonderful thresholds. Crossing a little bridge over water is a powerful symbol and threshold. Give yourself a few moments to breathe deeply and listen to the sounds. Notice if you can release an old story or a worry that keeps tumbling around in your mind. Offer it up to the land and let yourself be touched by the air, the light, the spirit of that place for a little while. Just walk with no destination in mind and see what happens. This could be a life-changing practice for you.
Micah Mortali is lead Kripalu faculty, the Founder of the Kripalu School of Mindful Outdoor Leadership and author of Rewilding.
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