Originally posted in German on 9th May 2024
by Heinz Grill
After a successful hike in the mountains or around a lake, people almost always feel refreshed and reenergised. While stressful work situations, with their many intellectual exertions, exhaust the nervous system and the autonomic system, the quiet tread of the steps on an alpine pasture and the natural, airy, enveloping atmosphere at the height of the mountains provide a feeling of being taken in and of relaxed protection. The breath can free itself from some compulsive fixations and takes on an intuitive, soft rhythm, especially with a longer walk. Above all, longer periods in nature combined with physical activity lead the human mind back to a feeling of integrity. When the feeling of being integrated arises with a perceptive sensory experience, new life forces flow to the body.
However, the problem of today’s existence lies particularly in the fact that those who feel exhausted or experience themselves in a great deal of fear or unrest, are unable to develop any real awareness or liberating sense of connectedness. People today are trapped in varying depressions, fears and stressful situations with all manner of conflicts and with this their consciousness is as if fixed to the body. The thoughts revolve around problems and determine the tone of the feelings. When individuals go out into nature with these fixed forms of stress, they are less likely to breathe in the scent of nature and are less aware of the chirping of the birds but remain caught up in their own draining cycle of fears and mental fixations. The psyche is as if occupied and does not really allow the waiting sensations of the natural environment to flow in through the senses.
Those who find themselves in this situation, must undertake a somewhat longer mountain tour or hike so that they can shake off the foreign powers of intellectual suggestion and through perseverance find a rhythm with a relationship. To what heights must one climb, before the consciousness, with all its fixations, loosens itself a little more from the body and allows in a freer breath? Or how often must one walk round a lake before enough distance has been gained from the everyday worries? Nature carries a healing mood within it and now, however, the art is that the human awareness does not remain wrapped up in worries but actually gently finds its way to the moods of the thriving sprouting of nature. This activity can be consciously learnt and it leads to a better integrity with the own inner bodily forces and the relationship to the many forms, colours and phenomena that the senses offer.
The first step would probably be for the individual to make a specific resolution not to flee from everyday life into nature, which would be a situation that seems very polar, but set themselves some aims for a hike or walk in nature. In an exhausted state, these resolutions are known not to be easy to fulfil, as those concerned only want to find peace and quiet and obtain compensation away from the stressful situations of the everyday. However, it is usually not so beneficial if these thoughts of escape are the sole motivation for a hike. Which or what resolutions can be undertaken for a few minutes to improve the taking up of relationship?
For example, one might decide to direct attention to specific forms of a mountain or to study the lay of a path as it snakes its way through a forest or winds its way up a mountain slope. There are many ways to approach the observation of nature. Today the trees can be perceived with a little less green and in a few days’ time this green will develop further into fullness and allow further impressions to work back onto the human mind. Consciously chosen observations should always be a part of a walk or a mountain hike, as they increase the ability of the consciousness to detach itself from worries and tensions. For example, follow the outline of a hill in the landscape for two to three minutes, consciously perceive the contours and observe the different plays of light so that the images imprint themselves back into the memory. After some time, the steered stream of senses creates a sensitive joy and for moments phases of regeneration appear. Although consciously chosen and undertaken observations with the senses and guiding the senses constitutes an effort, nevertheless, even after a few minutes, it opens up a more pleasant phase of experience with a restorative character.
For this reason, it is not quite correct to say that nature is inherently healing and provides a pleasant relaxation, but rather a consciously perceiving and participating relationship, in which concrete thoughts are formed, opens up a situation fuller of relationship and the healing currents of nature can penetrate into people better. The activity of making conscious resolutions to steer the senses and carefully choose some observations, can provide a more subtle relaxation in the human nervous system and in general strengthen the life forces.
