The Beauty of Nature is The Wisest Balm

I’m clearly into a massive John O’Donohue run this past year, so I made a video, a calm paddle, at one of my favourite places, the Morell river. It’s a non-talking, non-jarring (mostly!) sojourn of my movement with nature. When we take our time in a kayak, or canoe, we truly move and align and are received by nature. We should move gracefully, connecting and not jarring the emerging goslings and other Spring arrivals.

There was no more fitting a poem than the late great poet/philosopher/Celtic mystic John o’Donohue’s “The Beauty of Nature is The Wisest Balm” to accompany my visit.

Nature is healing, yes. Your grandmother was right, “Go for a walk in the woods!” John O’Donohue had much to say about nature and landscapes, both inner and outer. I’d absolutely invite you to his videos on Youtube, poems, and books. One of my favourite is Anam Cara, which is Gaelic for “Soul Friend.”

The beauty of nature is the wisest balm ~ John O’Donohue

When the mind is festering with trouble or the heart torn, we can find healing among the silence of mountains or fields, or listen to the simple, steadying rhythm of waves.

The slowness and stillness gradually takes us over. Our breathing deepens and our hearts calm and our hungers relent.

When serenity is restored, new perspectives open to us and difficulty can begin to seem like an invitation to new growth.

This invitation to friendship with nature does of course entail a willingness to be alone out there. Yet this aloneness is anything but lonely.

Solitude gradually clarifies the heart until a true tranquility is reached.

The irony is that at the heart of that aloneness you feel intimately connected with the world. Indeed, the beauty of nature is often the wisest balm for it gently relieves and releases the caged mind.

John O’Donohue, Irish poet and philosopher
Excerpt from BEAUTY: THE INVISIBLE EMBRACE (US) / DIVINE BEAUTY (Europe)
www.johnodonohue.com