A Blast Of Fresh Air & Fun
Goes A Long Way
Greetings Reader!
In some parts of the U.S. you’ve had an abrupt and sustained winter wonderland experience the past couple weeks. For others of us, winter never quite settled in, in terms of snowpack.
So this week’s reflection and practice—our last exploration of how to bend time in this series–please interpret and re-calibrate as suits your particular nature environs! I’d love to hear the variations you come up with for this week’s invitation.
Cheers,
Jennifer
Founder, Ordinary Nature
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Weekly Reflection 👟🌲💨
- Weekly Practice 🌬☀️
- Little Tender Things 🍃
WEEKLY REFLECTION
Air Blast & Soul/Time Clearing
Jennifer Ruth Keller
“On your marks, get set, go!!!” my daughter yells out. We each take off over beige-green grass from our starting point by a sapling peach tree.
I’m slower off the mark than my seven-year-old daughter. My fifty-three-year-old body instantly feels the muscle tightness that hampers any prior sprightliness. She zooms ahead, below the pines. I pump my arms as though it will make a difference, will help me catch up.
Our track across the grass is about 50 yards long. A few times a week we come out at dusk to race under the pines, try to defy the morass of overcast sky that’s been nearly ever-present since December due to an especially stubborn inversion layer in the Columbia Basin.
I use the sprints—which we repeat until we can’t run anymore—as an easy form of exercise. She frolics through them, with the play agility of the young, who have not yet been domesticated out of their capacity to make almost anything a game.
Halfway through the race, arms pumping, legs working but unable to catch up with her, I heave in and out, draw air into my body and push it back to the pines. I see her reach the end, our destination a row of tufted bluegrass I randomly planted five years ago in a side garden, thinking it was a good idea.
She relishes her victory, does a little dance as she looks back at me still laboring across the last bit of grass. Her delight in being the fastest doesn’t fade or get old, no matter how many times we run the short course.
Once I reach the endpoint, panting yet invigorated, we decide what the next version of the sprint will be: “Let’s do the race where one of our arms acts like an axe cutting,” she suggests, a version we’ve done in the past, me still clueless about where the heck the idea comes from.
“Ok,” I agree, happy to be in the role of sidekick, relinquishing any decision-making to her so I can just focus on the run, the breath, and the uneven ground beneath my old-sneakered feet.
A dozen or so variations later, with the pines all around, my body has been blasted clean of the day, of too much time indoors sitting, thinking, computering. The pulse of blood within lets me know I’m alive, and well, and lucky.
Our shared competitive squeals and antics let me know I’m not alone.
The overarching branches of the pines, who have born witness to everything in our lives together, let me know there’s an order we’re part of, and it is good.
WEEKLY PRACTICE INVITATION
Note: Please adapt as needed depending on the temps and snow/ice presence you may be experiencing!
The what: How might you move air through your body outdoors, vigorously? Or playfully? Or in a sustained pattern of deep inhales and exhales?
Explore and enjoy that for ~10 minutes.
Tip: Doesn’t have to be “hard” or like “exercise.” Even though I pressed my body in the reflection example above, the main reason the “blast of freshness” arrived was because I just moved my body differently in the company of trees and a small playful human. Play and explore with what that might look like and feel like for you, in your particular context. It’s the change-up of routine, in concert with other beings and air, that matters.
Let me know how your experiment goes!
LITTLE TENDER THINGS
Ah! Ripe light bud,
stretching to the sun,
we see you amidst the
brittle thorns,
daring to pop out
and live
and grow.
Have a “little tender thing” you’d like to submit and share?
Let me know!
