Summer, a season in the year that brings thoughts of vacation, time at the beach, camp, long days, summer produce, freshly picked fruits and vegetables. Our souls have summer songs to sing, our souls have places to bring us how can we listen, and how can we sing?

We humans are built to spend time in nature, our culture brings us indoors spending time sitting in front of computers, video games, TV and working in offices, buildings with artificial weather.

The Gift of Nature

Bring yourself, your children, and friends, their children to the beach, the woods, or parks in nature and gift yourself with the gift of nature. Gift nature with the gift of you, your gratitude, your presence.  Find a tree, a rock, something in nature that calls to your heart, to your soul. Sit near it, put your back to it, touch it in some way. Close your eyes, breath slowly into your belly concentrating on what you experience connected to this creature of nature. Remember I have shared a shamanic world view acknowledges all that is alive has a spirit.  Allow your essence to connect with the essence of nature, pay attention with all your senses, visual, auditory, olfactory sensation, touch what is it you sense, what do you experience, what emotions are invoked, what do you intuit?  Allow yourself to be in alignment with nature. Allow yourself to be in harmony and to experience the oneness of all. From this place expand your awareness to the weather that is present around you. Breathing deeply and gently notice and align yourself with the sun, the breeze, the stillness, the rain. Deepen your understanding of the aliveness of all there is into developing a relationship. Find time to be in nature during the nights also, there is so much out there that would respond to our attention.

The Gift of Relationships

When you develop a relationship with a person you acknowledge where you have connection, what you have in common. You can do the same with the elements of nature. Notice with all your senses how a tree responds to the breeze, notice how a rock responds to heat or cold.  Relationships help us to look at ourselves, how to be in gratitude, how to expand ourselves. When you allow yourself to deepen your relationship with the natural world you will find yourself with a deep sense of gratitude. To be harmony with nature we gain internal peace, we understand more about who we are. There is a Celtic saying “as within so without”.  The natural world reflects to us and we reflect back.

Our souls are nourished, we can sing songs of harmony, joy and gratitude on these long summer days, where breezes caress us and nature blooms in our delight.

May you and those you hold dear experience the gift of nature; may you be blessed with souls that sing, hearts filled with peace and are wrapped in the light of love.

Dance your journeys; dance your dreams