Sunrises and sunsets. The tides. Seasons, each giving way to the next in an annual cycle. New bloom and growth, followed by a fade that feeds new growth the next year. Nature’s rhythms offer a continuous model of how we can live a well-regulated, well-paced life, connected to what matters, what endures, and to what keeps the door open to adventure, discovery, and joy.

In late summer 2022, I took a multi-day hike through Goat Rocks Wilderness in SE Washington State. I invite you to join me on this video journey. Perhaps you, too, can experience how unburdening nature can be for you, how much more clearly you see what matters most, and how nature, in its humble, unself-conscious way, serves as a guide to finding your way to a life path infused with meaning, adventure, and joy.

The trees sense when it is time to rest, to go dormant, and patiently await the arrival of spring. There is no striving to make the fall linger. There is no demand to wait, as though there was more to do before winter’s arrival. There was simply preparation, acceptance, and stillness. Waiting wordlessly for the arrival of spring. Can we learn something about patience, and stillness, and finding serenity in the peaceful passing of time?

So many people shy away from revealing their authentic selves. They hide behind false humility. They allow guilt or shame to obscure their true beauty.

These close-ups of the details of an amaryllis flower, by contrast, shows what it is like to step out of the shadows and into the full light of the uninhibited joy of being fully itself, as can you.

Nature's sights and sounds can be so soothing. Wind moving through the leaves of trees. The morning sunlight flitting through the tree's swaying branches. The fountain's moist spray being carried on the breeze. Nature's music can offer a wonderful respite from the pressures of the day; an opportunity to settle in and settle down; a time to feel refreshed before continuing with what lies ahead. Enjoy!

The saying, hope springs eternal, is from Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) poem, Essay on Man. The full poem communicates Pope’s view that while people are naturally uneasy, unsure, and uncertain, hope appears in the most unlikely of places, rising unexpectedly like a spring rising up from the earth in surprising locations. Great rivers often begin humbly as a modest spring, gurgling to the surface of the land, and beginning their flowing journey to the sea. Like the delicate maple blossoms captured above, my focus in this blog post offers a different view of the word spring. Living in Minnesota, our winter, the season where much of my world is frozen beneath a sparkling blanket of white, spring brings the great thaw. Ice becomes water. Solid gives way to flow. And out of this flow state emerge the signs of the blooming of new life - buds, shoots, and sprouts, in all shapes, sizes, and colors, each representing the blooming of new opportunities for the various expression of life’s possibilities.

Far too many of us forget to pace ourselves. We buy into our cultural myth that “time is money,” that anything other than a focus on constant productivity is “wasting time.” The result, accumulated over years and decades of our lives, are a host of stress-mediated illnesses, including sleep disturbances, chronic headaches, depression, high blood pressure, digestive distress, anxiety, and relationship conflicts, let alone a loss of joy in our day-to-day lives.

Is this the year we remember that sometimes, we get there faster and with greater health and joy, by going slow?

The moon, our nightly beacon, has long been associated with the passage of time, because of the steady and predictable sequence of phases it passes through each month. The moon has also symbolized eternity and perpetual renewal, because each complete cycle gives birth each month to a new moon, a cycle that has been unbroken since the dawn of time. As you watch and listen to this brief video, ask yourself: toward what am I transitioning? What am I releasing and to what is my life giving birth? What am I moving beyond and where and through what am I seeking renewal? Any time you find yourself wondering about what phase of life you find yourself in, look skyward in the night sky. Perhaps the moon's ethereal and gentle light can guide you to find a satisfying and inspiring answer.

Informal conversations with professional colleagues I’ve had for many years appear to agree: for most of the clients we’ve seen, their pasts are believed to over-determine their futures. In other words, most clients - and people, in general - tend to believe that the best predictor of their future lives involves what has happened to them in their past. I was neglected, so I will be neglected in the future. I have had digestive system pain, so I will continue to have it going forward. I was divorced, so I will continue to struggle to establish durable intimacy in the future. I was abused, so I will most likely be victimized again in the future.

This blog deconstructs this myth and offers a different path forward.

It is mid-March. Spring’s full bounty remains weeks away. Already, however, preparations for spring are evident. The stream is flowing, cold and quiet, as it collects the snowmelt and carries it away. Still, winter isn’t fully finished. Just this morning, a sleeve of frost was worn by every branch, just after dawn, and lasting only until the day’s warmth caused each sleeve to melt away. The ducks were there to witness this gorgeous morning. They recognized that despite that late winter snow, spring is coming soon.

As you watch this video, consider the transitions you are experiencing. It is rare that change is always forward-looking. Like spring’s arrival, sometimes we go back a step or two before moving forward again. Sometimes, patience is needed, coupled with perseverance and trust, which eventually eases us through the transitions we are seeking.

While I may complain about the bitter cold of winter, the truth is that I love Minnesota’s four seasons. One of the most endearing qualities of the seasons involving the transition from winter to spring. Throughout the long winter months, stillness and silence often reigned supreme. A blanket of snow and ice covered the land and lakes. When in nature in the winter, I often had to patient sit and wait before signs of life - a bird, a rabbit in a white winter parka, the occasional deer - appears.

Now, as spring approaches, the silence and stillness are giving way to both movement and a cacophony of sound. With the thaw, the quality of movement returns to the landscape, even as the burst of spring’s colors is still weeks away.

Winter is here. So is the quiet stillness it brings as much lies blanketed under the snow. Even here, movement can be found. Sit back and discover the stream’s undulating current as it flows on, insistent on reaching its destination come what may.

The 24/7 pace of our world is accelerating all the time. We know that getting swept up in that rushing current leaves our bodies and minds exhausted. Coritsol, a major stress hormone, circulates through our vessels at levels so high that our ability to find comfort and calm is undermined. This two-minute video invites you to settle in and settle down as you take in the stillness and beauty of the slow pace at which a thin blanket of ice forms across a small pond. Perhaps you, too, can find comfort and calm by connecting to this scene of icy stillness.

Looking back, viewing health as a process of integrating mind, brain, body, and social connections may have been inevitable. As the son of a neurologist and a teacher, I learned early on that while the physical brain was endlessly fascinating, the mind - the name for our capacity for conscious awareness, focused attention, intention, and choice - is where we “live” each day. Mind is what describes our self-conscious “I”. Without mind, there is only tissue. Mind is necessary to animate us and fully become who we are.

When worries and fears grow, learn to release them to the current that can wash them away downstream.

Expectations can be self-fulfilling - for good or bad. This practice is a good reminder that you can discover the promise of the positive can emerge when you let go of the expectation of the negative.

When life weighs you down, a gentle breeze can be a great pick-me-up. Tune is. Float along. Let the breeze guide you to a gentler, lighter day. Enjoy...

Sometimes, we just need a clean, fresh start to begin anew. Nature has a simple solution. Enjoy the cleansing effect on your outlook of gentle morning rain.

It all begins with an idea.

On a recent trip (October 2020) to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota that hugs the border with Canada, I witnessed winter arrive. The new season arrived stealthily, with little warning beyond a change in the skies color and the cold breath of winter on the air. Winter was not “scheduled” to arrive until December 21. That is the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year and, according to astronomical calculations, is the official start to the winter season.

I was impressed with how little regard the Boundary Waters had for the astronomical calendar. When the time was right, winter arrived. The clouds covered the sun, dropping the predicted temperature by 10-15 degrees. The wind changed direction. Just like the Banks’ children in Mary Poppins, the change in the wind meant something different was brewing. And that something different was a fresh blanket of snow that silently floated down while painting the aspens, birches, pines, cedars, and spruces with a layer of white.