i am connected to everything & everyone

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. – John Muir

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about oneness with nature. I lived in New York City for 17 years and never thought that I would leave. When I did leave, it was because I saw my future self surrounded by trees, not buildings. I had no idea when I moved if I had made the right decision. It was a while before I detoxed my body and mind from the ways of city life and came to love country life as I have. I can remember in my last two years of living in NY, I would repeat the mantra, “I am connected to everything and everyone.” while I was going about my day. It was a reminder to connect, in a place with so many people and so few connections. Being in nature, surrounded by the beauty of the earth and its wild inhabitants, is something of a religious experience. There’s little need to remind myself to connect – it’s inherent. I did not know what the bond between humans and Mother Nature truly meant or felt like until I sat alone in a kayak at sundown, watching the birds fly overhead and listening to the sounds of wildlife merging like an instinctive orchestra. Hundreds of musicians who have never met, yet their songs join in seamless harmony. 

The earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. – Chief Seattle