My February plan includes taking a 15 minute weekly walk and allowing nature to fill me with awe. The walk I took this week took an hour with plenty of sit downs on benches and tree stumps to just take in my surroundings and focus on the five senses. It wasn’t a particularly brilliant day, typical England in February, bit grey, bit damp, bit windy, bit warmer than last week.
Simple beauty.
I love the trees in silhouette in Winter. I love wind in the trees. One branch was creaking with a gentle sqweek. The squirrels were bounding around and blackbirds tossing fallen leaves around looking for grubs to eat.
So much to just look at on the tree trunk.
I sat by the lake, watching ducks, moorhens and Canada geese when I became aware of gulls circle overhead round and round looking as if they wanted to land on the water, yet unable too as the currents of wind blew them round and round.
Eventually they disappeared from sight.
The walk was awesome..nothing out of the ordinary but stopping and looking made all the difference.
nanacathy2
nanacathydotcom 
Comments on: "Walking with Awe#1" (13)
This reminds me of the poem Leisure by WH Davies,’What is life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare…’ My walking buddy and I joke that how ever long our walk is, it takes all day as we just take more opportunities to wonder at nature.
Nice! Thanks for sharing the photos from your moments of “awe”!
I just listened to Krista Tippett’s On Being podcast about the science of Awe! You are indeed on the right track! XO
Beautiful! What a great reminder to stop and appreciate 🙂 Thank you for sharing!!
There’s more and more to see as Winter continues and Spring emerges. Spied some Scarlet Elf Cups today , they are bright red toadstool cup like fungi, amongst mossy tree roots. A bit of a surprise.
Your post made me realise that at the moment when I go for walk I am concentrating more on where I am putting my feet and what the dogs are doing than on what is around me! That must change. Thank you for bringing it to mind.
It makes a difference to just stop for a few minutes and soak it all up
Love this! Had my first outing in a few days…Mr. Bandit was beside himself so it was more about keeping him under control and not slipping on u expected ice spots, but the blue sky and fresh air…so good for the soul!
Absolutely. Dogs are great at getting one out whatever the weather.
Looks like an interesting walk. I didn’t feel up to taking photographs on Friday but we saw a pair of Canada geese too. Must be their time for thinking about having some more babies.
Spring seems to come earlier nowadays. I saw a tit checking out the nesting box this morning.
I just listened to a podcast and the guest, Dacher Keltner, has written a book about awe. He talked about taking awe walks. You are on the right track! Sadly, most of the places I walk have no benches so sitting isn’t an option.
I did utilise a tree stump or two.