Life is Better in Hiking Boots - Part 6

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.  —Edward Abbey

I’m sitting in our backyard.  It’s about 630 in the evening in March so the sun is just starting to set.  It’s the “golden hour”  and the light is beautiful.  From here I can see my hives – my wondrous beehives.  The redwood tree that we bought at four inches and is now about thirty feet tall sits right between the two hives.  It’s so straight.  There are a lot of birds around.  I can hear them from every direction.   The ivy is climbing up over the creek bed and my garden is really starting to look beautiful again after a long winter of hibernation.  Hummingbirds are flitting around and every once in awhile I will sight a butterfly. I was thinking about paddling today but instead had a glass of wine – should have gone paddling.  

Nature is who we are.   It is a necessary connection that we must have to keep the peace in our hearts.   Unfortunately, with all of the technology of the world today we tend to forget what is out there to settle our souls.  You were all so lucky to have grown up in Marin County where nature is literally in your backyard — where you can drive a half hour and be in the middle of nowhere.  Where you can experience the majesty of the redwoods, the roar of the ocean and the wind on the mountain all in one day.  My fondest wish is that you will always appreciate the awesomeness of my bees, the beauty of the redwoods, the  act of putting one foot in front of the other over a mountain trail.  And that you will  find the time every day to get a little piece of that to soothe your soul and keep you smiling.  And I hope that on that day or days, as surely it will be, that you are experiencing one of the many challenges of life, instead of reaching for a beer, or falling asleep on the couch or parking yourself in front of the TV or a video game in your exhaustion or misery, you will go on that mountain hike or that walk along the beach or sit in your backyard and listen to the birds and find the peace that you are looking for.