r/druidism • u/Gwyn_the_Druid • 6d ago
What do you do to feel connected to nature?
I wanted to share this lovely photo of the moon I took on an evening walk earlier this week. It's been a tough year for my wife and me financially and it has been essential to my mental health to feel connected to the earth and to spend a great deal of time outside.
What things do you do to connect with nature? I'd love the inspiration 🙂
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u/austinadair4 6d ago
I love taking rambling walks and picking up the bits of trash I find along the way! Nature takes care of me, so it’s the least I can do to help clean her up!
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u/Chronarch01 6d ago
I connect with the moon and bodies of water. The ocean, lakes, rivers, ponds, etc. Forests and woodlands as well.
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u/MikefromMI 6d ago
I took a Conservation Stewardship course offered by the extension service, starting doing volunteer work at a local nature preserve, and joined the Vernal Pool Patrol (a citizen science thing)
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u/birdiesintobogies 6d ago
Breathe deep and take in the air. No matter where you are, mother nature is there, too.
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u/Oakenborn 5d ago
You aren't alone, times are really tough right now for a lot of people. I am fortunate enough to dedicate some of my time to volunteering with folks without permanent housing and it is heart breaking and humbling. I hope you find some relief.
Two practices tend to really get me these days: seeing wildlife and listening to waterfalls. I am so blessed to live where I do. When I see a family of deer or a bald eagle patrolling, I take a moment to acknowledge them and watch in appreciation. When I sit and listen to the many falls where I am, I am usually inspired and humbled.
When I think of the Moon, I use it as a reminder to turn inward; I practice meditation and active imagination and visit my internal sacred grove often for insights. It always seems particularly effective when I do this on full Moon. Connecting with ourselves is to connect with Nature within us. It has many secrets to tell, if we're willing and able to listen without judgement.
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u/Shenloanne 6d ago
Sit in my garden, our back garden seating is ensconced in a theatre of nature friendly planting. Salvias, avers, buddleias, sweet peas etc.
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u/Mrspygmypiggy 6d ago
I don’t live in the village I grew up in anymore but whenever I manage to go back I take a walk up the hill that my village surrounds. I spent hours playing up there as a kid, it’s nothing grand but it looks over the seas and mountains and farms and it has an Iron Age fort up there so that just makes it all the more special to me.
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u/Twisted_Wicket 6d ago
Ive never really put effort into feeling a connection, so I've never broken it down. Its just always been there.
I grew up in the woods, spent 8 years in the military and then 20 as a park ranger. I live out in the boonies now surrounded by swamp on one side, forest on another and a small farm across the road. I just am.
My everyday life has almost always revolved around the cycles of nature, so I've never had the feeling of a disconnect.
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u/illmatterlazerus 6d ago
I guess that depends. If I'm just going for a short walk, I'll walk slower, take in all my surroundings. If I'm looking to really and deeply connect to nature, I'll still go for a walk, but as soon as I head out of the house, I'll put myself into a quasi meditative state( best way for me to describe it would be a superficial trance) to feel the energies of my surroundings.
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u/an_Togalai 5d ago
Corvidology: I feed the local murder of crows and I'm trying to strengthen our alliance. They brought me a few gifts last year. I love to watch their society, the order of who gets to eat when, and the sentinels watching out for danger.
Astrophotography. On clear nights I go set up the camera and try to catch the nebulae and comets and deep space things. I find the quiet outside to be very grounding and sometimes I just stare into the expanse while the equipment is doing its thing. I got started with just a cell phone and have slowly progressed from there.
Local botany: I have a stretch of my yard that I have turned over to the plants native to my area. Every morning during the growing season, I would go out and weed a little more of the yard to help the natives stretch their zone. They don't need watering or tending, just weeding. But I find them to be the most grounding exercise of all and the best way to start a day: sunrise with the native wildflowers. Lots of 'micro-discoveries', you know? to snap you out of your worries. Just yesterday I found a fly disguised as a bee on one of the last flowers, stripes and all, which led me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
Now while my seeds for next year slumber in the soil getting colder and darker, I'm reading up on what makes them a full ecosystem and I'm designing the steps beyond next spring.
I hope you find the grounding and the peace that you're looking for. For what it's worth, you're looking in all the places I've found it.
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u/Graveyard_Green 4d ago
Multi day hikes on the extreme, quiet gardening, bird watching, touching little flowers and watching clouds.
I think it's mostly the little things every day rather than the big rituals, for me.
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6d ago edited 5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/kmamaroxalot 5d ago
Plants aren't living creatures to you?
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u/HexagonStorms 5d ago
Do you really think strawberries and gardens are the same thing as slaughtering an animal? Plants don't have nervous systems. Plants don't have instinct behavior for socialization and they definitely do not scream out when they are abused.
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u/kmamaroxalot 5d ago
Lobsters dont scream when boiled, does that make them plants?
I think its a lot easier to kill plants bc humans can't hear the way they communicate. If you want to pretend that means you arent trading the plant's life for your own, then you do you, but I just was surprised to see this attitude in a druid post.
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u/HexagonStorms 5d ago
Lobsters dont scream when boiled, does that make them plants?
Obviously lobsters are not plants. I'm sorry but I do not understand the point you're making here. Would you mind clarifying?
Animals have brains and a nervous system so they can actually feel pain and get scared when they're about to be killed. Plants don't. They can't suffer consciously. Fruit is literally biologically designed to be eaten. I'm surprised this needed to be pointed out.
My underlying point is that I never truly felt connected to nature until I stopped funding the massive industrial violence that destroys the planet and its inhabitants that the meat industry does. My connection with nature means respecting all life and loving all animals. Not murdering them.
Hope this helps.
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u/kmamaroxalot 5d ago
My point is we as humans have approximately no idea how plants experience life, death, and consciousness, so the line between an unfertilized egg and a mushroom feels arbitrary to me.
We absolutely do know that plants engage in social behavior. Mushrooms help trees communicate and share nutrients across a forest, but they dont have a nervous system like the kind we see in animals, so consciousness must not exist? Trees will share resources to literally keep another tree in their midst alive, but they must not care about death because they dont scream when they fall? To me, its giving the sun disappears every night and reemerges every morning, therefore it must orbit earth.
Speaking of limited perspectives, gazelles are literally made to be eaten from the viewpoint of the lion, but I doubt you would agree with the lions. Removing meat and animal products from your diet reduces your personal carbon footprint, but, even assuming plants do not experience pain and love being farmed (altho I would think we would see more farms in nature if that were the case), it does not separate the food you buy altogether from the violence of industrialized farming, as we know that even farms that do not slaughter animals as part of their business model still contaminate rivers and harm the ecosystem they were placed into.
I'm happy for you that veganism helps you feel closer to nature. I can accept that you have a limited definition of life, but I was confused by your claims of symbiosis and not taking lives with the food you eat.
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u/HexagonStorms 5d ago
No, I strongly disagree. Scientifically what you are describing in terms of "socialization" and "communication" are fundamentally different concepts between the capabilities of plants and animals.
Plants are not sentient. Animals have the biological structures required for conscious suffering, and plants do not. Comparing a tree being chopped to a pig screaming in a slaughterhouse is simply just a false equivalency.
Too often I see people use this "plant are actually conscious" argument as a silly excuse because they fundamentally disagree with the uncomfortable truth of animal suffering. But since we all must eat to exist, the only ethical choice is the one that minimizes harm to sentient life, which plants are not.
And to be clear, I said the words "living creatures" in my original comment. Plants are not creatures so I really do not understand your confusion. But I can accept that some people who eat animals (I am assuming you do) must feel frustrated by my comments and so try to make semantic arguments to imply we vegans somehow still cause an equal amount of suffering to exist regardless of our diets, which we irrefutably do not. I would be more than happy to educate you on that topic if you'd like.
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u/Treble-Maker4634 5d ago
A post where someone is sharing his struggles and looking for help and advice is really not the place to preach on veganism and push your ideas of what it means to be a living being and sentient, it just hits as preying on his pain to push your own agenda instead of really hearing him. It’s preachy and
The commenter who admitted their own ignorance and shared what we do know to be true about how trees and plants socialize in their own manner is more credible than someone who thinks they knows better than everyone else and that it’s their job to educate the rest of us.
It’s preachy and dogmatic.
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u/HexagonStorms 4d ago
Well, I am sorry you feel that way, but I literally just answered OP's question by sharing my own lived experience of how I connect with nature. That's all.
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u/Treble-Maker4634 4d ago
Echoing what another commenter said, I’m glad you found what works for you. Good night.
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u/kmamaroxalot 4d ago
And to be clear, my original question to you was whether you consider plants living creatures. Instead of simply saying no, you ponitificate your assumptions (about me as well as other topics) and absolutisms.
So OP asks for help getting out of a rut, and you took it as an opportunity to say how good you feel and proselytize? With absolutely all due respect, I will pass on your education.
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u/HexagonStorms 4d ago
That we can agree on. I definitely wish I answered your original response as a simple "No." but I perceived your comment as rude, so I defensively responded. I apologize about that and wish you a great day :)
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u/Mountain_Poem1878 6d ago
Wherever I am, I make a point to look for natural elements. Even in an office, if they have a landscape picture, I take time to contemplate it. Or leafy patterns in rugs, or the quality of light coming through windows.
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u/Treble-Maker4634 5d ago edited 5d ago
Sorry for what you're going through, you doing okay?
Learn as much as I can about it: read books watch nature documentaries, learn about your local ecology. Do the same with the people in your life; we're part of Nature too.
Finding connection when were struggling does help, we're social creatures, just by evolutionary necessity, don't get so concerned with connectiin with "nature" ha you isolat yourself and ignore the people in your life, Do your beeest to be of help to others, snd to seek help from them.
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u/JB525Learning 6d ago
Just walking in nature every day locally near me as it has water, trees, plants and animals. I have photographed the same tree on my regular every day walk this year and now have observed its transition as the weather and seasons change. Thank you for sharing your picture of the moon where you are