A Love Letter to Nature ... the Call of the Wild

Sunlight filters through the trees like honey, golden and dappled, warming the skin with rays like the memories of your earliest childhood. A nearby stream laughs, humming its lullaby over smooth stones, the water so clear you can see playful minnows darting and dashing to and fro beneath its surface. The air smells of moss and old bark and somewhere in the canopy above, a bird whistles a call that echoes like a dream. You pause to feel the textured bark of a birch tree, cool and papery, while a soft breeze sighs and brushes your neck, carrying with it the almost indistinguishable whisper of salt from the distant sea. In this moment, your senses are not just awake—they are alive, as your instincts tune in once again to the call of the wild.

It is in these moments that something ancient stirs inside us. It's when you're under forest canopies, boots gratefully tramping in loamy earth, thoughts clearer than a quartz crystal, or standing waist-deep in a cold river and feeling tears rise for no reason other than that the water is carrying something away. I’ve floated in the sea beneath a crepuscular sky and felt humbled, vulnerable - yet enigmatically cradled and protected. These moments contain messages like vital, urgent wake up calls. For the more I return to them, the more I realise: nature doesn’t just surround us; it restores us.

If you study our history and lineage, there is a reason we seek the wild when we’re weary. It's a primal longing, woven into our DNA, the light-encoded threads of who we are. Our forebears traipsed barefoot across soil and slept beneath stars. They drank from springs, read the wind, and watched clouds for signs of storms. Modern life has placed artificial walls between us and that instinctive knowing. But it hasn’t erased the ache. The yearning to be close to the ocean’s rhythmic pull, the scent of the heather, the thunderous hush of a waterfall—that is the soul remembering its own language.

When I first set out on this journey, I was pulled by the wide-eyed awe and excitement of an indescribable magnetism. And yet, I didn't realise this journey would also lead me home - not home in the physical sense, but to a place in my heart that had gone quiet from too many jarring distractions, too much cacophony, and not enough open sky. I remember a moment, while exploring the maze like cathedral of a majestic, dew-sweet forest far from the chaotic cries and kerfuffle of modernity, that I realised I understood what it meant to really listen. The forest spoke not in words, but in a myriad of intuitions—an all-surrounding omnipresence that asked nothing of me, yet offered everything.

To consciously breathe in rhythmic polyphony with the ocean's dark waves or under a canopy of swaying green leaves, is to reclaim a long lost and forgotten birthright of our own vitality. Scientific research reveals statistics proving that time spent in nature lowers cortisol, reduces inflammation, and boosts immune function; however beyond the data is something more essential. Being in nature reminds us that we belong to something larger, something intelligent and alive. When we slow down enough to notice and revere the incalculable rhythms of the planet, the way iridescent sunlight dances on water, the deep hush of mountains—we begin to return to ourselves.

And so as a result, I’ve become addicted to the skin-tingling freshness of the morning light, the sensations when mist unravels over the valleys like a breath of silk, when the flocks of geese circle below from a clifftop viewpoint, their raucous wings beating a symphony, or when my breath freezes in the morning air by a still lake in early spring. No matter what I was carrying, every time nature met me with powerful, open arms. It didn’t fix me. It didn’t need to. It simply reminded me that true, authentic healing is nothing more than simply yielding, succumbing to the swaying, caressing vibrations of a deep rhythm found concealed within the fibres of our very being.

So let us, amidst an ever accelerating world of mind numbing consumerism, begin a silent revolution. Let's consciously rejoin our sacred union with this inscrutably mesmerising, insurmountably beautiful planet Earth. What excuses will you make? For even in the hustle and bustle of a city apartment, you can reawaken your senses. Open the window. Light something that smells like the woods. Touch your body with reverence. Breathe.

Because the truth is that ultimately, healing isn’t about doing or achieving more. It’s about remembering what’s always been there. The forest, oceans, mountains and the running river ... yet most of all the subtle, quiet voice within, that KNOWS you are worthy of love.

So I urge you to go out, walk barefoot, breathe deeply, and float quietly. Let the wild love you back to life.

The magnanimity and mystery of the wide world is waiting...

And so, if you listen, is your heart.