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By Randy Champagne, B2B Outdoor Guide
“Insight comes often to people, but the wilderness makes it all so clear…”
For centuries we as a species have found ourselves immersed in the natural world. Imagine how it must have been to fall asleep under the stars every night. Imagine what it was like to hear the song of the wolves and coyotes as your drift in a deep sleep. To rest your bones aside a crystal clear flowing creek after a long day of hunting and gathering, must have felt so good. How it must have felt too slowly make your way back to camp from a trip without a worry in the world, only to come back to a family of not only a couple of direct family members, but hundreds in your community that care deeply about your well-being. I believe there is a large part of the human spirit that is searching for adventure and connection and that desires balance and harmony.
Though we find ourselves existing now in a different time, a technological time where we put more emphasis on things outside of ourselves than things of the inside. If you think about it really, it’s quite insane how we exist today. We mostly find ourselves helpless in a system that gives power to greed, hate, judgment, discontent. We are out of touch with ourselves and world in which we exist in. No wonder people struggle with mental disorders and addictions. Do you think these “disorders” existed 200 years ago? ADD was probably a useful thing to have when one is living off the land. There was no disease called addiction, and the amount of people that were “clinically depressed” was probably a percentage so small that it is unmeasurable. Mainly what I am saying is that these issues that we are having today have been created by the circumstances that we as a species have put ourselves in. We have created a jail around us, and I believe there is a cure. It is time to break out and see the world again, to connect.
Being immersed in nature means different things for different people. To some it could be spending some time on your garden, watching the birds, kayaking rapids, running around in buckskins and foraging for wild edibles, or spending hours tracking the animals in your backyard, the last two is what I prefer. Mainly what it comes down to is just being outside. What is most important is that time spent in nature is food for the soul. It allows us as human beings to slow down and feel again. It opens us up to empathy, to joy, to wonder, to beauty and to each other. The key to healing and life in general is “balance” and I have yet to find anything that can balance the human mind body and spirit better than time spent outside. So stop reading this blog and go outside, the future is counting on you.