BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter was written by 12-year-old Aliah Peysar.
Do you ever just sit in the midst of nature and observe? Like, I mean, sit there for a long time? And not just glance at this or that. I mean stare, feel, marvel, and wonder about it? It could be a bee in the garden, a flower at the roadside or a butterfly flitting across your path.
Spending quiet, uninterrupted time in nature is one of my favourite things to do. The mixed forest near my house is the perfect place to fill up your senses and experience with beauty and peace.
In this place, my eyes fill up with golden sunshine through the bright green leaves casting a warm greenish light. Oak, maple and birch sway in the breeze all around me. Flowers are all over the floor covering last year’s yellow leaves in a brilliant blanket of trilliums and lavender. In the wobbly treetops, squirrels fight for food, while birds chirp cheerfully in the oak boughs. There is so much beauty for my eyes to take in.
Then there are things in the forest that you can feel. I feel the sun shining warm on my face and the shade resting, cool on my arms. I feel the cool dirt on my feet and the rough log I am sitting on. A cool breeze blows at me. The forest brings a wonderful freshness.
Smells in the forest are refreshing just like its feel. I take a deep breath. I smell the crisp air and the sweet fragrant lavender blooms and trilliums. I sniff at the wonderful aroma of sap from nearby trees and it is fragrant.
Hearing things in the forest is interesting and peaceful (most of the time). I hear a sound off to the left of me. I jump, realizing with embarrassment that it’s only a red squirrel. I listen to some bird’s happy chatter in the treetops. I hear the waterfall’s exuberant roar, and the wind’s gentle whispers through the tree boughs.
Taking time for sitting, feeling, listening, and just smelling is refreshing and enjoyable and also important, because spending time in nature helps us get away from life’s endless, meaningless, nonstop, crazy and chaotic rush.
Aliah Peysar
Orillia
