Can a Straight Shot of Landscape Create Resilience?
Dear Beauty Hunters,
In the annals of misreads, here’s a recent headline I clicked on with interest:
“Building Resiliency Through Landscape”
Someone was speaking my language! I often rely on the beauty of a cedar tree, the view of Mount Rainier, or the Cascade mountain range with snowy peaks and wrinkles to plump up my spirits. When I feel low, and the echoes of “what am I doing with my life?” or “I wasted my day!” reverberate in the Chamber of Menacing Thoughts, it’s nature-gazing that puts me in my place. Statuesque, jaw-dropping gorgeousness aside, would the tree, the mountain, the perfect rose ever question their “self-worth” or wonder whether they were wasting their time?
Because I like to imagine that I am one with the natural elements, then I can also have the same lack of “purpose” or quest for “meaning” as the statuesque cedar who lives in my front yard does. (This also feels like a quietly radical way to live.) In other words, all I have to do is be alive. Let me rephrase. I am alive. So I don’t really have to be alive, I just am. And that’s all there is. Being; am-ing. I, like the tree, like the mountain am here, in my current aliveness, experiencing life moment by moment. As are you. I know—WtF and 🤯, me too. I’m still clenching, striving, and all that jazz.
Oops. Enter the misread
As it turned out, the headline in question was not about resilience and landscape. Instead, it was—
“Building Resiliency Through Leadership”
Not quite the same ring, eh? But the Landscape Headline got me thinking about a more natural resiliency; natural in its ease, and more innate to the human experience. A capacity to recover and adapt that doesn’t come from rolling up the sleeves, taking a deep breath, and SNAPPING OUT OF IT, or some such white-knuckling endeavor, but an intuitive, wise, patient turning toward the sun, or swaying with the storm because that’s what the structure/system does.
What if we already have this natural resiliency, and it’s happening all around and within us, but by constantly seeking and beating-the-hell-out-of-things we’re missing out on this precious resource that’s well underway, constantly?
Consider, if you will, building resilience through the landscape. Let’s break it down by definition, using the Interwebs’ dictionary:
RESILIENCY: the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness; the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.
LANDSCAPE, noun: all the visible features of an area of countryside or land… verb: make (a piece of land) more attractive by altering the existing design, adding ornamental features, and planting trees and shrubs.
Building Resiliency Through Landscape could be—
Recovering from difficulties by planting trees and shrubs.
Springing back into shape through the features of a countryside or land.
After March 2020, masses of people went outdoors into parks, nature trails and national parks; outdoor sports exploded. People took to improving their homes and tending to gardens. Planting shrubs, walking beneath trees.
We were building resiliency through the landscape!
We are resilient in so many ways we don’t acknowledge. We’re beautiful inside and out, every moment of every day, in so many ways we don’t see.
As I write this, an elegant old Western Red Cedar stands out my window. She’s massive. I’ve named her Elephantina because of her elephantine limbs that stretch up like an elephant’s trunk. She feels like a member of the family now, but she, like my husband and family is also my landscape.
I’ll use all the landscape available—tree, mountain, rose garden, husband, family, the bustling crowd—to recover from my difficulties and remember that I can naturally turn toward the sun, even if it’s hidden behind a bank of thunderclouds.
I wish you a 2022 filled with rolling, unending, restoring landscapes. May your landscapes build resilience, exalt the senses, and expand the mind and spirit.
Xo
Yours, Beauty Hunter
