Going the Right Speed

The advice often given to those trying to become more in tune with nature (or themselves) is to slow down. And, yes, it is true that our rushing bodies and minds often act like little tornados, disturbing the natural world around us and carrying us past an experience before we have a chance to note it even happened.

But in an orchestral symphony, a member playing at a tempo slower than everyone else can be just as disruptive as one who is playing too fast. Because the symphony of nature doesn’t have a conductor, when we join, we must learn to listen to the other players and find the appropriate tempo, rhythm, and volume. A white-tailed doe moving through the woods is not making a conscious attempt to slow down to commune with nature. She is intuitively moving at the right speed for the situation. If she suddenly slows down or speeds up, this is an alarm to the other mammals and birds of the area. Suddenly, the symphony has been disrupted; everyone is on high alert: “What does that deer know that I don’t?”

I’ve spent years trying to slow my mind down while out in nature. Often, thoughts are tumbling through my head like a waterfall, and I struggle to cool off my hot brain. But at other times it’s the sluggishness of the mind and processors that can cause a lack of perception or clarity. Again, like a stringed instrument, we must be tuned correctly, not too tight but not too loose.

The other day I was sitting on my back porch idly watching birds at the feeder when I had the strong sensation that something dramatic had just happened. It was so fleeting that it was already over by the time I realized it had occurred. I focused my awareness on the feeder, but there were the birds, just like normal. What was this sensation? What HAD just happened?

Looking into my “memory banks” and replaying my mental audio and video of the last ninety seconds, I reconstructed the event. The chickadees, tufted titmice, and house finches had been on the feeder with sparrows and even a chipmunk on the ground below. Somebody emitted a barely audible high-pitched call that hadn’t even registered in my consciousness, and in a flash the area around the feeder was devoid of animals. On reflection, I realized the blur that had shot by a small gap in the tree canopy a second later was a Cooper’s hawk. Cooper’s hawks are small, agile bird-eating predators and are a major fear of songbirds and little mammals like chipmunks. In this case, the hawk must have been on a mission that didn’t involve my bird feeder, and after the flyby the songbirds and chipmunk were back where they had been before as if nothing had happened. The whole drama was so quick that it was over before it even bubbled from my subconscious to my conscious mind.

This event reminded me of that important lesson: We miss things not only because we are going too fast, but also because we may be going too slow. The events that unfold around us are not always moving at a speed at which we need to slow down to experience them more deeply. Sometimes events are quick and ephemeral. We need to adjust our awareness to the changing tempo of the natural world and experience things at the right speed.

Try: Next time you go outside, bring your awareness to the present and release other thoughts. However, this does not mean that you let your mind slow down into a stupor. Try to attune your perception and awareness to the events around you. Notice things that are unfolding slowly, and the quick dramas that are over almost before you realize they occurred at all. What speed is the earth suggesting that you move and think just now?

Take a walk down a trail in a park or forest, or even on a lawn, and let yourself start to move at the speed of the natural symphony around you. Feel what happens if you move too quickly—perhaps you start to pass things before you can visually process them, and you start “crashing” into animals as they go about their lives. Birds are pushed away from you as if you are a bulldozer. Likewise, notice how you also may be out of sync creeping along at a slow pace. To the animals you may look like you are a stalking predator, and from your neighbors you will certainly draw some attention. Speed up and slow down until you feel you are going at the right speed. Let the “right” speed ebb and flow as it must and at some point, you will blend as a player in the natural symphony.