Wildflowers

There they stood, slightly moving in the summer breeze, painting the landscape with vibrant red and blue hues, as if in defiance of the lack of moisture in the Texas summer heat.

The rutted wildflower path that required my constant attention became a teacher. Through sensory awareness, my concentration became an effortless release of tension, anxiety, and stress, but that was just the beginning. I was able to meet myself in nature, the natural self that was a distant memory from childhood, just there under the surface.

My childhood memories of walking through fields, climbing trees, playing in parks held a sensory experience that once reestablished in adulthood opened the window back to me before all my cultural labels. That "me" “floating on a raft in the canal as ducks swam by, carried by a hot metal canoe from backyard to backyard, never paying attention to anything but the adventure. She was still a part of me - more than a memory, a guide.

I couldn't explain then what drew me there so powerfully, this magnetic pull to the natural world. I just knew that in nature, I felt like myself again.