Wordsworth: “Our senses drink in the secrets of nature…”

From Karen Armstrong’s new book, Sacred Nature: If we allow it to enter our lives, nature can inform our minds and become a formative influence.

We can begin by taking simple steps, perhaps sitting in a garden or a park for 10 minutes a day, without headphones or a mobile phone, simply registering the sights and sounds of nature. Instead of taking photographs of our surroundings, we should look at the birds, flowers, clouds and trees and let them impress themselves on our minds.

Armstrong continues: “In another of his poems, Wordsworth speaks of the ”wise passiveness” that should inform our dealings with nature. He is arguing with someone who has his nose in a book all the time, blocking out all the sights and sounds of the natural world—it is hard to imagine what he would have thought of our technology today! We don’t need learned books, Wordsworth tells us, because our senses drink in the secrets of nature without our being aware of it.”

So, what would be some of the secrets of nature? Reflecting on a multitude of visits to gardens and green areas while scouting restorative environments for therapeutic horticulture class assignments, three ideas: presence, the availability of wonder, and peace (how quickly peace arrives and worries depart when you sit and observe all that’s present in nature). There is a found certainty in the uncertainty.