When Nature Becomes the Medicine
This past weekend, I gave myself permission to pause.
Not because I had everything done … I didn’t.
Not because the calendar said “vacation” … it didn’t.
But because my spirit said, “It’s time.”
I’ve learned that when my soul whispers like that, I need to listen.
The final quarter of the year always carries a certain hum … the busyness of creating, preparing, and sharing the work of my hands. It’s the season when my studio lights glow late into the night and the scent of wax, wood, and essential oils fills the air. I love this rhythm of production … the beauty of bringing ideas into form … yet I also know how easily the pace can shift from sacred to hurried if I’m not grounded.
So I stepped outside.
I traded my planner for a trail and my to-do list for open sky.
I let the quiet rearrange me.
And somewhere between the rustle of the leaves and the sound of water moving over stone, I felt myself exhale.
Nature has always been my medicine.
She doesn’t rush. She doesn’t strive.
She simply becomes … revealing that creation is both an act of stillness and motion, of surrender and becoming.
As I walked, I realized how much this mirrored my own creative process.
Every idea needs its wintering … its quiet unseen time … before it can bloom.
Every season of making begins with a season of listening.
I returned home lighter.
Not because my to-do list had vanished, but because I had remembered who I am beneath the doing … an artist, a vessel, a witness to grace unfolding through the ordinary.
Now, as I continue this last quarter of the year, I do so with fresh eyes and an open heart. I want my work to flow from the same ease I felt under the trees … intentional, unforced, rooted in gratitude.
A Thought to Carry
When you feel the pull to keep producing, remember that rest is not a reward … it’s part of creation. Let stillness refill your cup so what you pour out carries the sweetness of peace.
“He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul.”
— Psalm 23:2–3 (NKJV)“The earth has music for those who listen.”
— George Santayana