Your Senses are Doorways to Wonder

Have you ever felt completely overwhelmed… but in a good way?

Last spring, I got to take my mom on a road trip to celebrate her 70th birthday, and the high point of our trip was visiting the Tule Elk Reserve in Point Reyes National Seashore. 

As we traveled potholed roads through the middle of nowhere toward the edge of a continent, I was on the edge of my seat. I was so excited to see elk, but I kept trying to manage my expectations. Maybe we wouldn’t see any elk and that would be just fine. 

We had no sooner driven past the border of the reserve than we saw a large group of female and juvenile elk on a distant hillside. Check elk off the list – our day was made! 

However, the day was not over. We began a short hike on the Tomales Point trail under a perfect blue sky and warm sunshine. Pale purple wild radish flowers and yellow bush lupines peeked over the sides of the trail. Soon our steps brought us over a hill to see the shining blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretching below. And… just there, one small elk browsing on the hill near us. 

Post-Elk face 🤩

After our hike, we sat at a picnic table to snack on sticky morning buns and spicy chai brought from the bakery in town, enjoying resting our legs and chewing sweet treats as we reflected on and exclaimed over the abundant beauty of the day. 

The hike was done, but the still day continued. This time as we drove back toward the border of the reserve, the same group of elk we had seen in the distance was now right by the side of the road. We stopped the car and filled our eyes with the sight of the massive animals feeding together on the grass. This was it – elk right in front of us, the pinnacle.

Except it wasn’t. As we drove on, we suddenly saw what we didn’t know we had been waiting for: a group of 12 male elk with huge racks of antlers, running majestically across a field.

Well… now my mom and I had hit our limit and couldn’t take it anymore. It was too much wonder to contain! The full impact of the day’s feast for the senses brought a rare wildness over us that I still smile to remember. We hooted and hollered and laughed. I opened the car window and just blabbered something into the air – no words. This is a memory that I treasure.

The Senses as Doorways

I wrote recently about the hidden worlds that we can discover if we slow down, open our senses, and pay attention. Not only do our senses invite us to experience wonder, but they are wonder-full in themselves. 

Have you ever thought about this? Our bodies are not closed off, we are porous. Our bodies have openings (eyes, ears, nose) and special receptors (skin) that bring in information from our surroundings. Through these openings we bring the outside world inside… into us, literally!

You can try it now: just breathe in…

You just invited oxygen into your lungs, where it will make its way into your bloodstream and ride this stream into every cell of your body. This sip of oxygen that is now a part of your body has been shared among all beings on earth for over a billion years. You can thank the plankton in the ocean for this breath— plankton provide an amazing 50-80% of the oxygen that we breathe.

Now take a moment to listen... 

Even if you’re inside, maybe you can hear sounds from outside your room. Maybe you can hear a bird in your neighborhood, say, the iconic call of a Hawk. As Hawk calls out (probably yelling at some crows!) sound waves spread outward, penetrating through walls and windows, and into your body through your ears.

In a flash, this sound-information makes its way to your brain, and your incredible brain begins to process the information and make connections. The sound waves mix together with memories to spark thoughts and emotions, including curiosity.

You look out the window and take in the sight of Hawk soaring high above. Now the sound and the image feed into you, and emotions of elation and freedom arise within. 

Perhaps these emotions spark an awareness of what you are sensing – noticing what you’re noticing. You feel happy and grateful to be experiencing elation – after all, elation can be rare in our everyday life. The appreciation of what your senses bring in takes you from a sensory experience to a sensual experience: sense-information plus a feeling of gratification, savoring and reveling in this experience. 

You can think of your senses as doorways into your brain, into your heartspace, triggering you to feel things, to think things. Bringing the outside world inside you CHANGES THINGS. 

And outdoors, it's rarely just one sense that is activated at a time. Often when we spend time outside, we’re enveloped in sensory stimulation, and much of what’s coming in is pleasant, intriguing, or uplifting. With such an inflow of sensations, sights, sounds, and smells, we are flooded, inside and out, in beauty. We become overwhelmed in the best possible way.

Sparking Peak Moments

Because I lead Mindful Outdoor Experiences, I am fortunate to be able to experience many of these peak moments vicariously. I hear participants share about a feeling of wondrous surprise and awe at something in their backyard that they’d never noticed before, or an upwelling of deep appreciation for the incredibly rich variation and beauty of the world, or a strong sense of oneness with their surroundings. 

In sharing these memorable moments experienced while being present in nature, participants are connecting with some of the most powerful and pleasurable human emotions that exist: wonder, awe, ecstasy, peace, connection, gratitude, a sense of profound meaning. 

When we go outdoors and fill up our senses, we make ourselves available for the very best of our human experience. Louise Chawla describes these memories as “radioactive jewels buried within us, emitting energy across the years of our lives.” These are memories which expand our consciousness, memories that help us remember that joy is possible, memories that we never forget. 

In “Last Child in the Woods,” Richard Louv wrote (quoting Chawla), “Ecstatic memories require space, freedom, discovery, and “an extravagant display for all five senses.” When these requirements are met, even in cities, nature nurtures us.”  

Nature nurtures us. It can’t be denied, can it? The abundance outdoors sparks vivid pleasurable emotions that brighten our days and thus, our lives. And as I wrote a few months ago, pleasant emotions are not all that we experience. Time spent outdoors can provide open space to feel all the big feelings that we need to feel – the truth of birth, change, and death, the immensity of grief, and everything else under the sun.

For me, these words from Joseph Campbell put it well: “People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”  

The rapture of being alive, the pain of being alive, the incredible miracle and mystery of being alive… It is a gift to fully experience all of it.

Re-train Your Senses

Do you crave experiences like this? You don’t need to visit an elk reserve to experience wonder—invitations are all around you. But chances are, you do need practice in consciously inviting your sense doorways to open so that you can notice and sense more acutely.

This is where I come in. In Mindful Outdoor Experiences, I begin by guiding you to be fully present and to calm your nervous system, I set an intentionally slow pace of exploration, and I bring in practices that help to reawaken your senses. The natural world takes over from there, providing surprises after surprise to nurture your spirit.

Intrigued? Contact me to arrange a Mindful Outdoor Experience — either in person in the Monterey, CA area, or via a phone call as you connect more deeply with the outdoors wherever you are.

I’m wishing you beauty streaming in through every doorway,
🦌 Katie

 
 
 
 
OutdoorsKatie Dutcher