Listen to the fallen leaves crunching under your feet. Can you taste the earth?

Walking through a forest in meditation, with the autumn leaves in fall and life transitions into hibernation, I walk in silence, with my camera. During my nature walk in Muju, life is tinged with a trails of abandon and death. From burial grounds to hunter’s markings, everywhere I turn, I’m reminded of how man continually exerts its boundaries within nature.

Ayurveda Yoga Academy had a retreat in Muju and the forest walking meditation in Muju was the best yoga and meditation exercise with nature.

What is a Forest Walking Meditation?

The Ayuveda Yoga Camp in Muju program said Forest Walking Meditation.

A walk through the woods in Muju, while observing nature in silence is all I could think of it being. Kinda like a hike!  Instead, we practiced experiential exercises, which made you see and listen to nature in a unique way! It also asked that you trusted others, your altered vision and the sounds that were awakening.

Become silence and let the sounds around you be your guide to awakening. What do you hear?

Seeing: Trusting the vision of a blind person in front you

What happens when you look down and your vision is found in a tiny mirror pointed up to the sky? Your eyes and spatial direction are in an altered space. Walking with that vision to direct you is challenging and forces open your senses to navigate your way forward, a cautiously and carefully.

What if you must rely on the person in front of you who holds that altered vision?

What happens when you close your eyes and allow yourself to be guided by nature’s sounds?

The exercises kept expanding forcing you navigate altered awareness with trust.

Trust we are all connected. Put your hands upon the shoulders of the person in front of you. Close your eyes and walk. Consciously, feeling the earth beneath you and the sky above you.

Into the light, what can you feel? Is the frost biting your lip, while the sun kisses your skin?

Ways to listen during your forest walking meditation:

• Close your eyes.

• Listen to the sounds around you and focus on the sound of your breath

• Allow sounds and weather to enter you through your skin, nose, hairs, fingertips… senses.

• Be conscious of the sounds under your feet as you walk.

• Observe and find beauty in nature’s life and death.

• Place a mirror below your nose and allow yourself to move slowly as you enjoy the view above

• Close your eyes and have a partner lead you

• Periodically ask yourself: what these sounds and experiences inspire?

Close your eyes and empty your mind… focus on just listening to sounds. Falling leaves, a running brook, your own breath.

Then create!

• Take a journal and jot down your impressions or draw.
• Photograph what you see.
• Allow the sounds or impressions entering you to drive creative movement or dance.
• Just enjoy your day, feeling beautifully connected with nature.

Reach up and capture the sun!