FIND YOUR NATURE: NATURE + SPIRITUALITY | GARDENING GETS EASIER

BGCL Newsletter

Hi there, it’s Hillarie! This is your favorite weekly newsletter brought to you by nature. Keep reading for bold ideas and fresh perspectives on a life lived with nature.

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Spirituality in Nature

Hey there friends,

I was raised Lutheran in the midwestern plains state of South Dakota. This means 2 things:

1. It is my duty to be stoic at all times, especially when having fun.

2. I can make incredible hot-dishes and casseroles.

While these are indeed superpowers, my religious experience didn’t move my spirit in a way that made me excited to pursue more. I also left confused about whether it was possible to find a deeper connection with life without an organized religion.

I saw people in the church who had a thriving spirit in them and I wanted to feel alive like they did.

But, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t overcome obvious discrepancies in the faith, such as blonde-hair, blue-eyed Palestinian Jesus. The math ain’t mathin.

After going off to college, I abandoned church. Over the years, I’d occasionally dip into a service, hoping to find something. Each time, I was digging deeper to figure out what really moved me. I dabbled in different denominations, but nothing really felt right. I worried that religion was my only path to finding deeper peace and belonging.

Catching the Spirit in Nature

As a tried and tested millennial, nothing makes me more uncomfortable than middle parts and discussing religion/spirituality publicly. However, nature has revived some deep spiritual connection in me that I didn’t know existed.

When we left the city for the life in the country, I did not expect to fire up my search for the spirit. But as spring warmed into long summer days, something in me started to shift. I started spending more time outside and feeling excited to be in nature.

I found myself staring at seemingly nothing—birds, trees, grass, rocks—and time flew by; I was in another world.

I started paying attention to what was going and what was coming through the seasons. I noticed subtle changes that felt magical to witness: moss creeping across the forest floor, emerging flower buds, and new life springing out of an old stump. Each discovery was wondrous and expansive in a way that I had never experienced.

One afternoon in the early stages of this affair, I was on a weekly call with my Episcopalian priest friends and I said, “Something weird is happening.” They both laughed, probably familiar with people having such unsettling spiritual encounters.

Not only was I seeing a new world, I was hearing one too.

Conversations between so many living things that I hadn’t heard before, and suddenly, I found myself in the middle of them. My favorite time/location for nature sounds was mid-morning at the back edge of the forest. There’s something about the way the sounds hang in the air at that time. It’s so soothing to soak in the sweet chatter of song-birds, and admire the resonant calls of large forest birds—hawks, eagles, and owls.

Early last early summer, we had been seeing a great northern owl flying through our yard, and I was determined to see it up close. One sunny afternoon, I was laying out in the hammock looking up through these towering pine trees. All of the sudden birds starting sounding off and diving down through the tree. Moments later the the giant owl swooped in behind, and landed on a branch about five feet above my head. It was incredible, and it made me feel so alive. It was also a tad bit terrifying.

Take Me to Church

Nature has provided me an avenue for connecting with the spiritual world. Finding peace and understanding in nature has allowed me to see those qualities in myself and in others. Nature has got some kind of magnetic pull on me, and I can’t look away.

Nature has brought me into myself and grounded me in what is real in this life. It has given me the sense of belonging and connection that I have sought for a long time. It has taught me invaluable lessons, and I am excited to be in this ever-changing classroom.

My only wish is that more people could find their way back to themselves and back to nature.

May you find spaces in your life that make your spirit move and inspire you to know yourself more. Stay curious, be kind, and take care,

Hillarie

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Give it Time: Gardening Gets Easier

Putting my hands in dirt and being around bugs has never really been my thing, so I surprised myself when I declared last year that I wanted to start a garden. My husband, recalling my laissez faire approach to indoor plants, seemed somewhat concerned but supportive, nonetheless.

We filled two large stock tanks with fresh soil and positioned them just outside our living room window. I transferred seedlings from an indoor container to the beds and stepped back to take in all of the hard work. Several hours of tough work, and honestly, it looked pathetic. I thought, how is that tiny thing going to produce any tomatoes?? So I stuck a few more seedlings in the ground to ensure success.

After a few days of underwhelming activity, I started to question whether gardening was actually for me.

Do people actually enjoy this activity? Do I really want to do all this work for a few vegetables I could get at the store? Why does this feel like punishment? Without any good answers, I quickly lost interest and hoped my husband would’t notice.

A few weeks passed and I decided I needed to check on the state of the garden. I prepared myself for disappointment, but was pleasantly surprised to find that my plants were actually thriving—my husband had been watering them. And not only were they doing well, the first fruits were starting to show.

Seeing a seed that I placed into the ground grow to become this beautiful plant was a wild and beautiful experience that made my heart skip a beat.

These plants were working so hard to grow fresh produce for my family—and it all started from one small little seed. Nature was showing me how to be the ultimate collaborator by returning to me as much as I put into it. It felt like a coequal and caring partnership, and nature had so much to teach me.

I became fascinated with my garden and started to check on it several times a day. My dread over watering the plants became a dutiful respect for the garden that I knew was providing for me and my family. It felt good to grow my own food; my garden was taking care of us just as much as I was taking care of it.

All this to say, gardening is not easy. It takes time to develop a practice of committing time and energy to the plants so that they can give to you in return. Gardening takes consistency and patience, but it will give you so much more in return.

So if you are on the fence, just start by planting one seed. Each day, commit to care for that one seed until it can care for you.

What do you love growing in your garden? On Wednesday, I am going to share a few of my favorites and invite you to do the same. Looking forward to all the garden inspiration!