Mariton: Look Up!

by Tim Burris, Preserve Manager.

My buddy Marc on a Pine Barrens canoe trip.

Look up! As a kid, a normal activity for me was to lie on my back and look up at the sky for long periods.  Clouds, contrails, and tall grass were the excuse.  But laying with your body against the earth and looking up at the sky was a way to leave your body way before that was popularized by new age folks.  Were we daydreaming and being lazy?  Sure, but we did it in the snow as well as our sunny lawn.  (Watching the pattern of snowflakes and raindrops as they fall from directly above you is an awakening in random patterns.)  Can you feel a difference if you align your body with the poles (north-south) versus the equator (east-west)?

Throughout my life, I have tried to revisit that memory and spend time on my back looking up. It is quite refreshing.  Most people rarely look up any more.  We watch our feet (or phones) as we plod along, instead of relishing our surroundings.

A unique way to see a unique forest.

Ball caps make it hard to look up. Ask anyone who has smacked their head on a low beam in a barn basement.  So shed the ball cap.  Stretch out on Earth.  Watch the clouds change shapes, and the contrails dissolve.  Watch the branches sway overhead, or the stars slowly drift.  It is liberating and grounding at the same time.  It brings us closer to Earth.  Could this be your New Year’s resolution?