Walking in the Woods...the Grandest Inspiration

As the last of summer seeps from the leaves of the maples and devil’s club, I’m becoming more and more dedicated to spending time out in the woods, savoring the last of the warmer weather while I can, exploring new trails and collecting mushrooms. 

I’m lucky to live at the edge of a large forest where I can walk out my back door and I’m immediately in the woods, hiking in quiet solitude. Although it’s private land, owned by a large Chinese investor, it is largely unused and forgotten except for the occasional neighbor out walking the dogs. It seems like I’m the only one who knows about the forest’s substantial network of meandering trails, and the only one who appreciates its magical gifts. At a time when tensions are high and fears rampant, doesn’t anyone else know about how relaxing and healing the woods are? 

And so I’m walking almost every day and the walks are getting longer and longer. I’m falling more in love with the woods with every walk. The smells of the damp forest are so enriching. I feel like my world is expanding greatly from these many hours spent among the ferns and red cedars.

As a nature artist who is called to express the balance of life and death, the woods in the Pacific Northwest are a great inspiration due to the large amount of dead trees, decaying nurse logs and rich damp soil of the rain forests. Some days I feel so inspired I want to haul my studio out there and paint all day under the trees. But I’d rather be walking and observing the habitat than working.

At first I wasn’t sure I should be spending so much time in the woods when there was real work to be done, but I’ve come to realize that these walks are part of my work. They are essential because they enrich my spirit and the magic that the forest charges me with comes through in mysterious ways back in the studio. Furthermore, although I’m a full-time artist, art is not the one thing that defines me. The paintings and drawings I make are just children born of my dedication to understanding Mother Nature and the mysterious spirit of life. Where better to understand this realm than in the wild undergrowth of the woods?

Since I moved to the woods from Seattle almost two years ago it has become very apparent to me that I have a passion for working with plants and connecting deeply with nature. I have started gardening, and practicing herbalism and have learned the names and uses of dozens of my local plants and mushroom friends that just two years ago I was unaware of. I’ve become good at paying attention to where my happiness comes from and working with plants lights me up in a natural way that I can’t explain. While it is only in a budding stage and I can’t see where this passion will take me yet, I know enough to just have faith and follow the trail into the unknown…

What I’m really trying to say is that I am learning so much from following my bliss and allowing myself to be free and not being hard on myself for frolicking in the woods when I should be working. The woods are my greatest teacher presently and all that I am learning will come through me in my life, whether its through my art, or a beautiful meal made lovingly with fresh forest mushrooms picked that morning. 

What is your natural environment, where does your inspiration vibrate the most, and are you allowing yourself the time and space to connect to those places of joy?