Living life mindfully

Anuradha Rajan

To those who speed along life’s rushed highways, walking at a leisurely pace may seem absolutely enervating. But as someone who believes in the Japanese concept of forest bathing, Shinrin-yoku in Japanese, I was more attuned to soaking in the forest through all of my senses. True, my colony was not much of a forest, but with its multiplicity of flora and fauna it was a microcosm
of a forest.

 In practice, forest bathing can be a slow, mindful walk in nature, where you pay close attention to your surroundings using your senses, sight, smell, hearing, and touch. There is no destination or goal, other than to notice and appreciate your surroundings. This was something I enjoyed and it appealed to the pantheist in me. Additionally, the fact that forest bathing can be practiced in solitude only enhanced its appeal to me. But I digress…My thought waves were ignited today when I saw a tiny violet butterfly alight on a bucket, which had ‘FIRE’ written boldly on it.

Clearly this bucket was to be used to douse a fire in the event of one originating. I was bemused. In school we were taught that butterflies fluttered about flowers. In what way was this bucket appealing to it then?

To compound the hilarity was the fact that there was this humongous grill and right through it flew a bevy of purple beauties (yes butterflies!) and thumbed a nose at me as though to say, “I defy you to do that!”

Now think abou this: if you were playing a vigorous game of tennis or a whirlwind game of polo or even just off on a vigorous morning sprint would you have had the time to espie all this and more?

I think there would be countless resounding negatives to that. Not surprisingly I am reminded here of the proponents of slow living (yet another fad though admirable in every way) of the avant garde vibrant nouvelle GeNext ,who advocate a life full of appreciation for the slow pace of Mother Nature.

I think we may well wind up with these lines by Leigh Hunt reminding us to take cognizance of the beauty all about otherwise ignored by those living in the fast lane, What is this life/if full of care/we have no time/to stand and stare/No time to stand beneath the boughs/and stare as long as sheep or cows.