Meaning

This poem by Chris Hauth speaks volumes about our experience of nature, especially now in our current situation. I resonate deeply with every line of this poem, prompting me to share it on my blog.

The poem is long but worth it ….

Here’s a recitation of the poem from Rich Roll’s podcast (snipd link):

I feel as though there are so many out there looking for meaning.
Not in a deeper spiritual way,
but instead that they are missing something.
Something fullfilling,
something that sets their wires straight.
I think that is why ultra endurance and
endurance world of adventures,
events and expeditions has gained so much appeal of late.
I believe it satisfies these needs.
This sense of purpose, sense of living to our potential.
This self realization that there is more to us
than sleeping, eating and working slash career.
Of course there is time for family and in more rare cases
unfortunately for community and church and more.
But one thing is missing in all of this.
The self. The time for self.
The time for self help, self health,
the time for spending time with thoughts, reflection,
elevated heart rate, muscular activity
and most importantly, fresh air. Nature. 
Endurance events allow for this and more.
A connection with nature, with the environment,
with its beauty, its ability to revive us.
We are hard wired for nature. To be outside.
To live connected with our environment.
To feel it, to play and struggle in it.
To be challenged by it, and therefore challenge ourselves.
This sense of adventure, challenge, struggle and realization
is what pulls people to becoming endurance athletes.
To discover their potential.
At first maybe not a huge step,
but seeing what we are capable of and growing from there.
To a new potential and all the while connecting
to our truest, rawest, inner self.
How we are hardwired as animals to nature,
to the outdoors, to a sense of feeling alive in it via activity.
Everything in it is active around us in nature.
And of course we as humans are part of this nature.
Part of this growth and vibrant balance. 
And as the athlete continues to grow to new challenges,
which then add some fear and curiosity and uncertainty to it,
which again, brings us back to our true raw self.
That human living with the outdoor, surviving outdoors
and feeling most alive when we are truly challenged physically
and mentally via nature and our endeavors in it.
Nothing can replace that. As it is our truest, rawest self.
Its buried deep down there,
but the more athletes connect with it,
the more they realize how much that dormant self
was in them and they want to unlock and unleash more.
It makes them better.
More energetic, healthier, happier,
more creative, more efficient, more connected
and therefore caring.
The stewardship of our environment and
nature begins with loving ourself in it
and feeling this connection to it.
How can one relate to the environment and
its destruction if one is foreign when in it.
But when we have felt how we are truly part of it,
that is a deeply connected and wired part of us.
We begin to unlock this hardwiring
and allow it to fire, more and more,
in order to feel alive and joyful and happy
and motivated in our days.
Not only to get out and spend time in it again,
but revitalize for work and family and community and more.
Because our own tank of self care is full
and we are connected in seeing and feeling
our potential physically and emotionally.
We need the fresh air for all of that to fire.
As I heard the other day,
in order to love others, we need to love ourselves.
We can’t give more love than we are able to give ourself. 
So knowing that we have this emptiness
and missing component in our lives,
makes living generously and giving very hard.
We are missing something.
That huge piece is our hardwired self for outdoor adventure,
physical activity and with that comes curiosity
with what we could be capable of.
Awakening the endurance athlete within. 
The one that is curious if they can achieve that goal
and once seeing that growing to a new level of appreciation
of that better, healthier, more confident,
beautiful, vibrant, energetic self.
That close outward, because on the inside,
the fire of that missing component has been lit.
The challenges we feel this inbalance,
we just can’t identify what it is.
We have become so disconnected with our potential
that we don’t know how to explain what it is.
But most once outside in nature training with a
healthy fear towards and event on the outer edge
of their current capability start to understand.
I was reading the other day about how
we no longer have these rites of passage
that young men women used to go on out in nature.
Surviving on our own, living in the world of
our environment off the land for days.
To really feel it, sleep in it, awaken it,
live off of it, and immerse ourselves in it.
We no longer have this and it might be leaving
a curious hole in our soul that is missing.
Why is it we are so curious and mystified by the outdoor life.
Adventures, raw ability in nature.
When we see those pictures or
hear the stories that it tugs at us. 
That it leaves us daydreaming.
Because we are drawn to it. 
It is who we are, how we are hardwired
from thousands of years of living in nature.
In balance with it, surviving in it,
being challenged by it, being overwhelmed by it. 
Feeling alive, on the ocean, or in the woods,
in the mountains or the desert.
It all has its effect on us.
We all think back to the beautiful moments outdoors alive.
Have we been sterilized to our fake lighting,
fake transportation, fake shelters,
fake space we call our property?
We have ignored this fundamental part of us for too long.
Where is our danger, our use of all our senses or unease. Our unease.
Where are we truly challenged in body, mind and soul?
Not at work, not at home, but in play.
In the outdoors or anything close to it.
Your senses come alive ever so gradually.
All the components and cells of your body
start awakening and firing because that is
where we are originally from.
Land, sea, air.
Coming back from this dose it fires all our senses.
No treadmill or gym can replace this.
There time passes slowly, laboriously. 
In nature time passes quickly because we get lost in ourselves.
And our thoughts in mind and spirit,
in listening to our body and soul.
It’s all happening there.
How do you think we feel after a marathon
or 50k in the woods, mountains or beautiful terrain. 
How do you think we feel after a day on oceans
or lake while rowing, sailing, swimming.
Fully powering ourselves across terrain.
Mountain biking through hills and meadows across streams.
Repeat any of these actions for a few days
in a row and our sense of self changes.
Our priorities shift, our soul exhales
and relaxes to what it knows is an integral part of it.
Nature, challenge, raw beauty and
immersive inputs all around us.
We all have an impulse to be more.
An impetus we often don’t know why or
where it came from but it is there.
Adversity creates morality.
It shows our human side, vulnerability and
therefore empathy.