A breeze quickens in the middle of the forest, and all the tree branches turn in unison, revealing the undersides of the leaves and changing the color of the canopy. 

The birds startle and take flight together, suddenly, and your heart gets startled with them, surprised by their sudden motion.

You look up at the sky through the branches, taken by their beauty, feeling the light dim as clouds pass across the sun, and instinctively monitor the fussing in the branches, relieved to hear it subside when the sun peeks out again from behind the cloud cover.

We are nature, just like the birds, the clouds and the trees, we’re made of the same elements, we engage in a free energy exchange with our world when we breathe and when we eat, we’re tuned into nature’s cycles, we return our substance to the earth when we die.

Once this realization kicks in, reality looks a lot friendlier, a kindred spirit of sorts, in whose essence we partake without even realizing. Home.

We feel a storm approaching in the tense stillness that precedes it. We learn the movements of the sun so we can tell the hour and the season, we know higher ground by the direction of a stream.

Poets said we are stardust, but we needn’t go as far as the stars. We are of the Earth, and that should be enough.

We are attuned to the places we inhabit and synchronize with their rhythms, crops and weather; we unconsciously align ourselves with our surroundings, pick up on their subtle cues and act upon them without thinking, with a shiver, a startled gaze, a reaction to a sound.

Because everything is made of matter, the things inside our world, as well as us, we tend to forget the other half of being, energy, which runs through everything, animating life and motion, and knows no boundaries in its endless movement, connecting all the components of reality, be they inorganic or alive, in its cohesive web.

Pay attention to this energy exchange, to the heat of a stone baked in the sun warming your hands, to the spark of static energy you discharge when the air is dry, to your pruny skin, proof that your body has relinquished its water to the larger volume surrounding it.

We share energy with the air when it’s too hot or too cold, or when we hear a sound.

If you sit still with your eyes closed and try to feel the world around you, you may sense this invisible pulse of life surrounding you and passing through you.

Our ancient instincts are still there, buried under centuries of civilized behavior, and we’re not that different from the wildlife when it comes to feeling the unseen shifts of energy around us: we still feel safer with our feet on solid ground and our breath still matches its rhythm to the wind.

In conclusion, what are the points worth remembering?

1. We share the same building blocks with everything in nature, be it life or inorganic matter.
2. We are constantly engaged in an energy exchange with our environment.
3. Our bodies unconsciously align themselves to their surroundings to live in balance: we adapt to the local weather, crops, daily rhythms, and landscape.
4. We are in nature, and we are nature.
5. Energy moves freely around us, through us, and through everything else.
6. At a basic level, there is no real boundary between us and our surroundings.