New Experiences
In the last week, I have gone out hiking three different days to the same overall location accessing different trails and I didn’t feel like the same person on any of them. The fact that I was aware that I felt different is key. One felt like I got off at a different exit or was walking through a new dimension, another was as if I was a different person, and one I felt completely aligned with the environment as well as at home in it.
The one where I felt like an entirely new person was due to an animal friend sharing his feelings with me, which happens more often than I realized at first. There are times when I haven’t recognized who I was feeling as sometimes it can be people as well but given most of our animal friends have higher sensitivity levels than us, I can only imagine that what I am receiving is a taste of their walk. It can be the result of asking to understand what they are working to communicate on some level and then it is identifying the fact that I feel unlike myself to recall the ask for deeper comprehension of the message. This time it was so unlike me that I continued wondering the why for quite a while before inquiring whether what I was feeling was mine. In this experience I felt completely out of it when I thought I was alone on the trail and wanted to keep the two people behind me in close enough proximity to hear their voices – not the words – just know others were around. This is a very unusual experience to feel like that so I had to remember that I asked to feel what he was going through to more fully understand.
The one that felt like I had entered the park via another way or like an overlay was another newly felt experience. On this day, there were initially no other vehicles, and I did not see another person for over two hours. It was also more that it didn’t feel like the same park. It felt like another being was sharing an aspect of their journey with me – what it’s like to be them. To not be recognized or seen by another – and to be out of your typical environment. This is one I am still learning and exploring to understand the who that is making themselves known to me. I know this is not a current animal friend.
The last one is an understanding that we all want to be understood and accepted for who and what we are. To feel that level of aligned connection and oneness regardless of the type of being we show ourselves as. It feels so appropriate that Earth Day is this week, Saturday, April 22. Each of these experiences brings that nature connection home even more.
Adventures and hikes can feel new based on whether we choose to go one way or another on it, access one via other routes, the time of day we head out or where we go. This experience has taught me that it can also be made to feel new when our sensitivity level has shifted or increased enough that we feel and experience things like someone else.
