Today’s Excerpt:

What is a time you were in nature that you enjoy thinking about?

Here are a few spiritual experiences in nature that grown ups describe happening to them in their childhood.

Stefan’s story from The Spiritual Child:
“While sitting on a rock, I watched the pretty trees surrounding me. After a few minutes, I started feeling connected to the rock and the trees. It then appeared to me that the rock, the trees, and myself were part of a whole much greater than ‘Little Stefan.’”

An anonymous boy, quoted in “An Introduction to Religious Experience”
“It was a hot summer Sunday afternoon, and I was lying on my back in a [small group of trees] lost in reverie. I was not really thinking of anything, and then my mind went blank — suddenly I found myself surrounded, embraced, by a white light, which seemed to both come from within me and from without, a very bright light but quite unlike any ordinary physical light. I was filled by an overwhelming sense of Love, of warmth, peace and joy — a Love far, far greater than any human love could be — utterly accepting, giving, compassionate total Love.”

Dana, quoted in The Secret Spiritual World of Children
“It was early one morning, and I was sitting outside our house on a cinder block wall that was to be a foundation for a garage. I was facing and gazing at a chain-link fence that had honeysuckle all grown into it. The morning light was so soft, and the dew was sparkling on everything. It was almost like sensory overload. I was totally absorbed by the smells, the way the light was. And then the world just seemed to stop and I was completely transfixed. I had a sense of perfection, and I don’t know how I grasped this at three years old, but I clearly did. It was a very distinct sense that everything is perfect — this is absolutely perfect.”