Warning:  I live in Santa Fe and am spoiled.  However, these secrets have worked wherever I lived!  Later, I'll work on mini-guides to Santa Fe NM, Maine, and maybe a few more. Let me know if you are interested.

I am a photographer.  Long before that I inherently was a nature enthusiast. My childhood was chaotic in the midst of middle class security. I lived in a small town in New Hampshire. Family = combat zone on many levels, though it had some moments and intrinsic treasures too. Treasure one: my mother gifted me with ways of seeing beauty. Gift 2: my backyard which included a field, gardens, and some woods.  Here I discovered life, God, and abundance. I was 2 or 3 years old and claimed it.

By age three, around sunrise, I would awaken, get dressed, and try to silently creep out of a very creaky house into the yard.  All I had to do was be home for breakfast and not make much noise outside (to avoid waking my mother).  The outside world was wonderful and full of adventure. Dew on grass. Kittens playing. Birds singing. A rooster somewhere crowing. A new flower. My swingset. Nobody to aggravate me.

New England weather can be challenging. Cold. Gray. Long winters. Many people always complain about the weather. As one seeking something beyond my surroundings and turmoil, I chose to (and through the years over and over again) discover the wonder in what is. My focus usually centered around nature, spirituality, and the good I might see in humans. Without reading books, and by creative childhood analysis, I randomly chose to be a positive thinking feeling person despite apparent circumstances.  This became a helpful tool, for I also experienced considerable emotional anguish.

Energy. Nature provided me with an eternal source of energy and zillions of ways to renew. So, simply put, this article is about:  get outside and get outside yourself. "Easy", you could say, "You live in a beautiful environment!"  Yes, and I have lived in dirty cities, in slums, or near slums, on the wrong side of town in some smaller cities. I will show you how to use these techniques wherever you live.  Some people I've known live in mansions, or very nice upper middle income neighborhoods, and don't access these ideas.

As a photographer, I am often looking outside myself. I have acquired supervision as my brain automatically thinks, "is there a good picture here?" I spent many years in my thirties and early 40's studying art in art school. How do we see? What do we see?  How do we express it? What are our passions...on and on. 

I am also a very intuitive person who looks within, feels things, images, etc.  If I didn't have to work for a living, I could become very reclusive. Normal art personality some think.  Combining these two aspects of personality gives me many venues to create energy.

Picture: 5:30 PM. Step out of the building you've been in all day. Exhausted. It's raining. Instead of running to the car, calling the cab, or....take a moment to stand in the rain. Feel a few cold drops. Smell the fresher air. Look at a reflection in a puddle. Then if you must, run to catch the subway.

Picture, living in a third story apartment, on a street of other apartment buildings, the view is other apartment buildings.  It's February, looking up and down the street from your window all you see are shades of gray. A few cars. No one is outside. Clouds. Then your eye catches the silhouetted tree. Let your eye study that tree, the strength of the trunk, the gentle upward flow to the branches.  Each branch has a story to tell, a network to build and reaches toward (ultimately) the sky. Breath.

Perhaps there isn't a tree, or the call of some far off bird. Perhaps pigeons even have moved from the neighborhood. Hopefully chemical polluting smoke stacks don't mask the sky You might give a look at te next building and become intrigued with the cracks in the motor or sidewalk or the shadows dancing between window panes. You are outside yourself in a gentle relaxing way.  You have open up a space for you to be. Energy flows as easily as breathe.  The more you focus, on what is, the more you expand. The children's arguing or fussy momentarily subsides. Memories of your grandmother may emerge. You relax.

As you can see, whenever you are you can literally go outside. If you do leave the building and walk for 2-5 minutes you can change your whole mood and perspective. Yes if you are really filled with contemporary angst, you may need a longer walk. The shift of focus allows you to claim all the energy you need. This is true whether you are enjoying exotic vistas in Santa Fe NM, or if you are strolling in a small town in Kansas. In Kansas you may stop to notice a blde of wheat just before a seed bursts. You gasp a bit at the wondrous gift earth and you provide as you commune with that moment.

In Baltimore, I might sit on a street bench and talk with a homeless man and enjoy the ingenuity that he uses to survive, whilst loving his telling me the best way to eat an avocado, information from a previous life.

Each example here opens the heart and mind. When we move beyond our internal stews and clutter, we move beyond our limitations. You'll taste the power of the gardener, or cowgirl and be renewed, as only outside can.  Mary MacIntyre