Where The Air Is Clear

Spent this weekend in Forest Lakes, Arizona, which is right outside Payson. We stayed at the Arizona Highway Patrol Association’s cabin. It is cabin that my Boy Toy’s family has been coming to for years. A wonderful perk from my father-in-law being a retired DPS officer.

It’s been chilly up here. True sweater weather. Thankfully there is a working fireplace with plenty of chopped wood to keep the fire going. Even in this month of May, there is still snow on the ground in many places. The last frost of winter trying to hold on.

I’ve spent my time up here trying to detox from the stress of moving and other personal issues that usually plague a woman’s good eight hours of sleep.

One of the highlights for me on this trip was sitting on the banks of the Black Forest Lake knitting and watching the fathers with their sons sharing in the time honored tradition of fishing.

It has been almost four years since the last time I was at this cabin. The cabin itself has changed- new paint job, updated flooring and new bricks around the fireplace. But one thing I’m happy for that hasn’t changed is the peacefulness of being surrounded by nature.

In the middle of a forest, away from the cares of everyday life, one can renew their purpose. You not only recharge, you also learn what you are truely recharging for. As Oprah would say, you experince an, ‘Ah!’, moment when things start to make sense.

I believe that everyone should be allowed a time to step away from the world, smell only the scent of ceder and pine, and wake up only to the sound of one’s heartbeat.

If for a week or just a day, escape from your life and rediscover what you are living for.

Knitting With Nature

We knit in our homes. We knit at the local Starbucks. And for those of us daring enough- we even knit in church. But how many of us take the time to knit in Nature? Usually, when we think of camping, we picture ourselves leaving any reminders of the city life behind. And for many people this includes their knitting.

Yet, has not knitting been our way of revolting against our current society? Have we not taken up needles and yarn as protest to the fast and easy life technology tries to tell us we need? Knitting has always been an icon for protest and a calling to go back to a simpler time. So why should it be left behind with the IPad, IPhone and MP3 player?

I brought my knitting and my spinning with me on a recent trip to the Mountain Ridge Cabins in Payson, Arizona. As I sat outside our cabin one morning knitting I found myself closer to nature then I had ever been before. The soft clicking of my needles matched the trickling sound of the brook nearby. My content stillness attracted butterflies and even then breeze seemed to brush by with welcoming warmth.

What is being labled as the “slow movement”, goes hand in hand with Nature. Mainly because this movement is not some new eco-hippie fad, but an authintic desire to reconnect with the land around us.

We may have lost most of our humanity, but no amount of technology and mega marts can wipe out our natural instintic to return to the Earth. So, knit in the woods. Spin in the forest. Crochet in the medows. Weave among wildlife. Reconnect with Nature, least we forget we are only animals after all.