A healthier me

Picking raspberries in the beginning of the season is similar to picking at its end.

In the latter instance, it’s hunting among the vines for the remaining fruit while in the beginning, you search among the heavily laden vines for those berries that have ripened.

Today it was a beginning.

It was still cool but I could feel the warmth of the morning sun on my back as I moved along the lines of raspberry vines. A gentle breeze brought the scents of the meadow below into the field where I worked.

A bucolic quiet settled around me. A virtual symphony of voices provided the backdrop to my labor.

A rooster crowed intermittently reminding all of the early hour. A cardinal practiced his inventive calls somewhere below while the songs of other birds I couldn’t identify provided a country counterpoint.

A bee, not a wasp, not a hornet, but a real bee, the kind that collects pollen to make honey,  buzzed around the patch where I was gathering. I had to tell her, because it was a her since all workers among the bees are female, that there was no nectar, no blossoms here.

They had all grown into emerging berries, some, I explained to her, were ripe today.

She seemed to understand and flew down toward the flower filled field below.

I am moving more slowly, more carefully this year, propping my cane against the vines as I hunt for the berries but I find the more leisurely pace to be a strange combination of energy and serenity.

There is only me among the raspberries, me and the meadow and its lovely music. For the first time in many months, I felt a sense of peace, one that has been so elusive in my world.

The problems of the greater world and my particular corner of it were gone in the meditation of my berry basket and fingers stained with berry juice.

I have always liked this time, this activity.

At the beginning of summer when the weather eases and all things seem to be possible, I find this solitary effort so satisfying. It brings back pointed memories of my childhood when being outdoors in the woods and fields with my grandmother to gather firewood or water or berries was a treat.

It reminded me of a time in my life when I was supremely happily satisfied with who and where I was.

People smarter than I have noted that we have lost our way today.

We seek connectedness through technology, eschewing thousands and thousands of years of human history, a history that molded the humanity that we share.

There is an important book, “The Last Child in the Woods” that postulates the critical necessity of exposure to nature during childhood.

Studies at prestigious institutions have suggested that being outside in nature can mitigate deficits attributed to modern life.

That seems very plausible knowing that as humans we have only lived inside­, in the broadest sense, since the agricultural revolution some 8,000 years ago.

Before that we were forest and meadow children. Even after the invention of agriculture, life was lived outdoors.

The industrial revolution put more of us inside and the digital age, the one in which we all live now, has favored the inside child and adult.

If I take the time to go outside, the walk in the park or along the trails in Baltimore Woods, I am refreshed, energized.

The Japanese have a word for this Shinrin-yoku or Forest Bathing.

It is a known medical prescription in Japan for any number of maladies with the supposition that being in nature reduces the stress hormone, cortisol.

So, I pick the red raspberries this week and maybe the black raspberries next week. Not only will be have pies, but jars of jam and a healthier, more contented me.