New Year’s Resolution Re-Do.
Have your new year’s resolutions faded from view? Most evaporate quickly. Maybe you are in the anti-resolution camp and never set any to begin with.
If your resolutions have faded or you are just looking for an intentional practice you can get excited about, I have a suggestion. It’s an easy resolution that enhances body, mind, and spirit. The practice requires little time, but it does require intention and attention.
A Simple Intention
Simply resolve each day to connect with the natural world. In truth, we are already connected. So what’s needed is not connection, but awareness of that connection. Sadly, many of the things that make our lives more comfortable block our awareness to this connectedness. It’s easy to pretend we are isolated self-contained beings.
You can start anywhere. Simply take a breath, and as you do focus your attention on plants. Consider that our aliveness is dependent on the green world. Take a moment to move that awareness from an intellectual understanding to a heart centered one. 
Another easy way to approach this connectedness is at meal time. Wherever you are on the vegan – meat eater continuum, food originally came from plants. The green world sustains us. Stopping to focus our awareness on this connection and give thanks, the age old practice of saying grace, is an easily adoptable mindful practice.
The Challenge
What’s hard about this intention is that we get distracted and the connection fades into non-awareness. In some ways it is similar to the pictures that can be seen as either a vase or two profiles (the Rubin’s Vase phenomenon). Our brain focuses on either the vase or the profiles. But we can train ourselves to see the other.
We can plan for this challenge by setting aside a regular time to engage and a way to remind ourselves to stop and do it. With practice we can keep our connection to the natural world in focus.
So whatever your resolutions were for the new year, think about adding one more. Resolve to sense your connection. Go outside and breathe in the energy.
