Sidetracked and consumed by everyday life, we often forget or ignore the natural healing powers of nature.

A stroll between the trees, a walk along a stream, a hike up a mountainside connect us with nature. We breathe more deeply, our heart rate slows, and we are soon distracted from our cares.

Nature offers her wonders even if we have few options or little time. Next time you pass a tree – or any plant, indoors as well as outdoors – stop. Notice.

Run your fingertips over the bark or around the edges of a leaf or blossom. In the most delicate, there is strength. In the strongest, thickest barked trunk, there is gentleness.

Lean in and fill your nose with the unique scent of that particular species, that particular being. Did you know some trees smell like vanilla or cinnamon? Or that some of the prettiest flowers smell like a skunk in heat?

Be brave and silly enough to sit beside that plant – even if it’s cactus or swatch of grass you’ve chosen – and wrap your arms around a tree’s trunk. These amazing, generous creatures live off the carbon dioxide we exhale and give us the oxygen we breathe in return!

Or look up. Into that endless sky. Is it cyan blue, baby blue, or dark indigo blue? Watch the clouds travel and change shapes or watch the moon partner with a planet as it glides from horizon to horizon and the stars rotating in recognizable clusters.

Need more to release your worries and stresses? Your grief or pain?

Watch the tiny dust specks dancing in that narrow ray of sun shining through your window. Who knew dust could be so dynamic and interesting. And pretty.

Or the snowflakes melting as they land on your hand. Or the rain soaking your sleeve or running down the windowpane. Or the wind tangling your hair and making you wish you’d remembered a scarf or howling until you want to howl with it. (Go ahead and howl.) Or the beautiful iridescent wings of the house fly that just will not leave you alone. Or the bird singing outside your window. Or, or, or . . .

Take a deep breath.

Nature nurtures our hearts and souls. We need only notice she’s always all around us, little and grand. She hugs us every moment of our lives.