Nature’s patterns soothe the brain.
14 months ago, I sat and experienced my first guided contemplation meditation. It was during my meditation teacher training and the general consensus from me and the other students was that it was a bit Marmite. Some loved it; some really disliked it. Not an easy meditation to get into if you haven’t recently sat and engaged all your senses to pay close attention to something (in this case a pebble) for 10 minutes.
But during the somewhat surreal experience, I experienced flashes of insight; memories, associations and realisations prompted solely from the unassuming pebble, all mixed in with my magnificent observations: ‘uumm it’s dark grey with a smooth surface...’ Most of the meaningful moments derived from witnessing my own responses to the meditation prompts. Why did I feel so self-conscious about fully immersing myself and my sense of touch, smell, sight, hearing (I drew the line at taste!) on the pebble in my hands?
A few weeks later I was sitting with my then 10-year-old. He was my willing guinea pig for new meditation scripts I was writing, and he had just asked me for something a bit different to try – not another visualisation or breath meditation. ‘Shall we look at some of our beach stones?’ I asked, quickly recalling the framework for the contemplation meditation I’d recently learnt. His face lit up and the next 10 minutes passed in the blink of an eye – it turned out he was pretty good at contemplation already, could easily focus on the object on his palm with sustained curiosity. Watching him taught me a thing or two. It was all about finding something you could connect with. Finding something that absorbs you in the present moment.
Since then, I’ve used contemplation meditations of natural objects several times in the classes I teach (you can use anything to contemplate, but I prefer using things from nature). They’re mostly found objects from my local beach which my sons carefully help me collect. I still find this type of meditation is a bit Marmite, but for some people it is the key that unlocks their meditation blockage; the realisation that mindfulness comes in many forms and simply looking at the pattern, colour and texture of a leaf, pinecone, flower, seashell or feather is meditation. And our younger counterparts generally seem to like this more tactile and ‘open awareness’ style of meditation.
I read a book on Forest Bathing a while back (I plan to dedicate a future blog post to this!) and one small paragraph caught my eye. It explained that the human brain is soothed by ‘fractal’ patterns. These are the ‘rhythmic’ patterns present in nature like the bark of a tree, the veins on a leaf, snowflakes, and clouds. Fractal patterns are complex geometric shapes that ‘exhibit similarity across scales’ meaning they look similar when viewed at completely different sizes. Scientific studies have shown our brains find these patterns pleasing to look at. Some even demonstrated that people shown ‘fractal’ patterns and images began to emit Alpha brain waves. These are the calmer waves we experience during times of deep relaxation, such as during meditation. No wonder mixing the two together using contemplation meditation of an object containing fractal patterns can be so effective and feel like such a natural thing to do, if we only open ourselves up to it.
This brings a whole new respect for the good old fashioned ‘nature table’ we always had as children at home and school that I adored collecting, rearranging and rummaging amongst. It helps explain why being in nature is so calming; it works on so many different levels that we barely even understand that all work together to reduce stress and create moments of joy or connection. I’ve been surprised by how much positive feedback I’ve had from my classes in response to the beach stones I offer around to hold when meditating. ‘Will they think I’m a bit weird offering these around?’ I sometimes wonder. But often people ask to take them home or return to the next class with their own stone. One regular (you know who you are!) shared with the group that she’d started carrying a few favourite stones in coat pockets and would simply hold them as she went about her usual day to day life, whenever she wanted to bring a sense of calm or a feeling of being grounded. And now I get it – simply holding or observing a small part of the natural world can calm us, can settle us, can anchor us – it doesn’t just work on those used to meditating or dedicated nature lovers. It is an innate instinct to place our palm on the bark of a tree to discover how it feels or to become absorbed in the fractal patterns of tide lines on the seashore.
I recently saw one of my sons holding a small rock he found on holiday while we watched a film. He looked calm, content; fingers silent and still, not fiddling, not nail biting or fumbling the remote. Hmmm, I thought. Interesting. You don’t need to sit and contemplate a stone in a silent, minimalist room for 5 minutes to get the benefit. There is no special time or place for mindfulness, for taking comfort from nature. I may not have the space (or the relaxed attitude to piles of muddy leaves!) to have an entire nature table in my house, but I’m going to take my shells and stones and driftwood out of the boxes I store them in for my classes, and I'm going to put some around the house in places they can be accessed easily. In places they can be picked up, if only for a moment or two, providing that mini reset we often need. To create that moment where we remember the infinitely incredible and awe-inspiring geometry in nature. To pause if only briefly in those complex fractal patterns that can bring us into the now and let everything else fall away.