Nature is not free

We say it is free, that nature is free, but it’s actually not. There is a very high opportunity cost associated with it. Perhaps because we say it is free, we cheapen its actual value. We take it for granted, instead of seeing it for the Divine, complete, living being that it is. It is not free. Instead, we should say it is “available.”  To really listen to it, and honor it, is to re-orient our lives around its truth. 
And there is a very high opportunity cost associated with choosing her ways. It costs nearly everything, because it requires walking away from the cultural values and rewards.

It is literally a choice between living and dying. Health and disease. Empowerment and disempowerment. Humanity and inhumanity. 

To choose to “walk the way of the woods” requires turning away from the culture, and turning towards the Divine. It requires a day-in, day-out, exercising of this choice. Of growing up. Of taking complete responsibility for our lives. Of turning away from that which is familiar and turning towards that which is empowering. Divine. 

While it can look weak, like a retreat from "real life," on the outside, it is actually an act of great power to stand staunch against the familiar ways of the culture. That which hurts, damages - even when it’s familiar - and choose to embody ones own power. Turning away from the culture requires strength, grace, and trust. 

For me, it is the embodied path to the Divine.