I’ve always been fascinated by words. From childhood I’ve loved reading and writing, and my adult working life was specifically focused on words, as a medical transcriptionist/editor.

Sacred, meaning worthy of reverence and awe, is one of my favorite words to describe nature, but I also enjoy learning interesting, lovely new words related to the natural world. For example, psithurism is the sound of wind in trees, and petrichor, the smell of rain. A nemophilist is one who loves the beauty of forests, an orophile a lover of mountains, and Yugen is profound awareness of the universe that triggers deep feelings.

One word that especially resonates with me is solivagant, wandering (alone). Wandering invariably reminds me of a favorite movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo.” Madeleine went wandering. Her husband told Scottie, “And she wanders – God knows where she wanders.” Madeleine herself said, “Only one is a wanderer. Two together are always going somewhere.” Scottie doesn’t agree with that; neither do I.

I’ve been fortunate to have people in my life who enjoyed taking off down the road without an agenda other than to see what’s over the next hill, around that curve, enjoying the journey, communing with nature. We’ve been surprised by a traffic jam of goats, deer families, creeks running across roads, unexpected rainbows and patches of icy spring snows, an expansive patch of Turks cap lilies, joe pye in autumn, ducks and fishermen sharing the river in summer. There are many good memories to be made during an afternoon of wandering. I blame my love of “loafering,” as we southerners sometimes call it, on my parents and our weekly Sunday afternoon drives with no idea where we were going or when we’d be back, and it has carried into my adult life, via car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, boat, foot, and even by canoe.

Wandering has a history among some favorite nature writers as well. Thoreau, Emerson, and Muir “sauntered” in Nature as a form of spiritual practice and solitude, while Edward Abbey encouraged us to “ramble…and contemplate the precious stillness out yonder, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space.” 

Wandering can lead us as far from home (or keep us as near) as we like. It’s about taking time to slow down and appreciate what’s around us without being in a hurry or on a rigid schedule, and as J.R.R. Tolkien reminds us, “Not all those who wander are lost.” It can be as simple as exploring our own neighborhood, paying more attention, maybe seeing something we’ve never noticed before as we sped by on our way somewhere else.

Sunday is a great time to wander, and autumn, coming soon, is also a perfect time, seeing leaves change their glorious hues under clear blue skies, experiencing that crisp “feeling of fall” that’s hard to explain, perhaps being fortunate enough to happen upon one of those roadside stands selling apples, pumpkins, and fresh cider. I hope wherever and however you wander, you’ll allow the sacredness of nature to renew and inspire you.

(original version of this post published in the Universal Pantheist Society’s Pantheist Vision)