Getting out in the world – regardless of the cold and wind – and tramping around in nature is simply invigorating. I will admit to not always loving the first 100 feet or so as the wind buffets me and the snow stings my face, but nature walking provides something both calming and invigorating at the same time.
It somehow calms my soul but invigorates my spirit.
It takes a bit of walking, but after a few minutes, the distracting thoughts of my daily life drift into the background and I become more present in my surroundings. This is the point where I really “find myself in nature”. This is the calming part. I begin to see patterns, hear birds or the grass rustling in the wind. This is when the cold or wind is no longer annoying- it is just another attribute of my surroundings.
What I further find, is that those “distracting thoughts” that slid into my subconscious didn’t go away. Instead, by moving them out of the active portion of my brain and then returning to them after a nice walk, I am able to work through them as if the “muscle that was working on them” has a chance to recover just a bit and it approaches the problem with a renewed strength.
I truly believe that nature every day is critical to our health and wellbeing. We have adapted over millennia to being in nature, not in homes and offices; we are adapted to walking and climbing, not driving and typing; we are animal who have become so adept at modifying our surroundings that we have almost convinced ourselves that the coffeeshop is our natural habitat. It is not, and I believe that we do ourselves a great injustice by depriving ourselves of nature every day. It turns out that studies support this.
Long hikes, backpacking, river trips, etc. are all wonderful- but I believe that we will be better off, and we will work to protect all the wild places, if we find ourselves in nature as often as possible.
This is why I find walking both calming and invigorating. This is why I ramble.
Nature, every day. 
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