What finds you when you slow down

Hi there,

This week, I shared a dance with a deer.

I noticed it perched so serenely in the woods just outside my window. What amazed me was how I didn’t plan it.

It found me.

When I saw it, it felt like the most natural thing to ask — silently, from the inside — “May I dance with you?”

I felt a gentle yes.

And then I sat on the ground, in quiet, just like the deer. My instincts felt the pull to simply be — taking in the sun, the air, and the stillness with this creature.

It felt like a lesson the deer wanted to teach me.

When I did this, something shifted.

I felt connected. Not only to the deer, but to all of it — the trees, the woods behind my house, and to life itself.

I realized, at a level deeper than thinking:

We all belong.

No one can own anything from greed or fear, because we are all part of everything.

A few days later, I took some time to dance with a towering tree in a park in my neighborhood.

What amazed me again was how easy it was to simply lean in — to its support, its massive presence, its energy.

Even something as simple as leaning my back against it became something more.

Time slowed. My attention turned upward and outward. I noticed the branches swaying in the wind, their shadows playing around my feet.

And much like with the deer, it took me beyond myself into something bigger. More connected.

For my whole walk home, reality stayed slowed down. The city blocks I walk every day seemed less frantic.

Life felt like I could finally exhale.

I’m sharing this because I think we forget how available this is.

Not as a special retreat or a weekend workshop or a trip somewhere far away.

But right here. Right now. In the woods behind your house. In the park on your block. In the tree you pass every day without noticing.

The connection is always there.

We just have to slow down enough to feel it.

What I’m learning — again and again — is that the most meaningful experiences often aren’t the ones I plan.

They’re the ones that find me when I’m present enough to notice.

A deer in the woods.
A tree in the park.
A moment that shifts everything.

These aren’t accidents. They’re invitations.

And the body is how we answer them.