Your Most Peaceful Experience?

[OzPiper]

That's a very peaceful scene... Until somebody lays an egg.

If you shat something that big, you’d want everyone in the whole wide world to hear about it

 

[MattRVA]

Title edited for caps and brevity. Original: "What is the most peaceful experience you have ever had?"​

I am on vacation this week and getting to smoke and contemplate in some great weather. I was smoking this morning and I remembered a moment in my early years that I had forgotten about. I am 59 years old and live in suburbs with airplanes and cars and noises all the time. I remembered when I was about 29 years old I went hunting with some friends (I wont kill animals but love the outdoors and just go for the enjoyment). My friend directed me to a pine thicket. Huge tall pines and the forest floor was covered with pine needles. No undergrowth due to pine needles so i could easily see 50 yards. I sat against a huge pine and it started drizzling rain. I was dry but it became so quiet. No planes or cars and no wind and the rain was soft and made the pine needles so quiet. I just sat there in absolute silence and watched squirrels, birds, and occasional deer walk past…. I wish i could experience that again….

When I first read the post I was instantly reminded of a nap I had in Georgia on a bed of pine needles in the shade on the shore of a brackish creek. We were driving from Virginia to Florida and we were young, maybe 19… that was 30 years ago. We intended to go all the way without stopping but decided to rest in Georgia. I’ve never experienced a better and more peaceful sleep, it was serene.

 

[JOHN72]

I have spent almost a month at my in-laws' house. Also a week in my in-laws' village. An area with hardly any tourism, villages more and more empty of people. You can walk in the forest, listening to the river (Miño). I simply turned off my cell phone, I didn't watch the news, TV or radio. And it was an incredible week with no worries. Disconnected from everything. Smoking a cigar, in total inner peace, reading a book. And this is priceless.

 

[Grangerous]

The most vivid was on the darkest night I’d ever experienced. Pitch black. Alone looking at the sky from a foxhole. The stars were incredible.

I said to myself, as I chose one of the brightest stars and three others, that I would commit those 4 stars to memory and seek out that pattern of stars throughout my life, to recall this moment in time.

Doing so has made me realize just how short this journey really is. If I’d only had a pipe with me then…

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I wake up three hours before anyone else in my house, grab a pipe and a cup of coffee, and I just set outside taking in the peace and quiet, or I just take a walk. I have just always woken up at exactly 5AM. It doesn't matter what time I go to bed. Anyways... I get me a daily dose of peace and quiet... before the storm.

 

[krizzose]

Title edited for caps and brevity. Original: "What is the most peaceful experience you have ever had?"​

I am on vacation this week and getting to smoke and contemplate in some great weather. I was smoking this morning and I remembered a moment in my early years that I had forgotten about. I am 59 years old and live in suburbs with airplanes and cars and noises all the time. I remembered when I was about 29 years old I went hunting with some friends (I wont kill animals but love the outdoors and just go for the enjoyment). My friend directed me to a pine thicket. Huge tall pines and the forest floor was covered with pine needles. No undergrowth due to pine needles so i could easily see 50 yards. I sat against a huge pine and it started drizzling rain. I was dry but it became so quiet. No planes or cars and no wind and the rain was soft and made the pine needles so quiet. I just sat there in absolute silence and watched squirrels, birds, and occasional deer walk past…. I wish i could experience that again….

This reminds very much of hunting deer from a blind. You don’t need to hunt to experience it, just go sit in the woods and watch.

I am convinced there is some physiological phenomenon that occurs after about 30-45 minutes of watching and looking; a heightened alertness of mind but a calm relaxation of the body. Perhaps a slightly different brainwave pattern than typical consciousness. Whatever happens, I slip into a state where active and careful watching requires virtually no conscious effort, and there’s nothing boring about it, quite the opposite.

 

[VDL_Piper]

This reminds very much of hunting deer from a blind. You don’t need to hunt to experience it, just go sit in the woods and watch.

I am convinced there is some physiological phenomenon that occurs after about 30-45 minutes of watching and looking; a heightened alertness of mind but a calm relaxation of the body. Perhaps a slightly different brainwave pattern than typical consciousness. Whatever happens, I slip into a state where active and careful watching requires virtually no conscious effort, and there’s nothing boring about it, quite the opposite.

I agree with you wholeheartedly, every sense is heightened when you spend time in bush and it is amazing to watch the wildlife resume their daily actions after a period of time. You become acknowledged and part of their world rather than an intruder.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Too many to list - for pure tranquility, the most recent that comes to mind was an evening that included sitting (after a lengthy hike, lol) high upon the Cliffs of Moher with my wife and just enjoying the view and the wind and so forth. For quiet and almost eerie, we had a park full of redwoods east of Mendocino to ourselves one afternoon a couple of years ago, that was pretty neat. Strangely, because plenty of people were around (but outdoors) the photographer at my daughter's wedding a couple of months ago grabbed a shot of me and the wife sitting and watching the ceremony and she says the expression on my face is the most relaxed and peaceful she's seen since I held our kids as babies. Have to give her credit, when I look at it, even I think I look pretty "all is right with the world".

 

[kcghost]

I suppose my most memorable were on a float trip in south Missouri. We had about 5 canoes is row on the narrow river when suddenly a wild turkey broke from the brush and flew over us at ten feet in the air. Then thirteen more flew overhead one at a time. Lovely sight.

 

[Egg Shen]

Two things, both verboten here

 

[rakovsky]

Title edited for caps and brevity. Original: "What is the most peaceful experience you have ever had?"​

I am on vacation this week and getting to smoke and contemplate in some great weather. I was smoking this morning and I remembered a moment in my early years that I had forgotten about. I am 59 years old and live in suburbs with airplanes and cars and noises all the time. I remembered when I was about 29 years old I went hunting with some friends (I wont kill animals but love the outdoors and just go for the enjoyment). My friend directed me to a pine thicket. Huge tall pines and the forest floor was covered with pine needles. No undergrowth due to pine needles so i could easily see 50 yards. I sat against a huge pine and it started drizzling rain. I was dry but it became so quiet. No planes or cars and no wind and the rain was soft and made the pine needles so quiet. I just sat there in absolute silence and watched squirrels, birds, and occasional deer walk past…. I wish i could experience that again….

That reminds me of a time this summer when I went to the Green Swamp Preserve forest in NC. It was pretty cool, with a nature trail that went for maybe 3/4 of a mile. It was off from a minor state highway, but despite there being occasional traffic on that highway, the feeling of the park was very serene. It had woodpeckers pecking on tall trees and Bob Whites out of view.