I’ve stopped reading books on how to find God.

Everything I need to know about God/dess is revealed through Nature, if I’m willing to sit and listen.

The magical elixir? A sense of wonder. It’s impossible to experience la dolce vita without it.

Clients constantly ask me: how can I connect more to my soul? How do I find God? What’s my higher purpose?

Quite frankly, I don’t know. It’s not for me to answer. I wouldn’t even presume — but I do believe that those are some of the greatest questions one can ask.

Often I use the example of Siddhartha. After years of fruitlessly seeking enlightenment, he returns with a broken heart to his teacher Vasudeva, who encourages him to listen to the river. It is there, sitting on the bank, when he finally hears “Om”.

Me? I don’t exactly hear “Om” when I sit in my weathered Adirondack (more like cats crying for food), but I listen. I listen, even when my interior landscape rages from somewhat peaceful to outright chaotic. I listen to the frogs trill and the peepers peep. I listen to the whine of the mosquitoes around my ears. I listen to the birds gossip before bed and the wood thrush sing the last note. I hear cars approach and coyotes chattering — all to fall silent if I wait long enough.

I remember to ask: “What do you need, heart?”

I spent the majority of my youth seeking God, who floated above and beyond this sinful, wicked world. I carried the map of the Bible, but didn’t have a clue. I kept praying, “God, please. I want to feel you. I want to know you in my heart. Show me who You are. ”

Needless to say, I never found Him. I was told to be of but not in the world. To see the heart as “deceitful above all things.” I was told: You’re not trying hard enough to love God. Try harder.

No one taught me about wonder, except for the complex King David and his lovely psalms.

The funny thing is: clues were everywhere. I just didn’t grasp what Jesus meant when he said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

What I did eventually find when I finally stopped praying that prayer?

Love for my self in this precious body and love for this amazingly beautiful world.

In essence, love for the Divine.

And now, somewhere in all of the listening, comes a greater depth of understanding. An awareness. Sometimes even peace. Usually it reveals itself during the “tween” times before dawn or twilight, the time where spirits pass easily through this world. This sense of wonder — when regularly nourished — makes the natural world a necessary bloodline running through my life, not something to take for granted or overlook. I’d die without it.

To have a sense of wonder isn’t necessarily to know. It’s to say: I believe.

Besides … anything is magic or bullshit, depending on how you see it.

My mom, who passed in early 2010, recently came to me in a dream. I said, “Hey, Mom! How’s heaven?” She began to explain (telepathically) that “heaven” was right next to me. Not above or beyond. She kept sweeping her arm up and down to signify that it was right here, literally a step away in another dimension.

I can’t help but consider that Nature is that link, the “tween” time of our existence here, where we can more easily understand the life of now and beyond this form. This eternalness rubbing shoulders with us every day. Perhaps we are not so separate after all?

Emily had a great point on Twitter: “In Chinese the character “ren” (human) shows how humans are the connection between heaven & earth.”

And having a sense of wonder — is the beautiful opening to that portal.