When the Deer Looks Back | Dirty Zen on the Trail
- Mar 30
- 2 min read
You’re out here long enough, something changes.
Not in a dramatic, lightning-bolt kind of way. Just… slowly. Quietly.
Like mist lifting off the trail.
At first, it’s just you moving through the woods. Your steps. Your breath. Your thoughts looping like they always do. But then something looks at you.
A deer. A hawk. A goose standing still in the grass like it owns the place—because it does.
And for a moment, everything pauses. Not because you stopped.
But because something in you opened.
Not Alone Out Here
There’s a strange shift that happens when you realize you’re not observing the wild. You’re inside it. That deer isn’t “a deer.” It’s another life… looking back.
And somehow, in that glance, the edges soften. The need to understand—fades. You don’t need to explain it. You just feel it.
As Albert Einstein reminds us,
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better."
Out here, you’re not the main character. And weirdly… that’s the relief.
Softened. Stronger.
There’s something about sharing space with everything else that changes your posture in the world. You move quieter. You notice more. You take less personally.
And at the same time…You feel stronger. Not in a forceful way. In a rooted way. Like a tree that doesn’t need to prove anything because it’s already part of the whole system.
The strength comes from not being separate anymore.
The Look That Opens
It doesn’t last long. That moment. The deer turns. The goose walks off. The hawk lifts into the air like it was never really there. But something stays.
Once you’ve felt it, you can’t un-feel it. You’re not just out here anymore.
You’re with. And that changes everything.
See you on the trail.
dirt first. roam wild.
where the wild things go
"The real voyage of discovery
consists not in seeking new
landscapes, but in having new eyes."
— Marcel Proust
