This is how everything changes.

We haven’t had a slow news week in what feels like forever.

Violence in the Middle East, mass arrests on campuses, divisive Supreme Court cases, a former president on trial—all this conflict piled atop our everyday stresses makes it hard to look ahead without a sense of foreboding. And this is why it is so important to withhold some of your precious attention for more positive vistas.

“I figured being in beautiful environments would be good for our mood and mental health. But I wasn’t expecting the evidence that it also improves our attention and cognition.”

Those were the words of fellow journalist Florence Williams when I interviewed her about her 2017 book, The Nature Fix. Williams was also “blown away” she said, when she read studies showing that “when we experience even little shots of awe, like a sunset or an unexpected butterfly, it can make us actually more compassionate and generous. I have this new plan that we need to line the halls of Congress with potted ficuses and unleash some butterflies!”

We can do that one better here at Western Hills. Just yesterday, walking the paths with some first-time visitors from Vermont, I remarked to them how our vistas change constantly. Not just seasonally—as fresh combinations of shoots, leaves, and blooms explode into being, only to later retire—but monthly, weekly, daily, and even hourly.

I’m not kidding. The experience of a morning fog-walk in the garden is entirely different that of a sunny afternoon stroll or a pre-sunset amble—with soft, mottled light filtering through the verdant, variegated canopies—or a wet winter day, stone runnels flowing like little rivers, tree frogs in hibernation, the weeping cypresses shedding actual tears.

Even taking a different-than-usual route around the garden completely changes how it looks and feels. I’ve spent a fair bit of time here these past couple of years, and I’m still discovering new vistas and favorite spots as I make my rounds. I even manage—still!—to sometimes get a bit lost. Blissfully.

“In ordinary life,” Williams told me, “we suffer from an onslaught of stimuli that taxes our frontal cortex, especially, leading to fatigue and a kind of general grumpiness. When we’re in nature, the frontal lobes get a break, and other parts of our brains get turned on, like parts governing empathy and daydreaming and self-concept.”

More empathy and daydreaming. Less venality and destruction. To me, at least, that sounds like a pretty sweet plan.

Learn in the garden.

Meditations on ecological change

Shout outs.

An abundance of spring vistas