Sometimes, you literally have to get off the beaten path

A journey off the beaten path affords benefits for body, mind and soul.

Getting somewhere is a national obsession. It doesn't matter where - somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. Consider how much of your day is spent commuting to and fro, shopping here and there, traveling hither and yon, and driving near and far. Coupled with this compulsion to get somewhere is the craving to be electronically connected to everyone you know, everywhere you go, anytime you go.

But sometimes in life getting from Point A to Point B is not the point. Staying in touch in cyberspace keeps you out of touch with your inner space. So if you're driven to drive and it's driving you crazy, stop. If you're consumed by your commute, stop. If you're running ragged from running errands, stop. If you're entrapped by your electronics, stop. As Lily Tomlin famously said, "The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat."

A rat with a cell phone glued to its ear, no less, and addicted to twitters and texts.

Step aside from that race, get off the beaten path, and take a time out. One of the best places to do so is a little known and overgrown footpath in some woods somewhere. Not an asphalt bicycle highway, not a trail mowed wide enough for the cavalry. Just an unkempt, un-manicured dew-drenched path that goes nowhere in particular but takes you where you need to be. A path where you can stroll aimlessly yet mindfully. Such a footpath does wonders for the soul and yields serendipity from the forest floor to the canopy of the trees above.

This path is for stopping more than for going and for listening more than for talking. Stopping is hard enough, but listening is a lost art. Without the ubiquitous surround-sound of our electronics-dominated lives, silence can be unsettling. Just take some time. When you pause, you'll hear nothing at first - until that unmistakable tiny noise approaches: mosquitoes. Slap on some DEET and don't whine about the whining. Listen some more. There is, as it turns out, a lot going on.

Commotion in the treetops: a gang of blue jays squawking over a red-tailed hawk. A jackhammer on wood: downy woodpecker drilling for insects. A buzzing crescendo: annual cicadas revving up their summer serenade. And there's the wind: the unmistakable susurration of leaves in august oak trees.

We are a visual species, relying first and foremost on our sight. So, look. Get down on your knees and try the cricket's-eye view of the world. From a ground cricket's perspective, what matters in life is not the market, the mortgage or car payments. What's important boils down to finding food, avoiding becoming food, singing cricket love songs and making more crickets.

At ground level this time of year, you're also likely to see lots of eight-legged beasts. Some spiders, yes, but mostly daddy longlegs. These arachnids are not true spiders. They're in their own group, or taxonomic order, called harvestmen. They may creep you out but relax. Lacking venom glands and mouthparts for piercing skin, they won't hurt you. Take heed of the folk wisdom about daddy longlegs. If you kill one, according to an old wives' tale, it will rain the next day. People also used to say that daddy longlegs could help a farmer find lost cattle. All he had to do was pick up a daddy longlegs and hold seven of its legs. The remaining leg would point to the errant cattle.

While you're down there near the ground, check out the botanical gems on the forest floor. Path rush, or Juncus tenuis, is a wispy but tough plant that grows in bunches of narrow, grasslike leaves. It's a downtrodden plant but it's resolute in righting itself. Whether trampled by deer or dogs or the lug sole of a hiking boot, the path rush picks itself up to grow skyward again. There's a lesson to be learned here. Observing the tenacity of this plant, the Cherokee made decoctions of path rush leaves and applied them to athletes "to enable them to spring quickly to their feet if thrown to the ground," according to John B. Hare's Web site of religion, mythology and folklore sacred-texts.com.

Some plants on the path beg to be touched; others dare you to touch them - poison-ivy being in the latter category, of course. But a wonderful plant to learn tactilily is silky wild rye. This knee-high grass grows in healthy woodlands, and you'll know it by the velvety soft underside of its leaf blades. And you've got to touch the touch-me-not, so named because the least provocation will cause its fruit capsules to catapult small seeds in every direction. The volley of fire always comes as a surprise. You'll soon be hooked on triggering these Lilliputian explosions.

Not to be overlooked is a distinct calling card on the path. "Droppings" is the most printable vernacular term; scientifically, the term is scat. Many people turn up their nose at the sight - or mention - of scat, but hold on. Get over the gross-out factor and think about what scat can tell you about the woods around you. You'll know that there's an animal around, even if you can't see it. When you know what came out of that animal, you know what went into it. And when you know what went into the animal, you know what it does for a living, or its ecological niche. Is there kibble in the droppings? Domestic dog. Fur, feathers, bones, berries? Coyote or fox. Is the scat in the middle of the trail? Canid scent marking. On top of a fallen log? Raccoon. You may never see the animal in question, but you will certainly know of its presence by the souvenirs it leaves behind.

Your sense of smell may be involuntarily recruited for use on the path. A rank odor tells you without a shadow of a doubt that either a skunk or skunk cabbage is nearby. The latter, although unpleasant, would be preferable to the former. At this time of year, skunk cabbage's putrid flowers are long gone but its gargantuan leaves carry on its fragrant reputation. It stinks to high heaven, but its medicinal uses fill pages in old herbals. Its aroma will quickly readjust your perspective on life.

Your path may please and not just offend your olfactory sense. For some people, the earthy smell of the leaves and logs and soil and humus can trigger a "smell memory," in the Proustian sense. Whether or not you have such a memorable experience, the smell of the woods is likely to evoke a positive feeling that will be indelibly imprinted in your mind.

The upper reaches of the trees are another world altogether, but few adults climb trees, which is a shame. There's nothing like swaying on a branch in the midst of a leafy treetop 80 feet above the ground. Dr. Nalini Nadkarni of Evergreen State University is a pioneer in forest canopy ecology and an evangelist for the spiritual value of trees. She has gone out on a limb - quite literally - to draw other disciplines into her canopy research, "using nontraditional pathways to raise awareness of nature's importance," as reported in National Geographic. Nadkarni has worked with "prisoners, artists, dancers, musicians, loggers" and even native Inuits who have never experienced a tree in their entire lives. Taking this eclectic assortment of people into the tall towers of cellulose and chlorophyll, she helps them discover the essence of trees. The treetop experience reveals the paradox of being spiritually grounded "between earth and sky."

You don't have to climb a tree eight stories high, however, to connect with the natural world. With your feet planted on the spongy soil of your wooded path you can touch a 200-year-old tree trunk and a year-old sapling. You can look straight up and watch warblers in the coruscated light of the canopy. You can hear to a cacophony of insects and a chorus of birds. You can smell the ephemeral musk of a red fox and the enduring perfume of wild mint. You'll find that you are in the midst of nature and nature is in your midst.

Along this footpath where the going is slow and the distractions are a delight, the most important thing is to be still enough to listen. In Nadkarni's book, "Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees," she quotes the German novelist Hermann Hesse. "When we have learned how to listen," wrote Hesse, "then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen - wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness."

A footpath in the forest is a fortunate find. Go find one. Ditch the car keys, the smartphone, the earbuds and the GPS. Step in, stop, listen. You'll discover that, as George Harrison sang in "The Inner Light," you can "arrive without traveling."

You are somewhere special, which is an important place to be.

• Naturalist Valerie Blaine explores the paths less traveled in Kane County's natural areas. She can be reached at blainevalerie@kaneforest.com.