I'm hiking. With my son. We're in Scotland. In the Highlands. I fall in love here and open and lose my heart completely to the landscape. It's gentle and soft and at the same time raw and wild. Completely its own. We walk and walk. One step at a time I take. And as before when I've hiked, walking becomes for me a picture of the course of life itself.

An image and a manifestation of how everything is in constant change. All the time. It goes up and it goes down. Over hills and mountains. Winding paths. The weather changes from one moment to the next. The landscape changes. Every day on a hike is different. And somehow it makes you come so close to feeling like you belong. The feeling of being separate from your surroundings disappears, and it is as if the hiker breathes with nature, as if we are part of it.

It's quiet here. It's so sparsely populated here. It makes it clear here. There's nothing to disturb, and there's a kind of silence that gives me space and almost empties me. It's as if I'm calming down. As if all the space outside becomes space inside me. My thoughts become different. They're few. It's as if I can breathe a sigh of relief. Here. As if the most important thing reveals itself here and in a way all the unimportant stuff filters out. Walking here gives me the opportunity to get right back to what's important to me. To ask: What's the most important thing?

My senses open up and I breathe. I feel the ground beneath my feet and it's as if I can reach out and be with it all. The freshness. All the green colors are intoxicating. The hills and mountains as far as my eyes can see. I never get tired of looking at the landscape that opens up more and more the longer I stay in it. I open up to it and quietly it's as if I see and feel more and more layers. Without quite being able to decide whether there are more layers in me or in "that out there".

It is as if inside and outside disappear, and the movement across the ground becomes meditative. We experience that the landscape has knowledge and memories. That it gives off images and sensations. The conversations with my companion often take on a philosophical character and proceed in a flow that is so easy and so beautiful. We talk about processes and about goals. About going somewhere and taking one step at a time to get there. We talk about what is important. Is every step important? Does every step have its own quality? We fantasize about the fact that every step is new. Is it a step into a new country. We talk about what it is like to walk if all your attention is directed towards getting there. And do you not care about getting there if you are present in every step you take? Or can you accommodate both having goals and being in the process? We talk about what your attitude towards this means.

What does this desire for presence at every step and in every moment mean if you apply it to your life?
Is it possible to live like this?

When it's hard, when it goes up and up, steeply up, I take a breath. When I feel my feet burning, feel my body aching, feel like I'm close to a limit, I look down at the ground and concentrate on taking one step at a time. When I look up and can see the top. See the landscape. Then I can see that I'm getting closer. And I return to focusing on the road. At some point I'm there. And I feel that I've gotten there in a nice way. I'm with myself. Completely with myself.

I love hiking. I love hiking with my son. I love the conversations. The silence. Kilometer after kilometer in silence or conversation with another human being. I love encountering all the wisdom that nature has and so generously gives. I love the colors. My feet on the ground. So closely connected to life.

And I know that we have to take care of it. It is not a given to be able to go to places where there are no people and where there is still a form of untouchedness. It is not a given to be able to be in and look out over a fantastic landscape as far as the eye can see. It gives rise to a deep gratitude and also a deep unease. Gratitude gives rise to a wish for all of us: That we remember the preciousness of the untouched landscape. Remember to take care of it.

Kirsten Rotbøll Lassen is a visual artist and project manager for Design School at Designmuseum Danmark where she teaches children and adults. She dances, meditates and hikes, and is interested in psychology, philosophy and sustainability. Kirsten is part of the team behind the Relationship Skills Training.