October 29, 2024

Red Virginia creeper vines growing on a tall oak.

 

The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth..

-Chief Seattle

 

Acorns bulge up through the soles of my boots and sometimes crunch beneath my weight.  The oaks have pretty much stopped throwing the things at whatever and whoever is below them, but they’ve left plenty on the ground.  The black walnuts, too, have stopped dropping their fruit on the trail, though there are still plenty of black smudges where the yellow-green fruit used to be.  Many of the birds of summer have taken wing to head south and no longer fill the air with song.  Still, there is plenty of life – purplestem asters are abloom and bumblebees flit amongst their blossoms, gathering pollen.  The deep forest has lost some of its density, but it still offers a calming bosom of stillness in which to rest my thoughts.

I wonder why people are drawn to spend time in nature.  I think that is pretty much universally true, although many may feel that the impulse is better ignored than to be embraced and have to deal with what they may perceive to discomfort and inconvenience.  Many are drawn to forests, some to mountains and most people are drawn to the beach.  Sometimes we are drawn to outdoors because that is the only place where we can do certain activities, like play baseball, race cars or fly airplanes.  But, I believe, most would agree that the outdoors draws us to spend time there, at least on occasion, simply because it is there.

Sometimes going into nature is a way of getting outside of our daily routine.  In order to take a break from a place, it’s necessary to go someplace else.  If you want to really get away, you need to go someplace else that is really different.  If you’re inside, go outside.  If you’re in a city, go to the country.  If you’re around a lot of people, take the road less traveled, the one that wanders around into parts seldom visited and untouched by human hands.   When I’m out on the rail-trail with Waldo, I can’t help but feel that I’m outside of my everyday life and I can look at that life from outside of it.

I’ve heard it argued that people are drawn to the beach and breaking surf because of species memory.  Somehow, we retain a yearning for the ocean, or a lake, or a stream, that our distant ancestors felt and we left behind millennia ago.  A fish memory buried beep in our souls that we never lost as we evolved.  Some say that people like to look at idyllic pictures of meadows surrounded by forest and lakes because they put us in touch with our arboreal ancestor memories.  The trees are a safe haven, the fields offer great places to forage and the lakes provide a ready source of life-giving water.

There is something primordially appealing to communing with Mother Nature.  To me, being out in the woods and its cool shade is like going home.  I like the beach a little less because of the harsh sun, but even going outside onto a football field has its appeal.  It’s just that the woods are a little more comfortable.  High craggy mountains give opportunity for incredible vistas, although climbing their ridges can be a little daunting.  Outdoors anywhere is better than being stuck inside.

I can’t help but feel that there is something that drags at my primordial soul, enticing me to pay attention to my essence which is, after all, neither more nor less than a part of the nature that surrounds us.  I would wager that I’m not alone at thinking, on some superficial level, that I am somehow different from nature, that humanity is above all that.  What hubris!  We are all nothing more than a combination of the same elements that make up the rest of the world.  Getting away from our manmade caves of wood and mortar, or our transportation glass and metal cocoons and surrounding ourselves with an environment created by the forces of nature allows us to come in contact with a reality more fundamental than what our daily lives provide.  You want to find out who you truly are, go out and experience who you are when you are engulfed by Mother Nature, because that is your true self.

In the end, all these mental gymnastics don’t put you in nature, though.

To get there, just go outside and open yourself to the experience.

 

Beautiful sunny day on the rail-trail.

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