nature lovin
It's easy to love a warm sunny day especially when there is time enough in your day to savor it. No matter how fast your life is traveling, a good nature setting can stop you on a dime and turn seconds long blissful hours. You think you can enjoy it more than the time allotted, but days turn into night and that speed, hectic life always gets you back. As you turn to go, you remind yourself that you will make more time in your life for more days just like this. You remind yourself, out loud, just how much you enjoy nature and that your life needs more of it. You remember how much you enjoyed nature as a kid and how good being outside is for you. No one is really sure if this is true, but I think it has something to do with our parents always telling us that it was and so we just believe it. ( really, I don't think anyone has ever done a study to see if being outside is truly good for you, better for you or necessary at all. Hmmmmmm.)
Nature is lovely and on a good day, it's easy to lose yourself in all that blissful "livingness". You can lay in the sweet smelling grass, and look at silent clouds pass by. You stare at the clouds and wonder if they are living creatures that are mimicking images that they see on earth. (how do you explain it!?) If you're lucky enough to have a tree in your field of vision, you can watch the leaves and the branches dance across the sky as the wind blows through them. Flowers are more colorful and the trees seem stronger, healthier. You start pulling out all of your bio 101 material as you look around... "This tree is an oak! And that rock is sandstone! See those clouds? The shape they're making means we are going to have a harsh winter, but it shouldn't snow until late November! I know, I took two years of biology in high school".
Rocks always seem more interesting and water is somehow softer to the touch when you have the time to appreciate them. The wild animals don't seem to mind you being there and actually seem friendly towards you and you can actually find the patience inside you that is required to watch them, a patience that you didn't know you had. The time passes slower and a ten minute nap in the tall grass seems like more sleep than you get in a week at home in bed. A warm sunny day somehow seems to be disconnected from time and space and you can stay there forever in your little nature habitat.
Of course, when we talk lovingly about nature we only talk about the parts that we enjoy. The fantasy aspects. The parts we want to think about but not all of it. We always think of warm sunny days, a soft snow fall, a warm rainy summer night, or a cool day, playing in a leaf pile in our front yard. Those are wonderful nature stories. Simple fantasies that make us go outside and take it all in with a huge smile on our face and a hug in our heart. (aaaaaaaaahhhhhh). Always absent from these stories are things like ants, bees, dog shit and water so dirty you can't even touch it without getting an infection. These too, are parts of nature, but they are the part of nature that we don't want in our dream world. Had any of us been mother nature, I'm sure the bee/dog shit portions would have been eliminated along with ticks, ants, spiders, chiggers, sand mites, jelly fish, large animals that eat small cute ones, slugs, snakes, hungry lions, tree diseases, thorns and that funky green growth that appears on rocks just under the surface of the water that makes them slippery to step on. As earthy as we like to feel when we are in nature, we really only see nature as a fantasy world that we normally neglect and take for granted and is just there when we want it to be. As we want it to be. And we take comfort in the fact that it is there and the way we want it to be. I think this is the same mentality we use when we think of political action as it pertains to nature. I think we are remembering the soft green grass when we think of "environmental issues" and not the smelly dog shit laying in the soft green grass.
I have friends that live in cities that claim that they love to go camping because it puts them back in touch with nature, which is the real reason they go camping in the first place. They love to pack up their vehicle with the tent, the food, the sleeping bag and the matches and they head out to a camp ground, pay twenty-five bucks and then set up camp in campsite number 12, which is just enough nature for them. They spend two days and nights; hiking on trails, eating prepackaged food, sitting on fold up chairs, drinking instant cocoa and staring at the fire glowing brightly in the fire pit provided too them. They sit there and they take in nature and love nature and fantasize about moving to campsite number 12 because that would be "real living". As true nature lovers, they only get to do this once a year or once every two or three years, so it's important to soak all the nature in that they can before they have to go home to their comfortable lives. I see camping a little more colorfully than that. I have had my days in campgrounds with the instant cocoa, but the best camping experiences I have ever had have been in remote areas that have no accommodations and require a great deal of reprogramming to adjust to your chosen temporary lifestyle. These are the times that the beautiful trees aren't scenery, but warmth and protection. When cute little critters can eat you and when cocoa isn't going to cut it. It's in these more involved moments that your opinion of nature will be tested the most. I think we should ask those people that get lost in the wilderness and we have to send a search party out to rescue them, what they think of nature. I wonder if during that time when they were fighting to stay warm or dry or when they were searching for food or trying not to become food, if they were enjoying the sweet grass or the slow moving clouds or the wind in the trees and if they thought they could live there.
Nature is lovely. It should be appreciated, but it should also be respected and not in the "don't litter" kind of way. Nature is not unlike an exotic pet that is lovely to look at but can still turn on you and strike you down with one swipe of it's hearty paw. It's easy to love the strips on a tiger when you are not in the cage with the tiger. It's easy to enjoy the beauty of nature, when nature isn't trying to off you.
Continue to love nature in your own way. Take in the sensory pleasure and turn it into great moments in your mind. If nothing else, the images of your fantasy nature can sustain you through dark times when life seems to have abandoned you. That is why our fantasy images of nature appear so often in our art. Our great poems, paintings, photographs and songs were all inspired by an artist's image of their own fantasy nature scene and what it meant to them in their life. Nature is as much of a muse as the lovers we want or seek out and we treat them both the same way.
I hope that my nature isn't too much fantasy. I enjoy the sweet grass as much as everyone, but I think it's unfair that I don't care for the dog shit and I wonder if that means I am a hypocrite like the rest of them. I guess this is why I didn't get the mother nature job or why they don't allow me to cruise the park at night any more...
Nature is lovely and on a good day, it's easy to lose yourself in all that blissful "livingness". You can lay in the sweet smelling grass, and look at silent clouds pass by. You stare at the clouds and wonder if they are living creatures that are mimicking images that they see on earth. (how do you explain it!?) If you're lucky enough to have a tree in your field of vision, you can watch the leaves and the branches dance across the sky as the wind blows through them. Flowers are more colorful and the trees seem stronger, healthier. You start pulling out all of your bio 101 material as you look around... "This tree is an oak! And that rock is sandstone! See those clouds? The shape they're making means we are going to have a harsh winter, but it shouldn't snow until late November! I know, I took two years of biology in high school".
Rocks always seem more interesting and water is somehow softer to the touch when you have the time to appreciate them. The wild animals don't seem to mind you being there and actually seem friendly towards you and you can actually find the patience inside you that is required to watch them, a patience that you didn't know you had. The time passes slower and a ten minute nap in the tall grass seems like more sleep than you get in a week at home in bed. A warm sunny day somehow seems to be disconnected from time and space and you can stay there forever in your little nature habitat.
Of course, when we talk lovingly about nature we only talk about the parts that we enjoy. The fantasy aspects. The parts we want to think about but not all of it. We always think of warm sunny days, a soft snow fall, a warm rainy summer night, or a cool day, playing in a leaf pile in our front yard. Those are wonderful nature stories. Simple fantasies that make us go outside and take it all in with a huge smile on our face and a hug in our heart. (aaaaaaaaahhhhhh). Always absent from these stories are things like ants, bees, dog shit and water so dirty you can't even touch it without getting an infection. These too, are parts of nature, but they are the part of nature that we don't want in our dream world. Had any of us been mother nature, I'm sure the bee/dog shit portions would have been eliminated along with ticks, ants, spiders, chiggers, sand mites, jelly fish, large animals that eat small cute ones, slugs, snakes, hungry lions, tree diseases, thorns and that funky green growth that appears on rocks just under the surface of the water that makes them slippery to step on. As earthy as we like to feel when we are in nature, we really only see nature as a fantasy world that we normally neglect and take for granted and is just there when we want it to be. As we want it to be. And we take comfort in the fact that it is there and the way we want it to be. I think this is the same mentality we use when we think of political action as it pertains to nature. I think we are remembering the soft green grass when we think of "environmental issues" and not the smelly dog shit laying in the soft green grass.
I have friends that live in cities that claim that they love to go camping because it puts them back in touch with nature, which is the real reason they go camping in the first place. They love to pack up their vehicle with the tent, the food, the sleeping bag and the matches and they head out to a camp ground, pay twenty-five bucks and then set up camp in campsite number 12, which is just enough nature for them. They spend two days and nights; hiking on trails, eating prepackaged food, sitting on fold up chairs, drinking instant cocoa and staring at the fire glowing brightly in the fire pit provided too them. They sit there and they take in nature and love nature and fantasize about moving to campsite number 12 because that would be "real living". As true nature lovers, they only get to do this once a year or once every two or three years, so it's important to soak all the nature in that they can before they have to go home to their comfortable lives. I see camping a little more colorfully than that. I have had my days in campgrounds with the instant cocoa, but the best camping experiences I have ever had have been in remote areas that have no accommodations and require a great deal of reprogramming to adjust to your chosen temporary lifestyle. These are the times that the beautiful trees aren't scenery, but warmth and protection. When cute little critters can eat you and when cocoa isn't going to cut it. It's in these more involved moments that your opinion of nature will be tested the most. I think we should ask those people that get lost in the wilderness and we have to send a search party out to rescue them, what they think of nature. I wonder if during that time when they were fighting to stay warm or dry or when they were searching for food or trying not to become food, if they were enjoying the sweet grass or the slow moving clouds or the wind in the trees and if they thought they could live there.
Nature is lovely. It should be appreciated, but it should also be respected and not in the "don't litter" kind of way. Nature is not unlike an exotic pet that is lovely to look at but can still turn on you and strike you down with one swipe of it's hearty paw. It's easy to love the strips on a tiger when you are not in the cage with the tiger. It's easy to enjoy the beauty of nature, when nature isn't trying to off you.
Continue to love nature in your own way. Take in the sensory pleasure and turn it into great moments in your mind. If nothing else, the images of your fantasy nature can sustain you through dark times when life seems to have abandoned you. That is why our fantasy images of nature appear so often in our art. Our great poems, paintings, photographs and songs were all inspired by an artist's image of their own fantasy nature scene and what it meant to them in their life. Nature is as much of a muse as the lovers we want or seek out and we treat them both the same way.
I hope that my nature isn't too much fantasy. I enjoy the sweet grass as much as everyone, but I think it's unfair that I don't care for the dog shit and I wonder if that means I am a hypocrite like the rest of them. I guess this is why I didn't get the mother nature job or why they don't allow me to cruise the park at night any more...
posted by Daniel Loomis | 9:19 AM
<< Home