On Becoming Better Natured

Through this newsletter, I intended to showcase how humanity interacts with the natural world and the undeniable congruencies. It’s an intimate slow dance and we’re really in control of how we want to embrace it. You could treat it like the kid in fourth grade you were forced to square dance with, the one with incredibly sticky hands from God knows what, or you could wrap your arms around it tightly like it’s your high school crush and allow your pupils to dilate inviting mutuality to richen the connection. So many patterns, processes, and transitions in nature are synonymous with our own existence and I will attempt to focus on this relationship in my newsletters. There is such a familiarity to be found out there with an abundance of beneficial wisdom.

Have I always been a nature lover? Hmm, yes and no. My parents were both pretty big advocates of spending time outdoors and summers were spent at cabins in the woods of Wisconsin, camping at a State Park, and wandering local trails. I remember a fishing trip at a local State Park, it was oven hot, we were hauling tackle for what seemed like an eternity through the shadeless prairie, and that four ounces of snot green Ecto Cooler was sitting in holding tanks that forming atop my scorched shoulders. I had to pee, probably just to rid my kidneys of dust and was told to go in the woods after the thirtieth contentious whine. I found a tree (one of the two on that damn land), pulled down my pants and my white ass became a homing beacon for bees. I ran out scream-crying in front of my brother and Dad, trying to pull my shorts up my sweaty legs as the piss dribbled down to my shoes. I remember hating nature that day. When I was about 8 or 9, I went out alone to fish on the dock of a neighboring cabin and a heron came to sit on the boat. The boat was anchored to the dock with rope and sort of bounced around, knocking into the wood occasionally, which didn’t seem to bother the bird. I hooked a sunny, and as it broke the water, the heron sprouted albatross wings and I ran with that pole in my hands down the wood planks. I looked over my shoulder and saw that giant bird chasing me, or rather, the sunfish that was bouncing along the dock. Why I didn’t toss the pole, I don’t know, but the bird snapped the line and took off over the lake with that poor fish. I ran into the cabin with my tearful drama, hating nature. I really do think I loved it, but not consciously, and maybe not on those special days. I do remember the sense of independence that came from exploring the woods in Girl Scout camp during our designated free time. I also remember begging my friend to accompany me on one of these outings and forcing her to drag a deer carcass out of the woods on a stick. I was pretty proud of the discovery, but I’m pretty sure it stirred up concern among the camp counselors. I loved that freedom, that sense of the unknown and investigative discovery.

I formed a healthy affection for the outdoors in the Midwest and enjoyed the local parks and the rivers in various areas, but it exploded into something my wild dreams never anticipated when I relocated to the Pacific Northwest. Insert kid in candy shop. Exploring the landscapes has become a medicine, a drug offering life with abundant riches, questions, answers, more questions, knowledge, love, energy, and self-discovery. The wilds have provided me with a space to untangle braided thoughts and unload the heavy weight of emotional garbage that I stuff into my pockets; the trails, my muse. A good, rhythmic jog in the woods can really sharpen my acuity to allow for a view of plight through a lens unobstructed by subjectivity. It is a reassuring source of equanimity to both fill up a leaking soul and mend the wear.  

I get that it’s not a source of solitude for everyone, and to each his own. Maybe your energy tank is replenished by the pulsating bass of a nightclub, or within the shelter of towering buildings, the industrious rush and ever-present light and noise of the big city. Cool. Do you. However, you can still respect nature without bathing in the mud and inhaling bugs while climbing rocky hills with thirty pounds of essentials strapped to your back and a hungry cougar eyeballing your flesh from behind a nearby tree. You can, and really ought to form a conscious relationship with the natural world to aid in the guidance of decisions allowing you to care for it; maybe not as intimate lovers, but dear friends.  

I am a firm believer that forming an appreciative relationship with the natural environment can enhance life in so many ways and that your affectionate squeeze will be returned, hopefully not by a bear or a cougar. In the coming weeks of this weekly newsletter, I will attempt to showcase some of the ways in which humans and nature collide on a dance floor, and hopefully, my writing will afford some alternative perspectives and insight regarding our shared existence.

As always, I’m happy you are here and I wish you a week full of goodness.