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The Passionate Speaker
"Nature is great because it has forgotten that it was chaos."
– KierkegaardA Newsletter for Speakers By Michael Landrum July, 2004 – Number 64 Nature (This article was first published in TPS in November, 2001) The shortest route back to your most authentic self is through nature. One price we pay for our civilized world is a lost or weakened connection with the natural one. It is possible to travel the entire distance around the planet these days and never set foot on natural ground. If you have money enough, I daresay you can make the whole trip without stepping off the carpet. Making an effort to renew the relationship with the unaltered portion of the universe is essential to our well-being and to understanding our place in that universe. This century is the first our planet has known without an undiscovered, unexplored bit of terra firma left on the map. We have set our mark on nature out as far as the orbit of Neptune and beyond, and the further we go, the less we seem to experience nature directly. Oh, sure, there are some who go to Patagonia and Little Diomede Island with video cameras so we can watch from bed. Television has turned us into a race of kibitzers. The pity is, it is so easy to keep in touch – nature is still everywhere around us. There are lots of good ways to get back to nature that don't require hardship and discomfort. All it takes is a bit of attention and curiosity. 1) Look Around. There's really no substitute for a walk in the woods unless it's a walk on the beach. Images from my memory-album include the following. A pair of mallards, drake and duck, lifting off the glassy green Little St. Francois river in Missouri when I was eleven. They flew down a natural vaulted cathedral of elms and cottonwoods and into a special chamber of my heart where I keep them as a talisman to sooth me on harsh city streets. I once took a stroll at dawn on a gulf-side beach in Florida when suddenly, five yards offshore, a beautiful dolphin leapt out of the water. Since I was the only creature on the beach at that moment, I figure that the dolphin wanted to check me out. It was gratifying to think that we two beings who could travel anywhere we wanted in our separate realms, had met on equal terms at the border. On our little unpaved country lane last year, I stood with a neighbor and watched a young black bear step out of the woods some fifty meters distant. He looked at us and my neighbor said to me "I'm not scared – I can outrun you." But the bear wasn't interested even in a slow-footed guy like me. He shook his silken black coat and went back into the woods in search of another garbage can to raid. 2) Look up. Most of the universe is over our heads: the trees and their attendant birds, the sky, clouds, dawns and dusks, the stuff in space. We think of outer space as being impossibly far away, but actually, to get out of our atmosphere you need to travel only twenty miles or so. From lower Manhattan, outer space is closer than the Tappan Zee bridge . . . much closer at rush hour. To really star-gaze you need to get someplace with a good dark sky, which is harder to find these days. On November 18th there was a spectacular meteorite display. Though it was a bit of a hardship getting up at 4:30 in the morning, our family loved it. If the sky is clear and you're on the eastern half of north America around midnight on Friday, November 30th, you'll be able to see the moon slide across in front of the planet Saturn. This is a rare astronomical event. Check out the website for Sky and Telescope magazine or Science @ NASA to keep informed of all sorts of interesting stuff that often requires no more effort than looking up. 3) Look Down If outer space seems too grand and distant, and birdwatching is too featherbrained for you, there's plenty of wonder underfoot. Any lawn is dazzling on a summer morning, the dew still on the spider webs. This summer Elizabeth, now aged seven, discovered crickets under the garage door. We created a 'bug house' to study these little chirppers. The Chinese have considered them good luck for centuries. If you think nature is far away, get a magnifying glass and look closer. You may feel the need for some added context to your nature. It satisfies the human urge to organize our experiences, put a frame around them. Take a notebook with you, or a sketch pad. Some people go bird listening and take tape recorders. I like lenses, so I have a collection of various cameras, binoculars, microscopes, and telescopes, in addition to the eyeglasses and sunglasses I usually wear. You need to be careful that the experience of nature doesn't get overwhelmed by the experience of photography or drawing or whatever. However you get your nature, take it seriously as you would any essential nutriment. Astronauts who have spent months in space are considerably weakened by their long separation from the earth. I believe there is a bit of Anteus in all of us. In Greek mythology he was a giant, the son of Gaia, the goddess of the Earth. Hercules was able to defeat him in a wrestling match by lifting him away from the ground, the source of his strength. We also need to stay 'grounded' in our mother, nature, to know our clearest strengths. ©2004 Michael F. Landrum |
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