What do you talk about with a new barber when you park yourself in her fancy swivel chair, about to say good-bye to a portion of your locks over the next 20 minutes? In my case, I opted to discuss my love of nature....
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my new haircutter shared my delight in the natural creation. She particularly enjoyed viewing, walking in, and nurturing a small nature area near her home in the suburbs. However, to my dismay, she went on to relate how that every year she had to appear before the city council to try to keep that lovely spot from being taken over and denuded by land “developers.”
Later that day, as I pondered this woman’s struggle, I picked up one of our local papers and turned to the “Letters” section. Here, to my utter disbelief, was a person arguing, with great passion and to great length, to turn one of our community’s most beloved nature centers into a golf course!
The cumulative effect hit me hard. First, it called poignantly to mind a comment that the great naturalist Euell Gibbons once made, about how modern society possesses an “engineering mentality,” seeking to bulldoze and to pave everything in sight.[1] Second, it brought back some bitter memories of hearing, one day, the sickening drone of just such a bulldozer on the perimeter of some lovely fields next to where I had been raised and where I had often gone (even as an adult) to immerse myself in nature. To my horror, I had learned that this “wasteland” was slated to be “developed.” What this really meant, of course, was that it was to be decimated—gutted and flattened. And why? In order to put in, of all things, a village of fancy-pants’ homes—a “Ritz City.”
In the ensuing weeks, the pot-bellied man aboard the bulldozer “pushed it to the hilt” to see just how much devastation he could accomplish. Before long, an entire world—a rich and complex and utterly beautiful ecosystem—came to a tortured, screaming demise. Gone was the lively and comical woodchuck I would often surprise on my walks. Eradicated were the prairie skinks I would sometimes espy under boards—amazing me with their beauty, swiftness, and methods of eluding predators (their tail actually breaks off when accosted, wriggling frantically and thus distracting the assailant so that the main part of the animal can scurry away unnoticed). Vanished was the immense family of crows I would “talk” to on my walks. (I had even gotten to the point of deciphering what was meant by the number and pitch of their brassy “caws.”) Spirited away was the bevy of lavishly colored butterflies that had virtually covered this beauteous tract of land as if some Master Painter had brushed them onto a living canvas. Exterminated was the vast array of plants—some of them rare native species I have seldom since encountered and many of which were important medicinal plants. Uprooted and pulverized were the magnificent poplars that had stood so proudly for who knows how many years—their leaves trembling and glistening in the soft breeze in such a mesmerizing manner that they had often lulled me to sleep. In just a few, short days, indeed, the life and breath of this incredible area of wonders was callously obliterated by a yahoo on an angry road machine.
Reflecting on all of this—on my personal loss; on the lady barber’s struggle to preserve her neighborhood’s little wild area; and on the letter-to-the-editor arguing to turn the nature center into a golf course—I couldn’t help but wonder: What sort of hideous moral cancer is eroding our communities to the extent that ostensibly intelligent people could sanction the steady conversion of our lovely fields, woods, and meadows into a cesspool of concrete, plastic, and wires? In less than two hundred years, we’ve ruined a country that was once so rich with natural resources that the settlers arriving here literally dropped their jaws in astonishment in viewing a land that had been kept lush with every kind of wildlife and vegetation, and this though dwelt in by scores of Indian tribes for at least several thousand years. (Amaze yourself, and take a look at a magnificent book on this subject by Bill Lawrence entitled The Early American Wilderness as the Explorers Saw It.)
While our swelling population may preclude re-capturing our land’s pristine past, does the opposite—the eradication of our natural resources—really need be the alternative for mankind’s future? One would certainly hope that it would still be possible to put a halt to what Bill McKibben and others have ominously called “The Death of Nature”—if we really put our minds and hearts to it! And yet, the motivation and the methodology seem to elude most people. What, then?
Lack of Intimacy = Lack of Appreciation
In order to appreciate and to implement a solution, we first need to understand how the problem occurred. And here I believe that the evidence shows that our current pitiful situation arose as a result of trends and developments in society that separated man from the land, divorcing the interdependence and symbiosis of the two. Technology was the spearhead, for in making life “easier,” it allowed people to simply sit behind four walls and to push buttons for their needs and desires. No longer did man find himself self-sufficient, fending for himself in the country. Now, “progress,” with all its distractions, overawed man into an ill-gotten divorce from Mother Nature. The development of large-scale agriculture also played a significant role in separating man from the land, as Jared Diamond carefully documented in a most insightful article.[2]
It’s almost impossible to maintain an appreciation for something when you cease to interact with it. (Not incongruously, studies have demonstrated that married couples who have disparate work schedules tend to fall out of love and into divorce more so than those who relax together after returning home from their respective jobs.) The result is that society in general, which has largely lost such interaction, has become “green conscious” only to the extent of calculating how many greenbacks it can extract from the environment.
But there is another faction that must share some of the blame. Ironically, overzealous environmentalists perpetuate this divorce from a different direction, and that is with their multitude of ordinances regulating interaction between man and the land: “Take nothing but pictures.” “Don’t pick the plants,” etc. What these well-meaning people fail to realize is that man, after all, is part of nature, not a bystander off to the sidelines. Far from putting nature on a pedestal, then, humans must live in relationship with it in order to truly appreciate it and genuinely wish to preserve it. The classic example of this is, as earlier noted, the American Indians who dwelled in our land for centuries before the white man arrived, using (not merely “observing”) its many resources, but treating them with wisdom and respect so as to keep them renewable. Such a true ecology was a natural consequence of their interaction with nature, for in continually experiencing the wilderness to be their provider on a day-to-day basis, there grew in these Native Americans a deep reverence for it.
In summation, in less than two centuries, man has effectively succeeding in alienating himself from the land—trashing it on one hand and regulating it from symbiotic interaction on the other.
Toward A Solution
What’s the answer to this sorry situation? Rachel Carson, a giant among naturalists, gave us this sage observation: “If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child... be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.”[3]
That’s the key! We need to allow the innate love of nature that kids possess to blossom to the full, giving it opportunity and encouragement to do so. Such a passion will then give them a base for an indescribably rich journey throughout their lives. Thus, Albert Schweitzer, when a man of 70 years and hopelessly in love with the natural world around him, remembered vividly how, even as a child, he had been “like a person in an ecstasy in the presence of nature.”[4]
Strangling the Sense of Wonder
In striving to enrich our children, however, it is not enough to send them away to school, hoping that they will learn nature’s lessons there. Neither the pedantic rote offered by stodgy science teachers nor the platitudes of pop-environmentalist guest speakers nor the pithy little “save-the-earth” articles in school newsletters are truly satisfying. The type of education sorely needed springs instead from a commitment to bring the entire human family back to what Rachel Carson had called (as noted above) “the sources of our strength” —a genuine bonding with this planet we call Earth.
People who were once connected to the earth (like Schweitzer et al., above) have faded (or are rapidly fading) away. They are being replaced with a generation of persons largely sheltered from nature and reared instead by the cruel stepparents of technology and industry. And while a few of these folks still have emotional ties to nature owing to the limited contact that they’ve had with it, many of the kids of today—who will be the adults of tomorrow—have largely come to view nature as boring, scary, or icky.
But what has been the impetus for such pitiful thinking? Incredibly, the parents of these kids, as well as other adults in their lives, may actually have been encouraging such an unhealthful attitude by showering them with so many technological and other distractions that these youngsters never got the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature.
My former chiropractor experienced this sorry attitude firsthand. His son belonged to the Cub Scouts and his troop was allowed a "special experience" that the kids could request each week, in consultation with parental guidance. He had been suggesting that they invite a naturalist to lead the kids on a nature walk, but he was saddened to hear that this suggestion was out-voted. At first, he thought that it was the kids who were balking, but later he learned that it was the parents who were against the idea, preferring to have the kids experience a ride in a police car instead. He could hardly believe his ears, having been under the impression that parents enroll their kids in the Scouts primarily to experience and to learn about nature.
Philosopher Sam Keen has linked the loss of wonder in our society to the adult concept of “necessity,” arguing that the rigidly utilitarian constructs of adult society—what he calls “the pathology of adult experience”—can wind up smothering the appreciation of the natural in young people as they grow into adulthood. He observes, however, that in primitive societies this sense of wonder is seldom lost upon maturation. Even in our own Space Age society, he notes, there are still some who have maintained their sense of wonder and who have gone on to live highly creative and reality-based lives. Keen logically concludes from this that the tragic loss of wonder during adolescence is far from inevitable. [5]
If this is true, and I believe that it is, then the children of today—secreted in their houses and blasting away at video games or transfixed in front of their smartphones—may yet find nourishment for their inborn sense of nature wonder should their parents strive to aid them before it is too late. But, how can this be accomplished? Perhaps by turning to the experts….
Treading the Path of the Great Naturalists
The authorities on nature nourishment are, as one might imagine, the great naturalists—men and women whose “sources of strength,” as Carson put it above, derive (or have derived, in the case of those now deceased) from a genuine bonding with the wild realms. One of these, Gladys Taber, author of the beloved Stillmeadow series and many other books, once observed: “A city has much to offer... but children should be able to dig in the dirt, climb trees, catch frogs, chase butterflies, wade in a brook, pick wildflowers, play games.”[6]
Taber’s wisdom is most profound: While acknowledging the benefits of city life, she yet paints an irresistible picture of the glories of nature interaction, heartily bringing to life a scene that beckons the spirit, whether in young or old. Likewise, many readers of Euell Gibbons’ lively books have commented that, upon delving into them, they felt an overpowering urge to “get out in nature” and to start experiencing the natural realm just as Gibbons had so enthusiastically experienced and described it. Of the many valuable lessons that the great naturalists have to offer us then, foremost is their motivational power.
However, nourishing today’s kids with nature does not necessarily mean that we as adults have to be proficient in the knowledge of plant and animal names and other technical matters. As Rachel Carson once put it: “I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so important to know as to feel.... Once the emotions have been aroused—a sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love—then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found, it has lasting meaning.”[7]
Naturalist Tom Brown Jr. found this to be quite true in his nature walks with children. He once related of a class he taught where the kids kept pummeling him with questions about the names of various animals and plants but seemed to lack any real interest. So he switched tactics. Drawing on teaching methods learned from his own mentor, an Apache Indian that he called Stalking Wolf in his writings, Brown began asking the children thought-provoking questions about a snail they had found—questions about its appearance, means of movement, daily activities, and role in the natural world. Very soon, he found that the children were aglow with interest and appreciation.[8]
I have personally found Brown’s many books to be excellent aids in rekindling any loss of nature love that has affected children owing to the thoughtless attitudes accrued from their adult contacts. My chiropractor borrowed them from me and found them to be hungrily absorbed by his youngsters as well. Brown’s enviable life as a youth, narrated in a style reminiscent of the “flashbacks” to childhood by David Carradine’s character on the old Kung Fu TV series, makes for captivating reading and I doubt that any child could resist the “call of nature” after becoming acquainted with these books.
I also know some adults who, likewise having felt the impact of Brown’s special magic, experienced not only an enthusiasm for delighting in nature, but an additional feeling as well: they found themselves plagued with a sense of waste—lamenting the years they had spent in materialistic pursuits while nature had been beckoning to them all along. How such regret has reminded me of something that the celebrated novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote: “And after reading Thoreau I felt how much I have lost by leaving nature out of my life.”[9]
Henry David Thoreau’s writings, indeed, could weave a spell over just about anyone. But behind his special charm lay a bedrock of common sense and sober reflection. He saw all too clearly the seeds of wilderness destruction that were being sown in his own day and, as he pondered the ramifications of it all, he waxed solemnly: “In wildness,” he reminded his readers, “is the preservation of the world.”[10]
May we, as a society tottering on the edge of ecological extinction, never forget that. May we (and our now-youthful heirs) learn to cherish the sense of wonder above the desire for selfish gain. May we all open our minds and hearts to the reverential approach to life so wonderfully captured by seventeenth-century poet William Blake when he wrote:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.” [11]
References:
[1] Euell Gibbons, Stalking the Faraway Places (NY: David McKay Co., 1973), 148.
2 Jared Diamond, “The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” Discover 8 (May 1987):64-66.
3 Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder (NY: Harper & Row, 1956-1965), 42-43.
4 As quoted by his biographer, Hermann Hagedorn, in Prophet in the Wilderness (NY: Macmillan Co., 1948), 18.
5 Sam Keen, Apology for Wonder (NY: Harper & Row, 1969), 51-59
6 Gladys Taber, Stillmeadow Calendar: A Countrywoman’s Journal (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1967), 105.
7 Carson, 45.
8 Tom Brown Jr., Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature and Survival for Children (NY: Berkley Bks, 1989), 16.
9 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-up, ed. Edmund Wilson (NY: New Directions, 1945).
10 Henry David Thoreau, “Walking” (1862).
11 William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence” (1803).