I loved this! I was lucky enough to be born on a small farm in the PNW. My sisters and I would spend all day outside, in the woods, rain (usually!) or shine. I never lost that sense of wonder, and now, at 71, it upsets me greatly to see what we are doing to my beloved wild places. And I have no understanding of the Forest Act you mentioned. How can “scientists “ propose such a thing? Haven’t we had enough of machines in the woods? I don’t understand. One of my grandsons talks to trees and he can understand what they say back to him. He cries when he sees a tree cut down. I hope he is our future.
Another inspiring reminder, Rob, in the midst of your research and the work of educating self and others. Thank you.
I am struck by the relationship between sanity and other words that come from the Latin word sanus, including: sanitary and sanitize. I could riff at length on this. For now, i will drop this in the nest and call out, “remember, remember, remember.”
So glad that you’re working on a response to Fix Our Forests act. Thank you. Geesh, this act!?! How did trees manage to thrive and nurture the environment for all those hundreds of millions of years before humans arrived on the planet? (Sorry. Heartbreaking news makes me snarky.) Yay for sanity in nature.
Once again well thought out and orchestrated HERE. I can only hope the the extremeness with our govt and unhinging feeling we're all waking up to on a daily asis bdrives us to seek solace in and know that nature ultimately will prevail and the human race will make one with its nature..the nature around us.
You'l l find that there is an even larger forest that is trying to keep growing in streams and lakes and running along the Continental shelf, in the shallows around all the oceans. Hope we see you wednesday
Thanks for stepping away from the vital work to remind us of the order of pintails and the majesty of eagles. We must not judge others, as I have yet to meet anyone who wants to be separate from nature. (It’s corporations that are separate and rapacious.) Nature is the source of our sanity, as you aptly point out. See the guy tanking up his SUV for a weekend in the mountains. That may be what got him through the workweek.
Trump will experience more than renewed vigor in defense of nature when people, especially the hook-and-bullet crowd, discover National Park and National Wildlife Refuge bathrooms closed for cost-cutting measures to lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Dare to come between people and nature at your peril, POTUS. I feel sorry for the White House postal delivery service.
Also lucky enough to live in a place where the land is boss. It is itself and everything else curves around its points dutifully. Its boundaries are clear and loud and it filters out visitors. It’s not that comfortable so only those who are beholden stay.
And we try our best to fit in and adapt as the land loudly tells us what to do.
It is a folly to shape, shift, tailor, trim or impose our will. The land is king and tampering is ill advised and short lived and any of us who pause for more than just a second understand that listening is our most active responsibility. Watching is our pastime and then maybe we might get to caress the earth every now and then in thanks for all our environment provides.
The idea that we would know what to do to bring about balance is not even a question.
Where are you located? I am watching two eagles feeding chicks 1, 2 and now 3 in the Big Bear Valley and it opens my soul to the attentive care in your poem. And we humans have birds as ancestors.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that the privilege you have in being surrounded by the natural world allows you to be so fiercely protective of it.
I'm sure that those who haven't experienced the natural world on their doorstep may ogle at it on nature documentaries (or never at all) and their removal from it makes it invisible rather than something they want to directly destroy. I believe that, in order to heal and be with each other, we must find ways to show generosity in spirit towards those we may otherwise wish to tear down or pity or judge or other. If we remember that everyone is doing their best (as challenging as that is), it may shed light on ways in which we can take opportunities to reenchant them with something that may be alien and even frightening...and go gently.
It's little spoken of in papers that ai come across that, as well as natures beauty, it's sublime quality can be monstrous and terrifying- overwhelming. If those who even notice it can't interpret what they're seeing or have no language, it will remain foreign and unworthy of attention.
I've spent the last 20 or so years working on healing my relationship to the land, and I feel like (despite so much experience and bathing in such beauty) I'm still at the beginning and unsure how to dip my toe in the water, so to speak. I don't know why but for me, the experience is very intimidating. After all my childhood was not spent climbing trees or splashing in puddles or camping under the night sky. I often think I don't want it, I resist it...until a kind hand guides me like a wounded bird...and perhaps I enjoy it - or at least the experience becomes known and part of my repertoire.
Our minds are very complex, and I doubt that the ecologically minded will make much head way through poetic injustice and alarm bells...however well intentioned. As in indigenous societies, we must forget ahead at the pace of the slowest members of society. We can't leave anyone behind as we create heaven on earth. We need people more than nature - the natural world will easily continue without us but who are we without each other?
Thanks, Mark. You make good points. I wasn't intending to judge, but it may have come across that way. But I agree with what you say, that nature has a frightening side. It can be cold and aloof, and this culture doesn't really teach us how to relate to it outside of science, which can also be cold and aloof. And so many people, especially poor and marginalized people, don't get to live close to natural beauty, so it's hard for many to relate to it. I get to live here by living very close to the bone, and have a good rent arrangement, but the people who should be here are the Samish, long chased off. So it's complicated. In any case, my criticisms are directed at powerful people in Washington, not average people.
Thanks for your comment. It's important stuff you bring up.
😀👌🌞Cheers, Rob. Yes re people in poverty. When I lived in West Cornwall, the obscene contrast between wealth and those living of next to nothing and never seeing their local landscapes was little short of heartbreaking. When basic needs aren't met, the last thing people do is even consider going for a walk or have a capacity to be in awe. Because they are also living in fear.
On the other side, I know many who are living going your "close to the bone" circumstances willingly in order to truly live a more natural friendly lifestyle and have (what shouldn't be a privilege!) proximity to the natural world.
It's a conundrum that I think we'll never crack...I certainly haven't. But these exchanges are so important...so we can foster greater understanding. Even the powerful people you address are wives, Husbands, children, uncles...just trying to do their best in their circumstances. It would be great to be around a table with those whose behaviours bewilder us.
I loved this! I was lucky enough to be born on a small farm in the PNW. My sisters and I would spend all day outside, in the woods, rain (usually!) or shine. I never lost that sense of wonder, and now, at 71, it upsets me greatly to see what we are doing to my beloved wild places. And I have no understanding of the Forest Act you mentioned. How can “scientists “ propose such a thing? Haven’t we had enough of machines in the woods? I don’t understand. One of my grandsons talks to trees and he can understand what they say back to him. He cries when he sees a tree cut down. I hope he is our future.
That boy's getting a good start. Thanks, Heather.
Another inspiring reminder, Rob, in the midst of your research and the work of educating self and others. Thank you.
I am struck by the relationship between sanity and other words that come from the Latin word sanus, including: sanitary and sanitize. I could riff at length on this. For now, i will drop this in the nest and call out, “remember, remember, remember.”
Interesting. Thanks, Jill!
So glad that you’re working on a response to Fix Our Forests act. Thank you. Geesh, this act!?! How did trees manage to thrive and nurture the environment for all those hundreds of millions of years before humans arrived on the planet? (Sorry. Heartbreaking news makes me snarky.) Yay for sanity in nature.
Yep. Along the way, they helped create water cycles and an atmosphere. What will they do without us?
Once again well thought out and orchestrated HERE. I can only hope the the extremeness with our govt and unhinging feeling we're all waking up to on a daily asis bdrives us to seek solace in and know that nature ultimately will prevail and the human race will make one with its nature..the nature around us.
Rob hope that we'll see you this Wednesday for our webinar. Here's the link again for registering https://act.sierraclub.org/events/details?formcampaignid=701Po00000hHWp7IAG&mapLinkHref=
You'l l find that there is an even larger forest that is trying to keep growing in streams and lakes and running along the Continental shelf, in the shallows around all the oceans. Hope we see you wednesday
Best Cliff
Thanks, Cliff. I hope to make it. The time difference works in my favor.
Thanks for stepping away from the vital work to remind us of the order of pintails and the majesty of eagles. We must not judge others, as I have yet to meet anyone who wants to be separate from nature. (It’s corporations that are separate and rapacious.) Nature is the source of our sanity, as you aptly point out. See the guy tanking up his SUV for a weekend in the mountains. That may be what got him through the workweek.
Trump will experience more than renewed vigor in defense of nature when people, especially the hook-and-bullet crowd, discover National Park and National Wildlife Refuge bathrooms closed for cost-cutting measures to lower taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Dare to come between people and nature at your peril, POTUS. I feel sorry for the White House postal delivery service.
I wasn't meaning to be judgmental, but maybe it came across that way. Thanks.
Also lucky enough to live in a place where the land is boss. It is itself and everything else curves around its points dutifully. Its boundaries are clear and loud and it filters out visitors. It’s not that comfortable so only those who are beholden stay.
And we try our best to fit in and adapt as the land loudly tells us what to do.
It is a folly to shape, shift, tailor, trim or impose our will. The land is king and tampering is ill advised and short lived and any of us who pause for more than just a second understand that listening is our most active responsibility. Watching is our pastime and then maybe we might get to caress the earth every now and then in thanks for all our environment provides.
The idea that we would know what to do to bring about balance is not even a question.
Thanks, Natasha.
Where are you located? I am watching two eagles feeding chicks 1, 2 and now 3 in the Big Bear Valley and it opens my soul to the attentive care in your poem. And we humans have birds as ancestors.
Thanks, Meg. I'm from the Pacific Northwest, along the shores of what we call the Salish Sea.
Perhaps it's no coincidence that the privilege you have in being surrounded by the natural world allows you to be so fiercely protective of it.
I'm sure that those who haven't experienced the natural world on their doorstep may ogle at it on nature documentaries (or never at all) and their removal from it makes it invisible rather than something they want to directly destroy. I believe that, in order to heal and be with each other, we must find ways to show generosity in spirit towards those we may otherwise wish to tear down or pity or judge or other. If we remember that everyone is doing their best (as challenging as that is), it may shed light on ways in which we can take opportunities to reenchant them with something that may be alien and even frightening...and go gently.
It's little spoken of in papers that ai come across that, as well as natures beauty, it's sublime quality can be monstrous and terrifying- overwhelming. If those who even notice it can't interpret what they're seeing or have no language, it will remain foreign and unworthy of attention.
I've spent the last 20 or so years working on healing my relationship to the land, and I feel like (despite so much experience and bathing in such beauty) I'm still at the beginning and unsure how to dip my toe in the water, so to speak. I don't know why but for me, the experience is very intimidating. After all my childhood was not spent climbing trees or splashing in puddles or camping under the night sky. I often think I don't want it, I resist it...until a kind hand guides me like a wounded bird...and perhaps I enjoy it - or at least the experience becomes known and part of my repertoire.
Our minds are very complex, and I doubt that the ecologically minded will make much head way through poetic injustice and alarm bells...however well intentioned. As in indigenous societies, we must forget ahead at the pace of the slowest members of society. We can't leave anyone behind as we create heaven on earth. We need people more than nature - the natural world will easily continue without us but who are we without each other?
Mark
Thanks, Mark. You make good points. I wasn't intending to judge, but it may have come across that way. But I agree with what you say, that nature has a frightening side. It can be cold and aloof, and this culture doesn't really teach us how to relate to it outside of science, which can also be cold and aloof. And so many people, especially poor and marginalized people, don't get to live close to natural beauty, so it's hard for many to relate to it. I get to live here by living very close to the bone, and have a good rent arrangement, but the people who should be here are the Samish, long chased off. So it's complicated. In any case, my criticisms are directed at powerful people in Washington, not average people.
Thanks for your comment. It's important stuff you bring up.
😀👌🌞Cheers, Rob. Yes re people in poverty. When I lived in West Cornwall, the obscene contrast between wealth and those living of next to nothing and never seeing their local landscapes was little short of heartbreaking. When basic needs aren't met, the last thing people do is even consider going for a walk or have a capacity to be in awe. Because they are also living in fear.
On the other side, I know many who are living going your "close to the bone" circumstances willingly in order to truly live a more natural friendly lifestyle and have (what shouldn't be a privilege!) proximity to the natural world.
It's a conundrum that I think we'll never crack...I certainly haven't. But these exchanges are so important...so we can foster greater understanding. Even the powerful people you address are wives, Husbands, children, uncles...just trying to do their best in their circumstances. It would be great to be around a table with those whose behaviours bewilder us.
Keep going!
Mark
Oh this lover of wildness loves this! Thank you!
Thank you, Jill.
A word that comes to mind upon reading this post, Rob, is "naturally." Thank you. So glad for your writings.
Yes, it's really quite simple, isn't it?