Connecting People with Nature

Nature in an ever-more Manicured World

September 12, 2004

Mankind has an intrinsic need to be close to nature. The connection to the natural world is stronger in some of us, while in others the human tendency to try to impose order is stronger. We love nature, but we can make it better, right?

After all, if it is green it is good. We tear up nature and put in lawns and our own flowerbeds. We tear up the ecosystem that was there in that place and replace it with one that needs external inputs (water, fertilizer, work) to keep it in place. We all love to see wildflowers, but how many of us can tell you what the life history of one is, or whether it was naturally found where you have recently found it? Or, more importantly, what wildflowers should be found there which no longer are? These parts of nature that we clear out in the name of a manicured lawn, a parking lot, or a WalMart had something great going for them. They had all the factors in place to thrive without anyone's help. No fertilizer, no mowing, no watering beyond what nature provided. But, we continue to create more work for ourselves, and hence relegate wildflowers, forests, unproductive idyllic scenes and sanity to the outlying areas or parks.

When we go to a natural park, we go there for passive recreation. We go, in a sense, to re-create our weary souls, to meditate, to relax, and to examine nature. While nowhere in Ohio is completely untouched by the axe, the plow, or unmanaged grazing, our natural landscapes are in many areas recovering. This allows us to glimpse nature as it might have been in the days before we dominated it. Before the manicured parkways wound round the hills and though the valleys, before planned unit developments and big box stores placed cookie-cutter style across the landscape without regard for context, there was a balanced ecosystem. Here each component played its part unimpeded. In each of us, there is a curiosity, a natural yearning to reach out and touch that scene, whether it be an agrarian setting, a wild woodland, or a wetland filled with waterfowl instead of old slag and broken up concrete fill.

While we live in a dog-eat-dog world of rush hours, timetables, goals and exhaustion, the natural world continues on at its own pace. As Mother Nature heals the wounds we place on the land, we cut new gashes in the earth every day in the name of progress. Understand, it is not that humans are not part of nature. Rather it is that we are a part of nature, and hence many of our "impacts" to the world are part of the natural fluctuation in the world. It is when we forget that we are but a portion of nature, and forget that we are interconnected that we harm ourselves. Ultimately, each part of an ecosystem has a function. If one part of a system over exerts itself to the detriment of the system as a whole, it is only a matter of time before the offending part feels the strain.

We do not know how all of the parts of nature fit together, and our leaders for the most part have never studied this aspect of the world. They have studied the best way to make a profit, how to get the right amount of votes, and discuss theories of economic viability without regard for the undeniable fact that if we create an artificial, manicured world based on the dominance of one species, one day, that system of things will collapse.

Since the industrial revolution, we have moved further and further away from nature. In an agrarian society, many people lived their life in concert with the seasons and the growth of plants and animals. Part of a natural cycle of living and dying, they were able to live life at a natural pace and accept reality as it was. Not to glamorize this, for it was also a time of hardship and early death. We have learned to prolong lives and make them physically easier for many people. What we are just beginning to learn is that the opposite extreme can be just as destructive.

As people migrated to cities and left the farms behind, their lives were no longer ruled by the seasons, weather and the natural pace of life disintegrated. In place of a natural pace dictated by daylight and the first frost, we have a world of perpetual toil. We have learned to control conditions to such a point that we assume dominance over all creation. We set quotas and deadlines and elect leaders who say they will make us all richer. We manicure nature to feed our need for control. The only places left wild are those where some small group has opposed any other more directly economically beneficial use in favor of allowing nature to repose unmolested, those places that are too far from population centers to be easily exploitable, and those areas being held in reserve for future exploitation.

These are the forests and fields we visit to re-create our spirits and unwind. What more beneficial use could there be for these places? As our world becomes more and more manicured and more and more of us live in a "total built environment" these areas will become both more and more imperiled and more and more important to us as a means of maintaining some sense of our humanity. As our world becomes turf grass and concrete, our primitive souls will yearn more and more for the forests and fields, for fresh flowing water to swim in or contemplate beside.

Hiking in nature is medicine. Nurture your soul by walking in the woods. Relaxation in the relative silence of a world not dominated by mankind, if but for the moment, refreshes the spirit and puts things into perspective. Here, the false talk of economies, wars, and deficit spending is nowhere to be heard. Here, you can stare reality in the eye. Take a good dose of this medicine as often as possible and remember we are a part of all of this, not the masters.

Our sense of control is false. Look deeply for what is real. You will not find it in your manicured subdivision, in a law book, in a corporate office, in the fast land on the jammed highway, or in the lofty words of our leaders. Only inside yourself in a calm setting will you find reality and peace. Go to a park and start searching.

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