Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

~Theodore Roosevelt

My heart's in the right place, my soul settles in the right mood and I have the right line of thoughts, yet my actions take a different route from time to time.  I often wonder how so many "rights" still don't have a stronger influence over my actions. 

I could very well be talking about a few different areas of my life, however for this writing, I'm refering to my relationship to nature.  Which has a direct connection to my life with God.  How could God and Nature not be connected??   My reverence for Nature was greatly intesified after coming to genuinely know God.  How awesome the natural world is!! 

All the seperate parts coming together to create a bigger whole; each magnificent organism operating independently and being a totally dependent  part of the ecosystem; a place for shelter, stillness, sustenance. 

I am fortunate and grateful to live pleasantly nestled in amongst 50 or so acres of forested land, where my daily thoughts take me to outside adventures already had or yet to come.   Stories of homelife coincide with natures' experiences and I rapturously recall the events where family, outdoors and good times all gracefully coexist.

I do believe this deep respect and awe I feel for the natural world is also where I feel such fullness of life.  When my actions aren't aligned with how my mind, heart and soul naturally gravitate to, I get to feeling disconnected, confused, uneasy and get to feeling somewhat hopeless about life in general.  This has been pretty much my feeling the last few months, which can be a product of a few other issues in my life, however, the closer I get to Nature, the more time I spend being part of Nature and observing Nature, the less likely these other things in life can have an effect on me.  In fact, as I look back on my life and recall the times when I was most in tune with the outdoors, the issues in life seemed to have a way of working their way away from me all on their own!

Well, I see now that it was probably a bit of help from good ole God.

Wise words to remember:

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." 

We'll all do well in life to remember that nature can always be where you are, something you'll always have and you can do something with.  

I'll do very well to keep that in the front of my thoughts.

Be Part of Nature - Not Just a Spectator

Just finished reading the superb and enlightening book "Last Child in the woods" by Richard Louv.   Following is an excerpt from the book which is some thoughts from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I felt immediately connected to what he was saying and it helped me in how I connect God and nature.  I also agree with some points he makes on interaction with the outdoors and how too many rules and restrictions results in a separation with nature which is a negative situation for everyone.

We're part of nature, and ultimately we're predatory animals and have a role in nature and if we separate ourselves from that, we're separating ourselves from our history, from the things that tie us together.  We don't want to live in a world where there are no recreational fisherman, where we've lost touch with the seasons, the tides, the things that connect us - to ten thousand generations of human beings that were here before there were laptops, and ultimately connect us to God.

We shouldn't be worshipping nature as God, but nature is the way that God communicates to us most forcefully.  God communicates to us through each other and through organized religion, through wise people and the great books, through music and art, but nowhere, with such texture and forcefulness in detail and grace and joy, as through creation.  And when we destroy large resources, or when we cut off our access by putting railroads along river banks, by polluting so that people can't fish, or by making so many rules that people can't get out on the water, it's the moral equivalent of tearing the last pages out of the last Bible on Earth.  It's a cost that's imprudent for us to impose upon ourselves, and we don't have the right to impose it upon our children.

I believe we have too many societal measures taking place that are creating a huge space between people and nature.  We're not supposed to be protecting nature to the extent of not interacing with its true essence.  Although don't have a great interest for fishing myself, I see it as a great way to be in nature; not as a threat to the fish.  I love to walk through the woods at my property and hope to see some tree house built by my son which isn't a damage to the trees or a dangerous feat for my child but an awesome way for him to truly interact with nature.  There are definitely areas of nature that, as a society, that we're taking advantage of and there needs to be limitations, but we still need freedom to experience nature as God intended.

GROWING IN NATURE

Childhood depression, teen depression, ADHD, teen crime and drug abuse;  I’ve been reading up on how several situations involving children and adolescents have been addressed through some type of nature therapy.  A casual term of “nature-deficit disorder” describes the negatives effects that a life cut off from free play in green spaces can lead to.  Essential for healthy development of a child, outdoor free play describes openly exploring and playing with an outdoor environment through all senses in their own space and time.  With urban areas seeming to take over much of our lands green space and legal and regulatory restrictions on natural play, we have a generation of kids that have a high incidence of nature-deficit disorder.  First hand experience of nature is being replaced by the second hand, often distorted, dual sensory (sight and hearing only) one way experience of television and other electronic media. 

There are so many benefits of nature, which feed the growing mind and body:

• Nature is a place to use all your senses and to learn by doing; multi-sensory experiences in nature help to build the cognitive constructs necessary for sustained intellectual development and stimulate imagination by supplying the child with free space and materials for creativity and problem solving. 
• It doesn’t make you feel like you have to conform to any image as the misleading landscape of our man made world tends to do with advertisements, billboards, and other media; it’s just there and excepts everyone just as they are.  
• A calming, tranquil and active environment, nature involves the senses to help with stress reduction, improving attention span and rejuvenating your spirit by being a short escape from challenges of life. 
• nature presents the young (and everyone) with something greater than they are -  it offers an environment where they can easily contemplate infinity and eternity.  Without that experience, we forget our place, we forget that larger fabric on which our lives depend.

My inspiration for this topic comes from a book I’m reading called “The Last Child in the Woods”  by Richard Louv.  The following statements, from Louv’s book, are from or about children/ young adults spending time in nature, usually their first encounter:   

• Describing his time spent on an Nature Reserve, a late teen/early twenty year old says “When I come here, I can exhale.  Here, you hear things; in the city, you can’t hear anything because you can hear everything.  In the city, everything is obvious.  Here, you get closer and you see more.”   
• In relation to a story of overcoming some hardship as a child,  a woman says “There is something about nature that when you are in it you can feel that there are far greater things at work in the world that oneself.  It puts one’s problems in perspective and makes challenges seem less significant.  It can be an escape without actually leaving the world.          
• After a court appointed 2 week excursion to a remote Alaskan Tribal Village, some troubled city teens had this to say of their experience:  “I never seen a place so dark at night.  I seen seals, bears, whales, salmon jumpin’- and I caught crabs and oysters, and as soon as we caught ‘em, we ate ‘em.  I felt like I was in a past life.”   "I never saw a bear before.  I’m scared of bears, but when I saw them, I had no stress.  I was calm, free.  You know what was great?   Picking berries.  It was addictive. Like cigarettes.  Just the picking, just being out in the bushes.”
• A parent said she had recently begun taking her son to the local park for 30 minutes each morning before school because the weather was nice, and they “had some time to kill”.  She then said, “Come to think of it, I have noticed his attitude toward going to school has been better, and his schoolwork has been better this past week.  I think it’s because spending time at the park is pleasurable, peaceful, quiet, calming.”

Growing in nature is being part of the bigger picture.  Rediscovering the link between human creativity and experiences in nature could offer a new branch of therapy for such syndromes as attention deficit disorder.  Children naturally crave the outdoors as it’s an integral part of developing our senses.  We can comfirm this fact by watching what happens to the senses of the young when they lose that connection with nature and by seeing the sensory magic occur when children, and even those beyond childhood, are exposed to even the smallest interaction in a natural environment.  

Nature is perfectly imperfect, just like humans.  We were made to be involved with nature.

The Bare Necessities

I was inspired to write this post from my recent viewing of 'The Jungle Book' with my almost 2 year old.  To start off I'd like to enlighten you to the fine lyrics of "The Bare Necessities" song that good ole', jolly Baloo the bear sings to his little human buddy, Mowgli:

Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

Old Mother Nature's recipes

That brings the bare necessities of life

Wherever I wander, wherever I roam

I couldn't be fonder of my big home

The bees are buzzin' in the tree

To make some honey just for me

When you look under the rocks and plants

And take a glance at the fancy ants

Then maybe try a few

The bare necessities of life will come to you

They'll come to you!

Look for the bare necessities

The simple bare necessities

Forget about your worries and your strife

I mean the bare necessities

That's why a bear can rest at ease

With just the bare necessities of life

Now when you pick a pawpaw

Or a prickly pear

And you prick a raw paw

Next time beware

Don't pick the prickly pear by the paw

When you pick a pear

Try to use the claw

But you don't need to use the claw

When you pick a pear of the big pawpaw

Have I given you a clue?

The bare necessities of life will come to you

They'll come to you!

So just try and relax, yeah cool it

Fall apart in my backyard

'Cause let me tell you something little britches

If you act like that bee acts, uh uh

You're working too hard

And don't spend your time lookin' around

For something you want that can't be found

When you find out you can live without it

And go along not thinkin' about it

I'll tell you something true

The bare necessities of life will come to you

The song has a catchy tune and I found myself singing along and repeating that first verse even after the movie was long done and I realized the genius of those words. 

Baloo's Wise Words	My Interpretation
Forget about your worries	Don't waste time focusing on your troubles in life
Look for the bare necessities	Concentrate only on your basic needs
Old Mother Nature's recipes bring you the bare necessities	All that we really need is provided by nature
The bare necessities will come to you	Have faith that your basic needs will be met and don't try to worry about how you'll get what you need
If you work like the bees, you're working too hard	Don't be always on the go - slow down and take in the world around you
Don't spend your time lookin' around for the things you want	Try not to be thinking about the stuff you want, instead be grateful for what you already have
When you find you can live without it, you'll go along not thinkin' about it	Realize that the stuff you think you want, you don't need then you'll be able to stop wanting and enjoy life more
Then the bare necessities of life will come to you	When you change your thinking, then your basic needs will be met more easily.

Now Baloo's got a few less needs than us, but I like the point he's makin' ; clarify what your needs and wants are  and decide that as long as your few basic needs are met you can live life happily.  When we let go of trying to control everything in our lives, we allow good things that are uniquely designed for our lives to flow in.  Depend on nature and God to nourish and fulfill you from the inside out.

Earth Art

My recent trip to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington, Ontario provided an interesting exposure to art truly inspired by nature.  This was not art displaying a nature scene on a common medium but art created with nature.  Called the 'Earth Art Exhibit',  12 Earth art installations were scattered over the 2700+ acres of the Royal Botanical Gardens property making the tour of  unique, flourishing gardens, trailing forest and marsh and carefully designed rock gardens an extra special event. 

To better explain the Earth Art concept I'm quoting below from the brochure I received at RBC:

Earth Art - Art in nature, nature in art.  Artists create one-of-a-kind environmental art installations throughout our cultivated gardens and natural lands...

Earth art's root's stretch back to the 1960s with a show at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.  Curator Willoughby Sharp invited artists Walter De Maria, Jan Dibbets, Hans Haacke, Michael Heizer, Richard Long, David Medalla, Robert Morris, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, and Gunther Uecker.  Together these artists created a new style of installation work - earth art. 

Earth art has evolved as an international phenomenon, and over the decades, has become less about concept and more about the aesthetics of integration.  It also involves notions of sustainability and site awareness.  With its Earth Art initiatives - three shows to date - Royal Botanical Gardens brings great knowledge and expertise in working with nature to integrate the sculptures produced during their Earth Art exhibits.

Seeing these insightful artistic displays of nature, some being expressions of our natural world, some depicting the importance of preservation and more, created mind provoking thoughts on how I can be creative on my own property.  Living on many acres of forested land and  a rather huge yard, I'm in the beginning stages of producing my personal one-of-a-kind earth art exhibit. 

Royal Botanical Gardens will have this exhibit on until Thanksgiving (Oct.12).  Click here to be directed to the RBC website and view a short clip on these exhibits.