Nature does wonders for us.
Beyond providing the building blocks of life--our air, water, food, and shelter--Mother Nature offers us a bounty of other benefits. I tapped a few of them this week in honor of my 60th birthday.
As with other significant milestones in our lives, we may be asked, how did you celebrate? For me, there is no better celebration than receiving the gifts that Mother Nature has to offer. Since natural places heighten my senses, I hit the nature trail to hike with my sister.
Who wouldn’t want to feel more alive for their 60th birthday?
Mother Nature did not disappoint! Long after finishing our hike, our enthusiasm remains. For my sister who had a knee replacement a few months ago, our experience boosted her self-confidence because it proved she was able to go hiking again—to physically handle trail terrain. She also hadn’t been immersed in a forest preserve for years so our hike helped rekindle a sense of awe that is felt when one stands humbled under giant trees. As a city dweller, she commented on the quiet and how she could hear leaves rustle in the summer breeze in contrast to the droning traffic a few blocks from her home. Having a large tract of woods all to ourselves on this day, I couldn’t help but feel like we were embraced by sacred spirits. Sisterhood never felt so good!
After returning from our adventure, the discoveries continue as I try to identify a bird that sang with musicality from atop the old growth oaks and hemlocks. It is a song I have never heard before in my travels nor bird studies. What a thrill! I’m betting it was a Black-headed Grosbeak. Yes, we are linked to nature for life—but being linked to nature through our experience of living is just as precious.
I mean experiences like watching the bees in my vegetable garden this morning as they cross-fertilize squash blossoms. Knowing that we owe much of the world’s nutrition to pollinators including bees, butterflies, moths, birds, and bats, how can we not feel blessed by the wonders? Perfectly matched, pollinator-to-blossom, we are witness to essential tasks for humans to survive on this planet. All while pollinators also make our world more fascinating and beautiful. The science is well established about other healthful benefits we receive from nature and how human-nature connections are links to life and better living. How can we not feel amazed and privileged to be part of the grand scheme of things on this planet?
As we face truths related to the Black Lives Matter Movement, I am aware of how privileged I am and how fortunate I was growing up.
People of color have experienced a different world than someone who is fair skinned like me.
Many have not had quality outdoor experiences because of a whole host of reasons I continue to learn about such as not feeling welcomed or safe in wild places and parks, not having discretionary income and access, and missing environmental role models or mentors. Beyond these barriers, people of color disproportionately live in degraded environments where pollution exposes them to contaminated living conditions such as toxic air to breathe. If there’s a stench in the air, why go outside? If it is unsafe or is brown and ugly, why go outside? No matter what the causes, I am deeply saddened for I feel their loss of access to nature is a loss for us all.
People do not love what they do not know.
When anyone misses out on developing a close connection to and appreciation for the natural world, it leaves us all missing out on their enhanced well-being, environmental stewardship, and their chance to pass that connection along to others.
I also acknowledge Native Americans paid a dear price as they were pushed off their ancestral lands and many of their sacred places have been destroyed. The environmental movement has a predominantly male and white past with some history I am not proud of. For example, I recently learned that John Muir was a racist.
I cannot change the past and I cannot change my past. But, I can and will go forward differently. I will bolster my efforts to stand up on social and environmental justice. I commit to giving even more of myself to support others in doing the same. I will strive to be more open than ever to listen, learn, include, and answer the call of people across our planet who need someone who will stand up for their rights as citizens of Planet Earth where Nature is Life—our link to surviving as a species. And where change is needed, I will lead change in organizations with which I’m connected.
I pledge to continue to vote in favor of candidates who care about equality, justice, biodiversity, and addressing global warming with the urgency it demands. I will vote in favor of having our nation become a nation that leads from the heart and from a place of service—not with a stick or a knee or with boasts about supremacy or with put-downs to other people and other nations.
Receiving the gifts of Mother Nature is one thing, giving back is another. Even when the deer flies are hounding me, I find myself thinking about how they represent life’s challenges. They remind me to keep focused on the prize rather than letting the past or present obstacles hold me back. It’s about continuing to move forward.
There’s a reason I’m here at this moment in history. There’s a reason you are here, too.
Going forward in my sixth decade, I pledge to do even more in service to future generations. I see it as my moral obligation after having received so many gifts and privileges in my lifetime. Yes, I’m small in the grand scheme of things, but linked to others like you, individual actions become significant. All we need to do is to start today and take it one planet at a time.
Patty Dreier
Author, Empowered: One Planet at a Time