Our Nature Connection

Connecting with or to nature should be as easy as standing up or taking a drink of water, or at least that’s the way I think of it. As children we are naturally drawn to being outdoors, to splashing in puddles, collecting cool sticks and stones, watching fireflies, and digging in sand or dirt. 

Fresh air, sunlight, wind, rain, snow — all of these things are or should be part of our daily lives. We humans are odd, though. We have spent most of our history trying to outsmart nature, to subdue or even obliterate her. We have killed off predators in the name of protecting families and livestock, though their actual effects are usually far less than the effect of removing an apex predator.

Recent studies show that re-introducing wolves has not only helped curb growing herds of deer and other hooved animals that were stripping areas of vegetation, but that the overall effects have far outweighed the obvious. Whole ecosystems are being restored as a result of the re-centering of the food chain. Trees and other plants are thriving, small animals and insects are returning. Even waterways have been affected, causing a rise in fish populations, water plants, and most importantly, the clarity and safety of the fresh water in the area.

For centuries people lived in close proximity to nature. They knew which plants to eat, which to use as medicines or salves, and which to avoid. They enjoyed the sky as their ceiling for most of the day and the ground beneath their bare feet. They grew vegetables, wheat, rice and fruit and learned to hunt and fish. They used animal skins to keep themselves warm and learned to build shelters with whatever was most abundant in their area, whether that was wood, mud or stone. 

Myths and stories in every culture address the human connection to the earth and all the plants and animals. There was respect but also a little fear. As we know, nature is not always benevolent and humans can, like most other predators, become prey in certain situations.

We got very good at obliterating perceived danger. We also got very good at creating homes, stores and ways of manufacturing everything from building materials, prepackaged food, and clothing that needed no actual meeting up with the original sources of all those things. We separated ourselves from nature more and more with each generation until now, when many children have so little outdoor activity that educators, pediatricians and child psychologists are all sounding alarms.

Losing our connections with nature may be even more devastating for our culture and even our physical survival than our current governmental debacle. Combined? We may never find our way back. 

This past week I have been sequestered up on Dry Hill in Brewster in the humble studio of the nature writer John Hay. Hay was not only a founder of the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History and an award-winning author of 18 books, but he was also one of my earliest mentors. I was one of those very lucky kids that got to follow him around back in the 1960s to learn about birds, snakes, salamanders, and oh so many things.

This past week I’ve spent hours tromping around the woods surrounding the studio and also many of the other conservation areas that the town of Brewster and a handful of conservation trusts and organizations have so carefully protected. There have been so many things to see and hear, to smell and feel. 

If you’re a regular reader you know I get out often, but this has been different in that it has been all day, every day, spent taking in nature.

Families of titmice and wrens have been my companions at the studio. Elsewhere, I’ve been accompanied by baby chipmunks and teenaged red squirrels. A garter snake lives nearby, and all sorts of grasshoppers, butterflies and even dragonflies have kept me busy looking them up. I know quite a few, but there are always new friends to meet when one steps outside and really pays attention.

While at the studio I also reread two of John Hay’s later books that were autobiographical. Being there in his space while reading the books he wrote in that space? To be honest, it’s multilayered. There’s his history, of course, but also his despair about the rate of change and growth happening to his beloved Cape. The destruction he witnessed of the fragile ecosystems weighed heavily upon him, and as I sat watching a phoebe forage outside the studio window, I sighed. 

The destruction continues willy-nilly worldwide, not just here. I was already discouraged about the state of the world, especially the natural world which is under constant threat by an ever-increasing population and climate change, never mind political and economic upheaval, but now I am even more so.

As one who is growing ever older, I am quite aware that times change, needs change, and that the world will never return to the way it once was. And that’s OK. We romanticize many things, including the past, which in reality was not exactly rose-colored. I think what we miss is some of the simplicity, some of the honest work, some of the ways in which we were intimately connected with nature but also each other. Fewer people know their next door neighbors than ever before. We poison our lawns and gardens as if it didn’t affect us, our children, our pets and our food.

There’s a scarlet tanager singing outside my window. I can’t see it, but I sure can hear it. The world goes on, doesn’t it? John Hay is gone, my youth is gone, the Cape Cod I knew and loved is long gone. Let’s not let our connection to nature become extinct. If we lose that, our own extinction won’t be far behind.