There are really only three things that need concern the human race: stories, gardening, and nature. Think how much more happy and content everyone would be if they just submitted to those three disciplines on a regular basis. We might perhaps end war and poverty and hunger! But alas, we are all too human and even within those distinguished disciplines it would be rife with conflict: who has the best or edgiest story, who has the biggest tomato, I found that rock formation first…has it not been so since the foundation of the world when all mankind had to worry about was stories, gardening, and nature? They hadn't even invented weeds or autocorrect or no trespassing laws back then, paradise indeed!
Yes, it is spring, or it should be, soon, I hope. The difficulty with living in a northern climate is that you need to cram the last two into about three months of the year. Yes, I can grow things in the house, but that is rather limited and while I can get out and tramp the wilds in all seasons, spring and summer offer the nicest weather in which to do so and usually the greatest variety of species, new growth, and fair scenes to observe. Thus stories (written or read) must be pushed aside during those short, blissful months whilst the other two disciplines are observed to their fullest.
I pity the man who takes no joy in any of the three, no wonder life is so dull and tedious to so many, for we have forgotten man's natal joys, wherein we can utterly forget ourselves and thus draw closer to others, the world about us, and even the One who wrought us. It puzzles me how so many want to live 'green' or save the earth or prevent climate change or whatever the current buzzword is, yet how few have truly experienced the natural world or wish to, they take no joy or particular interest in it, save perhaps an occasional nature documentary or a trip to the zoo, and a vague feeling of pride at being eco-conscious. A miser is one who has money but will not spend or use it, it is also the root of miserable, can the same be said of non-monetary concepts?
I was at a state natural area the other day in which all these great sandstone crags were sticking out of the ground, surrounded by ancient pines, quite striking, but there was a sign that said, 'please don't touch the rocks as you might cause erosion of the delicate stone or damage to historic markings.' I found that sadly in line with our modern sensibilities towards the natural world: look but don't touch! Does not the wind and rain in a single season wash away far more than my momentary touch? Why is the graffiti made by people a hundred years dead more 'historic' than something done today (I am not saying we should intentionally defile the stone, just questioning the logic behind their reasoning), which in a hundred years will be likewise historic? How can children come to love something they cannot touch and interact with? How will they learn to protect what they cannot love? Let us not raise another generation of eco-misers!
The natural world is not some delicate flower that will shatter at the merest touch, but rather it is wild and dangerous and beautiful and vibrant and it calls to something deep within each of us. It is not comfortable and scheduled and predictable and safe, therefore it is way outside our comfort zone, and a refreshing escape from the banality and meaninglessness of our technology saturated lives. The same can be said of a good story. That is what it is to live, not merely to exist as our 'look but don't touch' culture would have it. So go live a little, be it picking up a book or a hoe or a feather, but taste and see that it is good, as it was designed to be!
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