We are part of nature. It’s undeniable. Though we certainly attempt to deny it constantly, with our hacks to avoid getting natural viruses and our living situations where we stay in climate-controlled homes far away from dirt, we are completely interconnected with and indebted to the movement of the planet (circadian rhythms) and the nourishment of the environment around us (clean food, water, and air). Many of us already know this.
I’ve known this.
When I go down to the marsh next to our apartment complex, I dissolve.
How does one dissolve into a marsh? Well, it took time. I visited maybe fifty times before I realized that I am the marsh and the marsh is me. I’ll tell you what happened in those visits and how things progressed from separateness to oneness.
Listening Deeply
In the marsh, as with any natural area I go, I stop so that I don’t even hear my own footsteps, and I listen deeply. I tune into the primordial sounds around me. I close my eyes. The birds, the wind in the branches and reeds, the frogs, and the insects. Everything. This is healing.
Sounds heal as much as anything else. If we tap into the incredible sounds of nature, they activate parts of us at a molecular level to remind us of our own natural powers.
Our powers to heal. Our powers to grow. Our powers to create.
The sounds take over so that my own noisy mind can’t pervade. I begin to remember that I am not equal to my thoughts. Suddenly, I am connected deeply to nature, and I meld with the marsh.
Seeing Deeply
I’ve noticed that most people, when they go hiking, will just walk fast and never stop to notice anything. They literally don’t know how to stop and smell the roses. No one ever taught them the value of slowing down and observing nature. They will even speak with friends loudly the whole hike, listen to headphones, or god forbid, play the music out loud from their devices. Completely preventing themselves from the benefits of being in nature.
Distracting themselves so that they don’t have to stop and see.
But I always stop and smell the roses.
I look up. When I hear an interesting sound, I stop and look for its source. I notice the ripples on the surface of the marsh and wonder what is causing them. I stay alert to what’s moving and living all around me. And I miss very little of the life happening around me this way.
After many visits to my marsh, I have learned all the bird calls. There’s really no other way to learn them than to experience them. I hear their unique call and I look up every time, remembering how the bird flew and its coloration, looking up the species later to learn more. I know the sound of a kingfisher as well as a bald eagle. And from this observance, from really seeing, I can tell which birds are flying overhead, from the circling turkey vulture to a dynamic cooper’s hawk.
I look down, too. I see the tracks of deer and beavers in the mud. The trees that the beavers gnawed. The frogs hiding in the mud next to the water. I know them all and when they’re most likely to be out and about. The beavers like to come out in the evening and when it’s raining, for instance. The deer are only around at twilight. I know their rhythms.
This knowledge didn’t come overnight. It took time and care.
I’ll put this word in front of you again: care.
Why? Because when we become one with nature, that’s when we can’t help but begin to care. A lot. The animals, plants, and even the water and rocks become precious as if they were our own family members, and we have no choice but to care.
Removing Toxins
We have toxins in our bodies that result from being out of sync with nature. Our relationship with nature is so important. And nature has its toxins. What pollutes the purity of nature pollutes us, too. Our connection with nature is clearly broken because people think it’s fine to throw bottles and trash into natural places, and as long as it’s out of sight, it’s out of mind, right? Wrong.
The trash that’s in the world, filling up oceans and landfills, makes its way into our food, air, and water, and back into our bodies.
But it should not be for these selfish reasons that we want to clean it up. It should because we feel the oneness. The love for all that is on this planet.
So, after seeing the amounts of trash in the marsh, my daughter and I began cleaning it up the best way we could. We weren’t going to stand by and just allow it to accumulate. Who knows how it got there — did it blow into the water? Did people literally come down there with the intention to pollute? Who knows.
All I knew was that there are beavers, deer, bald eagles, herons, rabbits, frogs, snakes, turtles, and countless other wildlife in that marsh. And that humans are at fault for the mess. And that I had hands and feet that allow me to do something about it.
So, I got to work.
I ordered a trash picker and a child-sized one for my daughter. We went down there over many days and we have removed probably fifty pounds of trash in total so far. We walked along the edges of the marsh, dissolving into its beauty and intelligence at every step, picking up empty bottles of booze, Gatorade, and those little sauce packets they give you at fast-food restaurants. Scraping our legs every now and then on thorns, getting our shoes wet and muddy, bending over to reach things in awkward positions. Getting sweaty. Getting wet in the rain.
You wouldn’t believe the things we’ve picked up from this marsh.
Bubble wrap. Condom wrappers. A non-disposable plastic bottle with something really insanely gross inside that might have been a fetus but I’m probably imagining things.
The marsh is now cleaner, although we couldn’t reach some of the bottles floating in the middle. However, we feel like we are totally connected to it now. We aren’t its stewards because it is clearly our steward, but we are participating in an exchange of karmic energy beyond our lifetimes.
What to Walk Away With
If you have learned something here, I hope it is that you can make a difference. All it takes is mindfulness. The idea that you are part of this ecosystem and it nourishes you; and every choice you make has an impact. That you can find beauty in something that isn’t human. And that your time can be spent on reversing a little bit of human destruction. Just a bit.
Although it’s cliche, it’s true that if all of us chose to clean up a little bit of nature in our lifetimes and committed to reducing our waste, we would have a much healthier world. And we would be healthier as a result.
