Nature And Mother Nature : Reconnecting With Mother Earth

As a child, I unraveled nature’s beauty and existence. Each new experience brought me feelings of excitement and joy, sparkling my imagination and igniting my curiosity. It all seemed so large back then. Oceans appeared endless as they reached towards the horizon. Treetops seemed to make friends with the puffy-looking clouds as they soared to the sky. Over the years however, as I have grown older and life has become more complex, I am beginning to think less and less about the natural world around me. I glimpse sunset stuck in rush-hour traffic trying to return school after debate practices and only listen to the pitter-patter of the rain when there’s a storm outside. Forests and oceans seemed less appealing as they became intertwined with the urban development. In a way, I was becoming more and more distanced from the so-called nature. So, with an overwhelming desire for adventure and to escape the masses, my family and I drove to Big Bend National Park in Southwest Texas last summer.

The Cronon argues that individuals have to change the way of our thinking about wilderness. Cronon’s article Getting back to wrong nature or the trouble with wilderness describes that the wilderness, as individuals see, has no direct relativity to nature. He is of the opinion that people have excluded nature from their Western Culture. The main idea of Cronon’s text is that people can find a solution of their environmental disturbance if they stop thinking of wilderness as “a dualistic picture in which the human is completely outside the nature” (Cronon). The concept of wilderness in people’s mind was of an aggressive and horrifying desert.

“Even staid, prissy Thoreau, who famously declared that it was enough to have “traveled a good deal in concord” felt compelled to visit the more fearsome wilds of nineteenth- century Maine and climb Mt. Katahdin. His ascent of the peak’s “savage and awful, though beautiful” ramparts shocked and frightened him, but it also induced a giddy sort of awe. The disquietude he felt on Katahdin’s granite heights inspired some of his most powerful writing and profoundly colored the way he thought thereafter about the earth in its coarse, undomesticated state. Unlike Muir and Thoreau, McCandless went into the wilderness not primarily to ponder nature or the world at large but, rather, to explore the inner country of his own soul. He soon discovered, however,

In Wallace Stegner’s “Wilderness Letter,” he is arguing that the countries wilderness and forests need to be saved. For a person to become whole, Stegner argues that the mere idea of the wild and the forests are to thank. The wilderness needs to be saved for the sake of the idea. He insinuates that anyone in America can just think of Old faithful, Mt. Rainier, or any other spectacular landform, even if they have not visited there, and brought to a calm. These thoughts he argues are what makes us as people whole.

In the essay, “A Literature of Place”, Barry Lopez expresses the importance of nature as it applies to human life. Through this he states that humans’ imagination are inspired by the scenery around them. Lopez revolves around a central perspective; Ancient american literature has always been rooted in nature. By acknowledging that modern human identity has been interpreted by nature, Lopez describes how the landscape of an area can shape the structure of the communities and how it can help with spiritual collapse. Nature writing has often been summarised by being one of the oldest threads in american literature. With our nation's aging one needs to reflect on their literary past; therefore, Lopez insists that we find our path to nature that

The sun was glistening through the tall, swaying pines. To the right of the trail, a gentle river flowed softly down towards the mouth of the lake. Walking across the rickety wooden bridge, I inhaled a deep breath of refreshingly crisp mountain air. The sun beat down on me as I made my way across the bridge and back onto the well-used hiking trail. The ambient sounds of chirping birds, babbling water, and the croaks of several frogs filled my ears as I made my way around the bend. As I entered the mouth of the forest, I could see my father standing in the middle of the path, glancing upwards, taking in the beauty that had began to engulf us. “We better get going.” he said, looking back at me. “There’s still many miles to go.” I smiled and turned, taking in one last view of the beautiful creekside. Then, with determination, we set out to finish the challenging trek we had started.

Strayed had gone through quite a bit before deciding on taking a hiking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail. Strayed thought the Pacific Crest Trail would help her find who she was before her mother’s death. To illustrate, “I’d set out to hike the trail so I could reflect upon my life, to think about everything that had broken me and make myself whole again” (84). This hiking trip was her way to find the person she was before her mother died. After hiking for three weeks she noticed, “I am not afraid… I realized…I’d done to myself and all that had been done to me” (122). Having spent three week hiking up Strayed become aware of a change in herself, she began showing confidence in herself (122). Her confidence is practically oozing out of her by the end of her journey (310). She tries to pass her confidence on to another person who was considering going on a similar journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. She emphasized, ‘“You could. You should. Believe me, if I can do this, anybody can”’ (310). Strayed has truly understood who she is after hiking eleven hundred miles through gruesome and extreme environments. Now, she is an inspiration to those who have hit rock bottom and need to find

Waking up to discover the immense, pristine wilderness of Alaska, listening to the birds chirping their sounds while feeling the tremble of your heart beating through your veins. Trees as far as one can see with rolling hills and distant peaks covered with unblemished snow. The sounds of streams growing larger until they rush over a fall, and into an untainted lake. Pondering the true meaning of life while observing Mother Nature’s true grace. Very few people can relate to this scene of the wild. One of them being Christopher Johnson McCandless, a young pioneer and traveler, who was determined to seek the truth no matter what the cost.

Attending college, beginning a career, starting a family, and ultimately getting trapped in a daily routine are components in life that many see no means of escape. The lure of living off the grid with no responsibilities or connections to adult life are attractive but unattainable to most people. The experiences of Chris McCandless chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s book, Into the Wild, mystify the nation, along with many of the people he meets during his journey. From stories of those who meet McCandless along the way, people were able to put the pieces together and make a few assumptions for the reason he chooses to go into the wild. Individualism, living a minimalistic life, nonconformity, going into nature, and trusting oneself are fundamental Transcendentalist principles that McCandless also exemplifies. Two well-known proponents of the Transcendental movement, writers Henry Thoreau and Ralph Emerson, also have a strong connection to nature, that are also shown in Chris McCandless’s journey. This connection with nature requires someone to go into nature to clear the mind of meaningless things, and to open up their consciousness to what nature has to offer them. In doing so, a bond with their surroundings that has a direct impact on their well being and mental wellness. Chris McCandless, as described by Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, demonstrates becoming one with nature through nature’s impact on his well being and mental health.

Many find nature to be beautiful and captivating, but others take it to the extreme and inhibit themselves to live on its contents. Living off the land can be temperamental while also being critical to one’s survival. Chris McCandless, according to researchers, can easily be comparable to the similar situations of John Waterman, Carl McCunn, and Everett Ruess. All of these men had one goal: To seek out a greater purpose in nature. However, complications and puzzling disappearances brought them to their fate. Jon Krakauer provides examples of men analogous to McCandless’ experience to distinguish how crucial it is when someone decides to make a delirious decision to abandon their former life for a new one.

My grandparents have two small wooden cabins there that they bought back in the eighties. It was meant to be a special family place where we could all meet. Although it was a four hour flight and an eight hour drive away, my parents, brothers, and I went up every summer for a week up to a month. The smells of my grandmother’s homemade delicacies and the feeling of the gravel on the car tires as we drove up the unpaved road left memories that take me back to that place. Picking blackberries from some wild bushes near the cabin and sitting on my Grandfather’s lap as we would look out from the porch into the thick forest enveloping the land around us, are just some of the memories I hold near and dear. One visit, a bear crept onto my grandparents’ porch on a rather rainy day. I watched from inside, staring into the eyes of the black beauty, drenched from ear to paw, just a few feet and a wall away. As I read Thoreau, these fond memories of my time away from the rest of the world come rushing back to me. His fascination with a world towards which, we have made ourselves outsiders, intrigues me as well. His yearning to know a place that has no way of ever being entirely known, is familiar to

She retraces the mountain of her ancestry every single day quietly. In the wind she can smell the scent of her ancestors made from crushed pale blue leaves of the mountain. The smell is coming from up the mountain side from which her ancestors descended from, where the mountain lion laid down and ate their deer. It is better to be where she once came from, where her ancestors came from, up on that mountain watching nature. The elderly that remember it once are all gone, the old songs of ancestors are forgotten, and the story where it all began died with its memory. The memory of the culture dances in the snow frost moonlight, swam in the freezing mountain water, went through the

Imagine spending thirty days alone in a tent or a cabin in the wilderness with no technology, electricity, running water, and any form of communication. Every day you wake up to the sight of the beautiful, tall trees and the various wildlife living in the area. Most of the time, you can hear the many sounds of nature: the majestic songs of birds, the whistling in the wind, and trees rustling. But sometimes all you can hear is nothing but silence. Most of us would not be able to do this and we would most likely want to be anywhere but here. Not many people will experience living in the wilderness, but for those who have will have memories to treasure forever. Among those people who would choose this

When the sun slowly peeps over the range of mountains, birds shake the morning dew off their feathers and give a cheerful song that would lift even the most sorrowful of spirits. A light fog wraps around the mountain range, reaching to touch every bit of life thriving there. The slight chill in the air is enough to give a gentle shiver, but not enough for the need of a jacket. A breeze tickles the trees, making their leaves shake and sway with laughter. Sunlight seeps in past the thick canopy of branches with hopes of being able to reach the damp mountain earth. The mountains are the best place to live to be relaxed, see the most beauty, and never get bored.

As I left behind the somber forest, I now recognized an appreciation for nature that I did not realize I had. I now knew there was more to nature than just trees and animals, but also I found the