As Jane Goodall once said, “From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest”(BrainyQuote.com, 2017).This has been true to every word. The woods has always been a sanctuary for me and was where I was able to bond with my husband and his family. At a young age, I would adventure into the woods behind my childhood home to see the trees and the mysterious wildlife that would roam. My mother would get onto to me for collecting more animals than amount of chores I would accomplish. She was not very happy to say the least. As I grew a little older, my grandfather taught me the ways of the forest and what type of activities that are available. In other words, I took a hunting safety course and got my license. Ever since I have sat in the woods and wondered about all of the possibilities that were created from one tree seed. On the other hand I wondered how my personal life affecting the forest population, how will my actions affect the future, and do you have to visit a forest to have an impact?
How is my personal life affecting the forest? My personal life affects everything. From the air I breathe to the water I drink, forest help regulate the balance of the cycles of life that go on everyday. When I use the lavatory or have to fix a pipe in my house, these affect the forest. They affect the forest by
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.
Sixty days of carrying 80-pound backpacks, sleeping under a tarp for shelter in the Utah winter – welcome to “wilderness therapy.”
that have been compelled to care for their forests by systematic managing. He also says that, “In their natural condition, or under wise management, keeping out destructive sheep, preventing fires, selecting the trees that should be cut for lumber, and preserving the young ones, these forests would be a never failing fountain of wealth and beauty” (360). We can clearly notice that nature is important to him. His writings moved presidents, and congressmen, “Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed—chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could get out of their bark hides……-God has cared for these trees…but he can not save them from fools – only Uncle Sam can do that.”
Sometimes, being alone in nature does not always teach us life lessons. Because of how busy we become searching for more connection, we do not get the chance to take in all of what nature has to offer. However, when we go out into nature with another person, experiences become more enriching, and we learn more valuable life lessons. This is also demonstrated in “Her First Elk” by Rick Bass, a story of a girl who went to the woods looking for one thing, and because of her interacted with other humans found so much more. It was simple, Jly had lost her father who used to hunt elk with her.
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.
The affect of environmental issues occur everyday and in particular deforestation is becoming a highly ranked subject. From animals to the human race, the alacrity of trees that are cut down affects every individual in a variety of ways. Not only do people need to help the planet but they need to help themselves and further generations to come, such as children and grandchildren because these natural resources that are being taken away from society are as well shaping the future. For comprehensible reasons, forests use to make up the world, until man made creatures started to destroy and destruct the most important supply to human kind which are trees. Trees are crucial to every living entity for the reason of providing oxygen to all.
In the serious yet optimistic journal entry, John Muir employs the idea of spiritual duty, and personification, as humans to preserves the continuously killed Redwoods. Muir has seen the death of hundreds of trees and knows the irreparable damage it could cause if the damage continues, “...kings of the forest, the noblest of a noble race, rightly belong to the world, but as they are in California we cannot escape responsibility as their guardians” (paragraph, 6). The author’s use of “noblest of a noble race” and “responsibility as their guardian” evokes an intense need to not only protest the killing of these giants but to nurture and advocate respect for the Redwoods. As humans, Muir demands an explanation as to our mistreatment of the sacred creatures and will take no other answers than of one that demonstrates total and complete love for the trees. He expects those who are damaging God’s prized forests to questions themselves and to examine their actions so that they can correct their mistakes. Another example of personification that appeals to the trees is John Muir’s description of the insurgence of rebellion against the murder of the trees, and the rejoicing of the behemoths, “... this righteous uprising in defense of God’s trees in the midst of exciting politics and wars… and every Sequoia… has heard the good news and is waving its branches for joy” (paragraph, 1). The words in this sentence serve primarily to illustrate the tree’s emotions. By giving the trees the ability to feel and exhibit joy over their possibly brighter future, it gives people a sense of pride about alleviating some of the Redwood’s pain. As Muir has demonstrated many times before, it is the people's duty to cherish the Redwoods; there will never be a moment when this job is completed.
These are issues that I often ponder. I realize this consciousness is atypical of many of my compatriots. However, the roots of my compulsive musings are not wholly random because I was subjected to much similar thinking from an early age. Having grown up in a region where civilization and development were slow in coming, and where trees outnumber cornstalks and coal mines corn silos, we had ample opportunity to reflect on man’s relationship to nature. My parents are two well-educated, biologically trained individuals with an almost obsessive need to be outdoors. They met, so the story goes, in a graduate school class when my mother asked my father for his pocketknife to scrape moss from a tree trunk. It was love amongst the bryophytes. They spent several years trekking all over the U.S. on vacations to national forests and monuments and deserts and mountains, and my arrival on the scene did not cease their wanderings. Though I did restrict the locale. There are numerous pictures of one of my parents standing on some wooded ridge with the peak of my red hat sticking up over their shoulder.
Have you ever decided to just go for a nice walk outside to get some exercise and enjoy the sun? (well if not, let’s pretend that you have for the purpose of this essay). And then, out of nowhere, you realize that something is missing. That THING, is actually something really quite important. In fact, your life depends on it. Well that THING, ladies and gentlemen, is the forest, and the birds and the bees and the flowers and the, well: trees! OK, I know that this probably hasn't really happened to you, (the whole, "OMG, the forest
My groups goals in the Tropical Rainforest is to make a living from Rubber Tapping, but because of certain deforestation methods like clear-cutting Rubber trees are becoming scarce. The process of rubber tapping a tree is much like getting maple syrup from a maple tree and in no way is harmful. In order to protect our goals of making a living off Rubber Tapping we are asking for protected reserves of part of the
A huge dimension of our wellness and culture as humans, our spirituality, is affected by nature. Nature, in its grandeur, has inspired theological thought in many people. A particular movement in history that exemplified this was Transcendentalism. Two particularly famous transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s renowned essay, “Nature” demonstrates the transcendentalists’ fascination with the natural world and their belief in its divinity. A fantastic quote from “Nature” is “Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years.” In this quote, Emerson refers to nature as “God’s plantation”, which clearly shows his belief, which is shared by many transcendentalists, that nature is holy and connected to God. Henry David Thoreau’s classic book Walden demonstrates similar ideas. Perhaps the most famous quote from the book is “I went to the woods to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” (Thoreau 182) The idea that going to nature allows one to “live deliberately” and understand the “essential facts of life” in essence means that one can develop a true understanding of life through observation and life in nature. The transcendentalists’ beliefs were based in nature. Many others in the
The author of A Walk in the Woods, Bryson Tiller, tell his story about hiking the Appalachian trail. He narrates his experience and what he went through with his friend Katz. He frequently takes a pause from narrating though, and goes into giving information and statistics about the Appalachian Trail, mostly about how it is not well taken care of. So, it is safe to say that a theme or purpose for him writing this book is to make people see that nature needs to be protected. Nature is important for everything and everyone, more than humans are important for nature since humans are the ones slowly destroying it. He also mentions how after hiking he felt stronger and healthier. He is almost thanking the trail for bringing him where he is now, and it comes back to the importance of taking care of nature because people can feel revitalized after spending some time in it.
The sun is high above me and I walk into the forest in front of me,
It was a calm, overcast day, and I found myself resting at the side of a large oak tree, admiring the beauty of the woods that surrounded me.
I am appealing to you as a conservationist. I believe that the natural resources of the forest can be of great help to us. As we experience this oil and gas crisis in the US, we are forced to import oil from foreign countries. Thus causing the cost of