Some Sauntering

We, the tree-climbers, the collectors of sticks and pebbles, the star-gazers, and the evening saunterers are the few and far between.

While almost all men feel an attraction drawing them to Society, few are strongly attracted to Nature.

We who walk down to the waterfront late at night to see the reflection of the moon and listen to the peepers, we who take out the kayaks to explore the marshy streams for birds, we who climb the trees to talk to them and be comforted by strong branches and leaf whispers, we are the few with a strong attraction to Nature. We seek out the wild as Thoreau does, even if our wild is tame compared to his. We wish we could walk for hours down the road past the boathouse and through the fields just to find out what is there.

No doubt Thoreau would encourage us to abandon our studies for walking. He is speaking to our college when he says 'to the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, sometimes — Go to grass. You have eaten hay long enough. The Spring has come with its green crop'. Even as we turn towards fall, it is still better to learn from the natural world than the textbook. How can we ever hope to know what the Monarch Butterfly and the Canada Goose knows in the fall if we do not spend time outside, tasting the air and seeing the shifting of the sun? Is this knowledge not as worthwhile as learning how to decipher texts based on historical information? The literary geniuses tell us about society vs. man and man vs. man and man vs. self and man vs. nature, but the bees and squirrels tell us that man and nature are not so different: we must get ready for winter; store up our summer fruits, unpack the heavy sweaters.

I believe there is a subtile magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright. It is not indifferent to us which way we walk. There is a right way; but we are very liable from heedlessness and stupidity to take the wrong one.

Unless we go out again and again and Listen to nature, we will never be able to find the right path. I say 'Listen' rather than 'listen' because it is not a literal hearing of the natural world speaking to us that we hear, but rather with listen with our hearts and allow our long-suppressed migratory instincts to re-awaken and guide us to the next fertile pasture.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly,

Summer was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.

(from "Something Told the Wild Geese" by Rachel Field, 1894-1942)

What is it that tells the wild geese? We can only hope to know by leaving everything behind and walking with them as the fly.