Fear of being hurt

Jefferson Memorial Forest - Wildflowers

Parents in this region and in this country are saying to their children that they want to know where their children are at all times.  If  children are kept from outdoor play they are going to miss exploring the world around them.   Children need to discover tadpoles and dragonflies on their own path of discovery. Children need to absorb the scene that can only be experienced by star light.  It is good for anyone to experience seeing the scene of the land by star light.  If parents were to check they would often find that there is no more crime than at any time in the past thirty years.  The fear of crime drives people to avoid playing and exploring and parents to keep their children under supervision.  Are the risks from being a crime victim beyond the risks of being hampered by cancer, heart disease or pulmonary disease?  Are we letting our fears overtake our ability to decide the journey that would be most enjoyable for us?

A water bottle

Damaged water bottle

Yesterday I found out where the water was coming from that I have been finding in my vehicle.  My metal water bottle had opened like the petals of a flower.  All of the water must have frozen and the force of the ice pushed the metal out making the bottle no longer able to contain a liquid.  I am angry but angry with my own action. I could have filled the bottle with less water and it would have survived the freezing temperature. I will walk with my own anger and make a walk of peaceful steps on the earth.  

Nature writing

Arch - Carter Caves SRP, Kentucky

One of the criticisms lodged against nature writing is that much of it focuses on the scenic places of wilderness.  The criticism is that few if any people live in wilderness places so nature writing should be about the towns and cities where people live and work.  The premise of this criticism is not defensible.  The towns and cities that the critics bring up are a recent development.  The vast contamination of the natural environment is even more recent.  It has only been since the industrial revolution that the distribution of man made chemicals and emissions from man made energy production has been on a scale that the wilderness has been  polluted in the most remote places.

Wendell Berry wrote in the poem series Sabbaths:

Because we have not made our lives to fit
Our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
The streams polluted, the mountains overturned.

 
The wilderness is completely necessary for our biological health.   Additionally it provides a spiritual respite for us in a world of unabated stress.  If we are to have a time away from the artificial world of our workaday world we must pause to bring to mind the few precious places that we have.  If if we are able we must step into the few wild places that we have. If we are to continue to live in this world we must have wilderness.  Our understanding of the wilderness is fairly incomplete.  We strive to understand it more. 

Albert Einstein wrote:

 The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the sower of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger...is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself to us as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of all true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men.

Nature writing will be about the pristine places and the contaminated places.   It will be about natural places that are the subject of our concern.  Nature writing will by necessity describe wilderness places and sometimes  towns and cities.  Nature writing will include contradictions.  It will always provoke thought and sometimes provoke action as the very capacity of the natural world to serve as habitat for the creatures of this world is threatened. 
 

What I saw - Big South Fork of the Cumberland River

Trail along the shore of the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River

The Big South Fork of the Cumberland River - Devils Jump passage

In Kentucky in the Big South Fork Fork NRRA there are narrow places where the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River has rapids.   The sound of the river echoes through the woods along the river's path.   This is a place of amazement. This place brings healing to the wandering and tired soul.

"There is a love of wild Nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love ever showing itself whether recognized or no, and however covered by cares and duties."

John Muir

Afternoon surprise



Wolf Creek Dam - Jamestown, Kentucky - Rainbow

Sometimes when one least expects to see something incredible something surprising happens.
This rainbow.

Yes.

Appreciation.

Breathe

Poinsettia - Lake Cumberland State Park - Christmas 2014

When one breathes in with affirmation of life and breathes out with appreciation of things that are seen benefits ensue.

Nature's seasons

Woods North of the Green River Mammoth Cave NP - Hart County, Kentucky

Southern Magnolia - Marion County - Kentucky

American Holly - Loretto, Kentucky

Sometimes after the leaves are off of the trees the color of the woods looks gray.  In some regions the color is a deep green because of the pine trees.  In Kentucky there are American holly trees and magnolia trees that have full leaves and green color.  The trees here were fully green after the neighboring maples and oaks had their leaf color turned to brown.  Sometimes there is something to appreciate like a lotus flower that becomes revealed after awhile.  Even in places removed from the lands of lotus flowers.