Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost

Hey guys!

Today I wandered around campus on my own and I kinda had a few hours to contemplate some things that have been on my mind lately. I walked around the forests here, checked out the church, and I walked around a little at night. I took some pictures of some of the things I saw, and I only took a few pictures because sometimes there are things that you can't take pictures of.

Basically this is just going to be a post where I ramble on about nature and how we don't give it the attention and respect that it deserves.

Here we go.



One of the biggest pitfalls of my generation, specifically those of us in the US, is our inability to be patient and observe what's around us in a peaceful manner. While I was walking around the forest I had one headphone in my ear that cancelled out some of the sounds around me. I couldn't even spend 10 minutes listening to the sounds around me. Tonight I spent 30 minutes in silence, no headphones or music, and looked at the stars. There aren't that many stars here since there's a lot of cloud coverage, but the few stars that were there were worth the effort.

That's another thing. Nature is really noisy. When most people think of silence or quietness, a forest or another nature landscape comes to mind. It's a little worrying that we think nature is silent, that it doesn't make itself known in our minds. One of the books I read in Arnoldo's office a while back had this quote that really stuck out and made me think about our perception of nature.

"The transformation of the perception of nature during the industrial and scientific revolution illustrates how 'nature' was transformed in the European mind from a self organizing, living system to a mere raw material for human exploitation, needing management and control."

-Vandana Shiva

Sometimes we ignore nature and push it to the edge. We're constantly trying to fight against nature, to fight against this thing that always seems to bring us down, when in reality we need to allow it to take over our lives. I'm not saying that we should all go out an live in the forest, Ralph Waldo Emerson style, I'm just saying that we need to know when to stop and re-evaluate what we're doing to nature. We need to treat nature better than we would treat ourselves. We call it "Mother Nature" but if we treated our mothers the same way we treat nature, well, we would be in deep trouble. 

I think that EARTH University and the people who live here do a good job of acknowledging nature. There are small paths all around campus for people to walk on so they don't ruin any plant life by walking through the forest. Everything here has the environment in mind. We recycle, compost, and make sure that waste is minimized in an efficient and nature friendly way. Most buildings here have solar panels to collect energy in a safe and sustainable. Most importantly, EARTH teaches students to become one with nature and to work with it rather than against it. We're taught that we need to use what is given to us in a wise and sustainable way in order to live good lives. We're here to learn this information and spread it once we go into communities, whether they're our own community or another community.

Wandering through campus really made me appreciate the world I've been blessed with and the life I've been given. It's a gift to be living consciously and an even greater gift to have the opportunity to explore. I like this world and the things that inhabit it. I love the trees here, the little armadillos running around, the flowers, the mountains, and every other natural part of EARTH. I also love and miss parts of New Jersey and New York where nature rules. I love Island Beach State Park, I love the Long Island Sound, I love Alexandria Bay, I love the Adirondacks, I love the fields in the north country, and I even love the small parts of Howell where nature is left in peace. I love all of these places and I want to keep them the way they are. I want to be a vet and work with animals, but I also want to do my best to keep nature safe and preserved. I think we can all do this, you don't have to be an agronomist to recycle or keep the planet in mind while you're living. If we can all be conscious of the world around us and respect nature, I genuinely think that we could at least maintain what we have.

Well, that's what I thought about today. Do you guys ever think about stuff like this? Do you think that we need to work with nature or against it? Do you agree with me or am I turning into a sentimental hippie? Comment and let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading!

-Allie