Many people go into nature as if they are going to a dangerous and foreign planet. They bring every tool they think they could possibly need to survive and be comfortable, yet they forget the most important tool of all…their mind. I’m guilty of this but I believe it is due to cultural conditioning.
The truth is that nature is not the hostile, unfamiliar place that we have been led to believe. It is our home. The cities we dwell in are more hostile, dangerous, and inhospitable to the human body than nature.
I’m reading a great book right now called “The Quest” by Tom Brown Jr. In it he tells the story of his teacher whom he calls “Grandfather”. Grandfather was an Apache man that was raised to live completely off of nature, and in harmony with nature. Hearing about what this man was capable of has really opened my eyes to how little I know, and how much we have lost as modern humans in exchange for our modern lives.
Stepping into an environment completely naked without even a knife and knowing how to feed, drink, clothe, and provide medicine and shelter for yourself is impressive, almost unreal to anyone in modern society today, and yet this is the way we learned to live and survive and thrive on this planet. If our distant ancestors were not so deeply in tune with nature then we would not be alive today.
This awareness and being a part of nature helped us survive as human animals on this planet without destroying it. Unfortunately, the way we live now destroys the planet because the way we live lacks the awareness of nature. We push it away, far away, to “protect” ourselves from “The harsh, dirty, dangerous and inhospitable wild”.
It’s time to go back to nature. This doesn’t mean running off into the bushes and escaping society. It means affecting positive change from the inside out. Developing the awareness and respect for nature. Allowing “The Wild” back into our lives and seeing what happens.
My belief is that when we do this we will see massive improvements in our physical, mental, and spiritual health, as well as the health of our planet because humans will re-member themselves with nature. Once we remember that it is a part of us and that we are a part of it, I think we’ll start treating it with the respect it deserves, and in doing so we are respecting ourselves more.
Honoring nature is the highest way to honor yourself. Let it into your life and you will know yourself what that means.
