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Spring Approaches
Feb. 25th, 2010 06:27 pmThe other day Sam and I were talking and it came up that the days were getting longer. We talked about how it always happens, and yet people seem to have a little difficulty adjusting. I include myself in that. Though it happens every year, year after year, inevitably I will say: "it's so weird that it's light out still." It's not weird, that's the way it works. Sam mentioned something which seems to ring true, we've become too indoors. That's not to say just literally indoors (and this is where my own interpretation begins) but in our mindsets as well. How often do we bother being in tune with nature for it's own sake?
When people go camping, what do they do? Get away from it all? NO. They bring it all with them. Loud music, beer, unhealthy food (I'm guilty of this), you name it. We've been going camping a while since I've moved here to Albuquerque (three years ago). Camping is different now than I remember it. When I was a kid camping fit into the above category completely, and it seemed fine. We would go to a crowded lake where beer cans littered the shore and rock and/ or hip hop music polluted the air. And we loved every second of it. When I moved to Albuquerque Byron and Sam took me camping and it was different.
When we went, we took very little in the way of stuff besides blankets (which we used for bedding, etc. because we didn't use tents or the like). We went to out of the way desert places (BLM) where there was nobody or close to nobody else around. Then I felt in touch with nature. I paid attention to the wind in the trees, not the loud and unintelligible Mexican music. I followed around the bugs, many of which I had never seen even in pictures, instead of following the lures stuck in trees to find a good fishing spot.
The point I'm trying to make is that even when most people are "immersed" in nature, they don't pay attention to it, or become a part of it. Every year people are suddenly surprised to find a cold day after Summer, or a hot day after a long Winter. They complain about whichever temperature it is, hot or cold. When the days get longer or shorter, it seems sudden, instead of gradual (though daylight savings doesn't help). It's so easy to take this for granted, or rather say that it doesn't really matter, but what does that say about mankind's conscious separation from nature. It also makes me think about how dependent we've become as a species.
On a personal level it means sub-par awareness, even on a spiritual level, not just the superficial knowledge level. It means ignorance. There is a spirit in everything, and this I have come to believe. It means being disconnected from those things, good and bad. It means isolation, and generally ideas I have learned to work at rejecting within myself. As the days grow longer, as the birds become more active, as the bugs come out, I'm going to pay more attention, and I'll choose to be aware of it, one by one. I won't be caught by surprise by something with which I should be accustomed to, a part of, and definitely something which keeps happening like clock-work.
When people go camping, what do they do? Get away from it all? NO. They bring it all with them. Loud music, beer, unhealthy food (I'm guilty of this), you name it. We've been going camping a while since I've moved here to Albuquerque (three years ago). Camping is different now than I remember it. When I was a kid camping fit into the above category completely, and it seemed fine. We would go to a crowded lake where beer cans littered the shore and rock and/ or hip hop music polluted the air. And we loved every second of it. When I moved to Albuquerque Byron and Sam took me camping and it was different.
When we went, we took very little in the way of stuff besides blankets (which we used for bedding, etc. because we didn't use tents or the like). We went to out of the way desert places (BLM) where there was nobody or close to nobody else around. Then I felt in touch with nature. I paid attention to the wind in the trees, not the loud and unintelligible Mexican music. I followed around the bugs, many of which I had never seen even in pictures, instead of following the lures stuck in trees to find a good fishing spot.
The point I'm trying to make is that even when most people are "immersed" in nature, they don't pay attention to it, or become a part of it. Every year people are suddenly surprised to find a cold day after Summer, or a hot day after a long Winter. They complain about whichever temperature it is, hot or cold. When the days get longer or shorter, it seems sudden, instead of gradual (though daylight savings doesn't help). It's so easy to take this for granted, or rather say that it doesn't really matter, but what does that say about mankind's conscious separation from nature. It also makes me think about how dependent we've become as a species.
On a personal level it means sub-par awareness, even on a spiritual level, not just the superficial knowledge level. It means ignorance. There is a spirit in everything, and this I have come to believe. It means being disconnected from those things, good and bad. It means isolation, and generally ideas I have learned to work at rejecting within myself. As the days grow longer, as the birds become more active, as the bugs come out, I'm going to pay more attention, and I'll choose to be aware of it, one by one. I won't be caught by surprise by something with which I should be accustomed to, a part of, and definitely something which keeps happening like clock-work.
