What image comes to mind when you hear the word nature?
If you’re like most people, you think of wilderness, jungle, National Parks, the Grand Canyon, or maybe something like that picture above (a mangrove swamp). None of these are wrong. When discussing nature as a concept, all of those places are necessary, but they aren’t sufficient. They don’t tell the whole story.
One of the things I would like to convey with these stories is a new/different concept of nature than something completely separate and apart from our everyday lives. You don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to experience it. Nature is something you can find in your own backyard (even if you don’t actually have a backyard).
Just take a look at some of my photos from previous stories. One of my earlier stories looked back at our family trip to the Galápagos. Most of those photos were taken by my brother (a much more talented photographer than myself), but the Galápagos islands are about as wild a place as you can get. Now contrast the photos in the basking story or my most recent story. I took the photo of the turtles at the Everglades Wonder Gardens. The pictures of the basking heron were taken from the lanai of my parents’ condo and the top photo of the stork was on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University.
The point I am getting at is that nature is everywhere. It is where you choose to find it. It took me a long time to start looking for it in places that weren’t the usual suspects. My goal is not to try and tell you how to experience nature, but to help you re-imagine that experience. Nature is going to mean something slightly different to everyone. For me, it is each of a thousand interactions and behaviors going on right in front of us.
Now, I can already imagine some of you objecting: “But Derek, I live in a concrete jungle. How can I possibly experience nature there?” That’s a fair point. It can be difficult to imagine city streets as natural. However, this is not insurmountable. Firstly, many major cities have parks that allow for the enjoyment of a more natural setting.
From that picture, you probably couldn’t even tell that you were in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world. Secondly, even outside of parks, a city can actually have a fascinating natural ecosystem. All you have to do is train yourself to see beyond the obvious and you will begin to realize all of the nature that exists around you. It has always been there, you just didn’t think to look.
Next time, I going to talk about how to look and listen to your surroundings so that you can expand your own concept of nature as well as discuss the concept of talent vs. skill.