Vibrant Village ™

Brooks writes Our Natural World

Nature is everything not created by humans. It is our context and the world we inhabit, no matter how much we insulate ourselves from it with shoes, walls and windows, asphalt or ear plugs. It is our place, where we start and always come back to.

Some of us work hard 'to be more natural', 'get closer to nature' or 'feel the wind in our hair' while others of us work just as hard to distance ourselves from nature and stay protected in controlled environments. Although I delight in air conditioning, electric lights, my car and keeping my ice cream frozen, I do have a bias that we have isolated ourselves too much from nature and forgotten that we are a part of' something bigger, and more important, than ourselves.

I believe that part of what makes our connection with nature so powerful is that it engages all of us simultaneously – our mind, body and spirit. And it provides a rhythm to our lives – night and day – seasons – tides – moon cycles, etc. We feel we can count on nature even with her changes, both predictable and not. I love that mystery lurks just behind nature's predictability.

My purpose in this column is to discuss with you all aspects of nature, how the natural world affects us, what we want to applaud or change, who are nature's spokes-persons, our special moments with nature and where our paths from here lead us in relation to nature.

I will just say a bit about my relationship with nature. So far many of my natural experiences have occurred in or around salt water and have included time with land and marine mammals – wild, captive and domesticated. I have usually lived in beautiful places and lived 36 of my 67 years on islands.

Jane Goodall is someone I honor as a spokesperson. She speaks of the reality of our destruction of the natural world and of the hope she sees in the many positive actions small groups of people are taking to save species and environments.

My memories of 'nature moments' seem to so often return to the peaceful excitement of being at an ocean beach from a very early age. Also when very young, I was looking across the street from my second floor bedroom window when I was certain that I saw the trees grow. When I excitedly ran to tell my Mother, she told me that was impossible. I don't remember what I felt at her response but I still remember clearly the authenticity and thrill of that tree moment.

I also carry inside me the awe and inspiration, and sometimes fear, of the underwater world I discovered scuba diving.

During an 'animal therapy' program I ran, a group of hospitalized children and I were discussing their therapeutic swim with the dolphins. A boy who had been taken away from his family due to abuse, said "the dolphin looked at me the way my Mother used to when she loved me."  That was a profound encounter with nature.

In each column, we'll explore several topics about nature.  I'd like to make this a dialogue,  so I welcome your comments.

Brooks has simplified into using one name. She has spent most of her life on a coast and now she and her partner live in a wild North Carolina marsh. Nature feeds her and art of all kinds gives her expression. She has earned two graduate degrees and worked in education, therapy, art, theater and the marine world. Her poetry chapbook will be published in 2010.