Speaking of Nature

There are some who can live without wild things and some who cannot. These essays are the delights and dilemmas of one who cannot:- Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac.

I first read those words as a college student fifty years ago. Since then, I have identified as one who cannot. 

The wild creatures in this story are neither symbols nor metaphors. They are fellow travelers, the other element that populates our world in their space and time. I consider any interaction with them a blessing.

I am taken up with beauty, and for me, that is enough. I find solace in the words of Edward Abbey: Let us throw metaphysics to the dogs. I never heard a wildcat bawling about the fate of his soul.

Parts of this essay became the four-part poem with the same title in my new book, It’s Just a Phase.

Speaking of Nature

Will I speak to you of nature? I will but I must give a warning. Kali, the patron goddess of Calcutta, is a nature goddess. She personifies the destructive forces of nature. Kali rules the typhoon, the earthquake, and the tidal wave. She wears a necklace of human skulls. She is the bringer of enlightenment, but her wisdom has a price.

Aerial photographs of an area hit by a typhoon may reveal human bodies awash in an ocean. Some may be alive and waving hands, hoping to summon an unlikely rescue. Kali is sometimes depicted with her foot on her husband’s chest, his heart in her upraised hand.

Speak to us of nature you say, and I give another warning. Life is always making more life. Ancient peoples saw the planet Venus appearing for nine months at a time and she became a fertility goddess. For the ancient Greeks, she governed erotic love. Her appearance stimulated not only human impulses but the mating of livestock and wildlife as well.

Gray whales en route to Baja are bound for an ancient ritual. Every gray whale calf born was conceived in those mystic waters of its Pacific Coast. Imagine a pair of forty-ton leviathans, mating in water.  If they sink below the surface, they could drown in spasms of erotic ecstasy. A male whale supports them on his back.

Shall I speak to you of nature? Are you certain? I shall tell you of predators and their essential existence. When wolves returned to Yellowstone after a long absence, they happily set about killing elk. Trees browsed and in decline recovered, and the forest regained its health. The herds became strong under the predators’ watchful eye.

Beavers returned and dammed the streams. Rivers slowed down, and marshes grew.  Fish populations thrived. Small mammals flourished.

Yes, I will speak of nature and its losses and recovery, but it is not a picture of steady progress. The Colorado River, which flows through that tourist paradise, the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, is a legal battleground. Each western state battles the others for their “fair share” of the water. Some years, it is a dry stream bed at the place where it historically entered the Sea of Cortez.

A few years ago, two conservation groups bought some of the water rights and left water in the river. The marshes of Baja rebounded, and fish populations returned to abundance. Western cities were not happy. Residents of Los Vegas blamed the conservationists for their lack of water. I have heard their cause advanced as evidence of a need to change our water policies here in Tennessee.

No one wants to admit that these Western cities are in trouble because they were built in a desert that cannot sustain such a large population. Perhaps they should not have been allowed to grow so big or never have been built, but no one wants to limit growth.

Nature is not a safe country for discourse, but I have known its beauty and grandeur. I love the beauty of canyons and waterfalls, and I suspect you refer to this beauty when you say nature. I will speak of those things as well.

I recall the rhythmic pulse of waves breaking on the rocky shores of the Florida Keys and on the sands of Cape Cod, Assateague, and Edisto. That rhythm is the pulse of Mother Nature’s heart and the waves are not far removed from the amniotic ocean in which our lives began. The clean smell of the receding tide reminds me of how fresh and clean the world can be despite the smell of oil and industrial refuse which persists in some harbors.

The nightly calls of frogs and katydids delight my ears. Sitting on my deck sipping tea, I am transported to a brief paradise when they call.

The waterfalls and vistas of Georgia’s Cloudland Canyon and Alabama’s Little River Canyon fill my soul with majesty. They are rooms fit for a king, but available to all.

The playfulness of otters on the Tennessee River or of seals near Cape Cod’s shores, or of dolphins off the shores of Florida fill my memory and remind me to be gentle and playful. I once learned that lesson from a Right Whale Calf, one who waved flippers and flukes as I watched from the deck of a boat, well above the waves.

I forget from time to time, but it is a recurring memory. It gives me hope that these creatures continue to recover. The three I saw that day amounted to one percent of the three hundred that made up the worldwide population. Perhaps they will someday reach the population size of thousands that they numbered before the days of whaling. Such hopes provide my reason for speaking of nature.

Afterword

After I wrote this essay, I learned of an essay with the same title by Robin Wall Kimmerer, a famous author. My essay is nothing like hers which is available on the website of Orion Magazine.