Lessons from the Wild #5

There are many lessons to be learned from the natural world. Take trees, for example. Forests cover almost one third of the land area of our planet. They help protect, sustain and improve supplies of fresh water. They purify the air and convert carbon dioxide, water, minerals and sunlight into nutrients and oxygen. And they support a wide variety of life, including many plants, insects, fungi, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

What life lessons can we learn from trees? 

• Be flexible, so you don't break when a harsh wind blows.
• Cycles are a part of life.
• Leaves, though they can be small, are vital to the life of a tree. So value the little things.
• Even a mighty oak grows from a small acorn. Do not be intimidated by small beginnings.
• Sometimes you have to shed your old bark in order to grow.
• In forests, individual trees support one another. How much support do you share with those around you? Teamwork can accomplish much more than the sum of individual efforts, often making the difference between success and failure. 
• Your success and wisdom of life depends on how extensive your root system is, and how solid your principals are. 
• Avoid people who would like to cut you down.

"Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with the rest of creation."  - Charles Cook

Lessons from the Wild #4

Even when we can't get "away" to the wilderness, it's still important to spend time in nature.

Particularly for urbanite's, we need open green spaces to improve our physical and psychological health, strengthen our communities, and make our cities and neighborhoods more attractive places to live and work. Unfortunately, too few Americans are able to enjoy these benefits. 80% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, and many of these areas are severely lacking in park space. Only 30% of Los Angeles residents live within walking distance of a nearby park. Atlanta has no public green space larger than one-third of a square mile. And low-income neighborhoods populated by minorities and recent immigrants are especially short of park space.

Not only are green spaces are an essential component of a healthy community, but they're a great benefit for the whole environment.  They filter pollutants and dust from the air, they provide shade and lower temperatures in urban areas, and they even reduce erosion of soil into our waterways.

Green spaces can come in many forms, and can be started by YOU -

• Plant a tree - It's one of the most simple and effective things you can do to improve your green space.
• Create a Community Green - These are shared open green spaces on the inside of city blocks, created either when residents merge backyard space or reclaim underutilized urban land such as vacant lots and alleyways.  Communities that create backyard commons have increased interaction with neighbors throughout the planning and implementation process, which results in a stronger overall sense of community. 
• Apply to Install a Parklet - These mini sidewalk parks are popping up in many cities.  Parklets are aesthetic enhancements to the streetscape, providing an economical solution to the need for increased public open space.
• Create a Park in Your City - This takes more work, but there are organizations like The Trust for Public Land that provides tools to help.
• Become an Urban Gardener - Besides making your food as "local" as possible, urban gardening provides all the other green space benefits. 

 

Lessons from the Wild #3

This perfectly sums up what I feel after just returning from a week hiking in Yosemite National Park on the John Muir Trail -

"You didn't come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here."  - Alan Watts

Only one week, and I feel reborn, refreshed.  And, I feel a deep gratitude for those that fought the good fight, and still are, to protect and preserve our wild spaces.  This last was hit home strongly by a German friend who joined me on this trip.  This is a guy I'd met trekking in Nepal 7 years prior.  He's fortunate to be a tour guide and has spent a lot of time in majestic mountain landscapes all around the world.  After a brief trip here in 2009, he was eager to come back for more, and set his sights on a 4-week hike of the legendary John Muir Trail.  I joined him for the first few days and was inspired at seeing the California Sierras through his eyes.  One observation he made really struck me - that in the Alps, or Himalayas, or in most other mountain ranges, you generally begin in a town or village, hike up a mountain, then descend back to another town.  Not only that, but, particularly in the Alps, on many of the ridges you'll see gondolas, and lights, and roads snaking through all the valleys.  But here, in the California Sierras, you can look as far as the eye can see, and walk for a couple days (or more) in any direction, and still be in wilderness.  WOW!

And it's true.  As we sat in the evenings, watching the light fade from the sky and be replaced by countless stars, I realized that I couldn't even detect a dim glow of some distant town anywhere on the horizon.  Yes, this is rare I thought, and to the great credit of the founder's of our country's national park system.  And countless others who have fought for their continuing preservation, against great odds. David vs. Goliath type battles.

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”   - Wallace Stegner, The Sound of Mountain Water

There are many organizations doing amazing work to protect and preserve these vitally important places for all to enjoy - wild animals included.  Start by checking these out and consider what you can do to help - sign a petition, donate, volunteer, spread the word.

National Parks Conservation Association
Friends of the Earth
The Wilderness Society
Save Our State Parks
The Sierra Club
The Nature Conservancy 
Campaign for America's Wilderness
California Wilderness Coalition
Earthjustice
Save the Redwoods League

I also highly recommend the Ken Burns documentary - The National Parks: America's Best Idea - that not only tells the amazing story of our parks foundings, but is beautiful nature porn too.  Most importantly, get out into the Wild!

“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental. It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.”   - Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail