Category: Inspiration

Making Time for Nature

One of my favorite environmental quotations goes as follows:

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast… a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive…”  ~Edward Abbey*

These are the words of wisdom I try to remind myself of when I am having a moral crisis over what sort of salad dressing to buy at the grocery store (Plastic vs. Glass??  High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Palm Oil??  Too many decisions!).  While I absolutely want to work as hard as I can to understand and conserve the natural world, I also want to take time to walk around in the woods!  When I am working out in the field, I try and remind myself to stick my toes in the water or gush over a particularly adorable weevil.  This helps keep the balance in my life.  

Lett Lake, Snow Mt. Wilderness Area, 

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have a job that requires as much outdoor time as mine does.  Heck, even for those of us that work outside, having unstructured outdoor play time is really important.  Remember, just because you are playing, doesn’t mean you aren’t learning or growing.  How do you think kids learn?  Through play, naturally.  Playing in nature, whatever play means to you, is a great first step to exploration, questioning, and eventual understanding.  The question becomes, how do we fit hours into our busy schedules for outdoor recreation and soul-feeding fresh air?  I am currently on a quest to answer this question in my own busy life.  In an effort to make it happen, my partner and I (editor’s note: Meridith and her partner, too!) have committed to hiking once a week every week.  The life experiment is set to run for the summer (May thru August).  For us, there are no rules aside from “get outside and walk!”  I’m hoping to see some new places and explore spaces nearby that I have under appreciated or overlooked.  As of today, we have gone on a walk-about all but one of the weeks we intended! Not bad overall, and we are only getting started! Would you like to get your outdoor adventure one?  Here are my strategies for making it happen!

     
STS Guide to Making Time for Nature

Schedule Your Nature Time
You schedule your classes, your work week, and time to hang out with friends.  As busy people, most of us know that if an activity doesn’t merit a spot in our calendars, it isn’t likely to happen.  So, pick a time and place and pencil in your next outdoor adventure now!  

Multitask (sort of)
Meridith likes to multitask by visiting
 Joshua Tree NP AND looking fabulous.

No, I don’t mean you should be checking your email while you are out on the trail.  I do mean you should make this time do double duty in your life.  Have you been wanting to read that novel, but cannot find the time?  Bring along an audio book and headphones on your next hike. Heck, you can even listen to a sweet science podcast! Have a friend with whom you need to have a life update?  Bring them with you on your evening walk!  Been meaning to find quiet time alone for yourself?  Do a little yoga or meditation by the lake, or, you know, just sit and watch the bugs on the grass.  I think this could be an especially useful tactic for the busy parents in the crowd.  Spend time with your kids and get them tuckered out simultaneously!  Your time in nature can be just nature time, but it can also be friend time, family time, personal development time, or just you time.

Don’t Get Preoccupied with Exercise
I am 100% completely guilty of this sometimes.  I think this is obvious based on my own personal goal to “hike once each week.”  Exercise keeps me centered, and this is often how I multitask my nature time.  And, sure, getting out into nature can be a wonderful way to get some exercise and breath some fresh air.  Is hiking to the top of a mountain superior to driving out to a lake and having a picnic?  I don’t think so.  It really depends on what you like and what you are trying to get out of this time.  Importantly, you can get different things out of nature at different times.  Sometimes it’s a calorie burn and sometimes its a peaceful nap.

Our local spot:  Stebbins Cold Canyon, UC NRS
Think Local
National Parks are amazing, and there is a reason that Ken Burns called them “America’s Best Idea.”  I’m sure Ken would agree that America has had some other really good ideas, like these cookies,(most) of these famous internet cats, and the numerous state and regional parks across the great ol’ US of A.  Just Google “State parks of (your state name here)” and you will be well on your way!  You can also go straight to Google Maps and type in “State Park.”  Don’t forget to do a little internet sleuthing about regional parks, open space areas, land trust zones, wildlife areas, or Bureau of Land Management Areas (BLM Areas).  Meridith and I particularly love finding new BLM areas because these are public lands, meaning when you find one designated for recreation, you can camp for free!  You might find a gem you didn’t even know about within your 20 mile radius.  That is totally within striking distance, even for the most over-committed weekend warrior!    

Expand Your Concept of Nature
Take the suggestion above, and go even further.  Sure, nothing really beats being in a large natural area like a park (national or otherwise).  However, the green belt running through my town is beautiful, and I love walking and running along it.  Does your town have a green belt?  Do you even know what a green belt is?  You can also check out local arboretums and botanical gardens.  Find a local green space and play some Frisbee or lay in the grass!  Don’t get me wrong, if I could, I would be at Olympic National Park every single day, but I can’t.  I can, however, take a walk through the restored riparian area along the local drainage ditch anytime I want.  Even if you live right down the road from some great regional, state, or national parks, I would encourage you to take a little bit of time to explore these non-traditional nature experiences.

Build to Something Bigger
Point Reyes National Seashore, CA

Maybe it’s just my personality, but I am super goal oriented.  For me, setting a goal encourages me to do things I would never have made time for otherwise.  For example my 10-year goal to see all the US National Parks has resulted in numerous adventures that I’m not sure I would have facilitated otherwise.  Just two weeks ago, our household goal to hike once a week this summer lead us to take a short detour to Point Reyes National Seashore after attending a family graduation.  Giving your everyday actions context in the larger picture of you life gets you jazzed and propels you out the door.  And that, really, is what it’s all about.


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So there you have it! What are your plans for getting outside this summer? Any big outdoor oriented goals you want to share?



*Emphasis is my own

I Won’t Miss You and I’m Fine With That

I always get very anxious right before a big trip. Lately, (read: since graduating from NMSU with my master’s and becoming a happy basement bum at my parent’s house) I haven’t had any stress in my life and I generally try to not be one to borrow trouble. But something about the few days prior to leaving on a major journey really winds me up. 
The excitement of everything to come. 
The concern that I’ll forget something. 
The fear that I’ll make a huge mistake and ruin part or all of my trip. 
The pressure of packing, moreso for this trip than any other. 
I thought I’d lost my beloved Nalgene bottle and carrier the other day. Assumed I’d left it somewhere and it wasn’t there! Made me abnormally anxious. I got that bottle and carrier from my friend Cabrina when we graduated together at WKU. She knows I’m not capable of drinking from a wide mouth one, so she got me the narrow mouth. I started texting different people asking if I had left it in various places. No luck. 
Of course it was just in my car. In the back seat instead of the front. 
How embarrassing (yet relieving)! 
But even with all of that going on, I cannot properly express my excitement for this trip. I am often asked if I am scared. Fear is not what I’m feeling. I will learn so much about myself and the world. I will be careful and safe, yet open to so many possibilities. Usually people would tell their friends and family “I will miss you.” But for some reason that phrase just doesn’t sit well with me. It doesn’t reflect the excitement and positivity involved and is really more sad than anything. Perhaps that sentiment is better suited for when someone or something is truly gone. I’ll be so connected via the marvels of technology that I won’t actually be removed from everyone’s lives. And then I’ll be back in a few short months. I’ve given some thought on a more adequate parting phrase. Right now I am really digging “I will be happy to see you”.  Just as short and sweet, but, to me, conveys more excitement. 
Of course, when you aren’t sure about how to say something with words, music will be glad to help. Been a while since one of my super hip 8tracks mixes, but here’s one for those of us that will be happy to see each other again in the Fall. 

Question of the Day:

How do you feel before a big event? Excite like Christmas Eve or nervous like meeting your girlfriend’s angry dad?

Eco-Inspiration 6: Confession

Alright guys, I have a confession to make.  I have never actually finished reading A Sand County Almanac.  Those of you who know the book are, I’m sure, instantly scandalized.  The much acclaimed work by visionary and Land-Ethic developer Aldo Leopold has been inspiring conservationists and green warriors since 1949.  I have owned not one, but two copies of this book.  I leaf through it and sort of treat it like poetry.  It is, after all, beautifully written.  But for some reason, I have never read it cover to cover.  I am always so moved and uplifted by Leopold’s words, and I have decided that this spring I will read this book!  So, with blog as my witness, I will finish this book by the end of the spring quarter (June).  Once I have finished, I will report back with my feelings about the text and how reading it straight through differed from my cafeteria style readings of the past.  Anyone else want to read along?

In keeping with the theme, I thought I would share with you all one of my favorite passages from the book.  This is equal parts sad and inspiring to me, as it really sets into clear context what we stand to loose if we do not make concerted efforts at conservation.  I hope you enjoy it.

The last Passenger pigeon. Crd. Wikipedia

“Our grandfathers were less well-housed, well-fed, well-clothed than we are. The striving by which they bettered their lot are also those which deprived us of [Passenger] pigeons. Perhaps we now grieve because we are not sure, in our hearts, that we have gained by the exchange. The gadgets of industry bring us more comforts than the pigeons did, but do they add as much to the glory of the spring?

It is a century now since Darwin gave us the first glimpse of the origin of the species. We know now what was unknown to all the preceding caravan of generations: that men are only fellow-voyagers with other creatures in the odyssey of evolution. This new knowledge should have given us, by this time, a sense of kinship with fellow-creatures; a wish to live and let live; a sense of wonder over the magnitude and duration of the biotic enterprise.

Above all we should, in the century since Darwin, have come to know that man, while captain of the adventuring ship, is hardly the sole object of its quest, and that his prior assumptions to this effect arose from the simple necessity of whistling in the dark.

These things, I say, should have come to us. I fear they have not come to many.

For one species to mourn the death of another is a new thing under the sun. The Cro-Magnon who slew the last mammoth thought only of steaks. The sportsman who shot the last [Passenger] pigeon thought only of his prowess. The sailor who clubbed the last auck thought of nothing at all. But we, who have lost our pigeons, mourn the loss.”

Aldo Leopold, from A Sand County Almanac 

Last Word:  As I said, I find this rather sad quotation inspiring.  Perhaps you don’t agree, but this is exactly the sort of situation I strive to avoid.  If you would like some more information about the Passenger pigeon, start with this pretty good Wiki article.  It is a truly sad story, but one worth knowing.  In related news, there are a few classic, popular ecological novels I’ve been meaning (literally for years) to read.  Silent Spring and the Sea around Us are at the top of that list.  Anyone interested in a book club via the blog?

What do you think?  Have you ever heard the story of the Passenger pigeon?  Have you ever read A Sand County Almanac?  Would you have any interest in an ecologically themed book club?