Wild nature.

Last summer we drove a campervan around the North West of the USA. Campsites in the US are nothing like those in Europe: huge spots, picnic tables and fire spots and always right in the middle of nature. It’s a dream! Washington’s national parks - we visited Olympic and Mount Rainier - are wild and majestic: a pounding ocean, active volcanoes, virgin rain forests with 1000 year old Douglas Firs and Red Cedars and plenty of wild life: bears, pumas (although we didn’t see any) and deer (of which we saw many). A naturalist’s heaven! Or is it?

In Europe, although nature is much more limited, when we go hiking we can traverse forests and mountain pastures. In US national parks anything that takes you off the designated trails is considered a breach of “keeping nature wild” and is generally not allowed. Finding firewood is prohibited, only artificial bundles to be bought at designated spots. Picking flowers is a no no. The US national park service’s strict approach to nature may be an understandable progression from a past in which nature was destroyed without any regard, but it also creates a strict line between what is considered wild - that is nature - and mankind, which is a mere spectator.

Are we not a part of nature?

How can we ever live in harmony with the earth if we throw up an artificial boundary between ourselves and the world we live in. There may be a need for a narrative that widens our definition of wild nature to include all of creation, including ourselves.

Our deepest, most spiritual, experience on the trip actually was not in a national park but in a city park right in Seattle. There we did have the freedom to spontaneously build a shelter under the pine trees from fallen branches. Our 4 year old son started spreading pine needles over the floor of our new den and covered the outside with flowers. It felt like a ritual, a cleansing. He felt into where they needed to be for it seemed over an hour and in silence. It was so clear he remembered. I started drumming and chanting language from another time. There was real connection. We were with nature, instead of just observing nature.

I was deeply touched when I watched the Netflix documentary  “The shark whisperer” about a couple in Hawaii who do free diving with the most dangerous of sharks. Through their continued interactions with the sharks they touched on a deeper layer of connection with nature. And in the mean time achieved huge breakthroughs in the protection of sharks. Despite all this, there was so much resistance from biologists and conservationists. The “look but don’t touch” mindset for nature is holy for many.

There is a shared spirit in all of life. Life is but a mirror of ourselves and we of it. We can live the interconnectedness or we can throw up barriers of resistance between ourselves and the life we encounter.

My own journey has made me notice that by opening fully into energetic, compassionate awareness of all there is, the conditioned barrier between what we call “nature” and my own nature has faded. That the barrier is merely an illusion thrown up by a closed heart.

Our current view of nature – and of our own nature - may be due a change.

we are nature. we are life.