Wilding the Mind

I am very fortunate to live in the San Francisco Bay region of northern California. When not traveling, I head out several times a week and hike up into the hilly Marin Headlands, an extensive protected area that few would hesitate to call “nature.” The evergreen shrubs and patchy grasslands afford spectacular coastal vistas and erupt into a kaleidoscope of wildflowers come springtime. The plentiful animal spottings include red-tailed hawks, coyote, alligator lizards, quail, mule deer, rough-skinned newts, gray fox, monarch butterflies, ravens, and even the rare gray whale spout. Occasionally I’m startled by the last-second exit of a slithering garter snake or a bounding rabbit. Bobcats, in contrast, not infrequently sit a few feet off the trail, observing me in that classic disinterested feline manner as I stroll past.

 

Here, the greatest threats to human life and limb are tics and poison oak, or perhaps a sprained ankle. I’m told that mountain lions still visit the headlands once in a blue moon, but in six years I have yet to glimpse one. (Oh how I would love to see a mountain lion.) Encounters with other humans, although more common than deer sightings, are sufficiently infrequent that I feel I have escaped the anthropocentric world, at least for awhile. In short, my bipedal excursions into the hills come close to epitomizing the idyllic image of a nature outing—a gorgeous setting that replenishes body, mind, and spirit.

Yet, were I to have hiked in this same place 150 years ago—a span of only two human lifetimes—the experience would have been vastly different. It’s for good reason that California’s state animal is the grizzly bear. For thousands of years, local indigenous peoples lived (and occasionally died) under the daily threat of grizzlies. Bears were still a dominant force when Europeans arrived. In 1602, the Spanish maritime explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno elected not to land at certain points along the California coast because of the sheer numbers of these giant carnivores. As European settlements expanded in the ensuing centuries, the golden bears stood fast, killing livestock and wreaking havoc with the settlers. Somewhat ironically, given their name, gold was the bears’ ultimate undoing. Within 75 years of the discovery of this precious metal in California—a single human lifetime—the state’s grizzlies were wiped out, the final one in 1922. The last known human Californian to die in a grizzly attack was lumber mill owner William Waddell, in 1875. A creek in Big Basin Redwoods State Park still bears his name.

Often as I hike the trails near my home, I imagine how I would feel if there were a real chance of running into a grizzly—or wolves, which also lived here. Would I react differently to those rustling bushes? Would I pay greater attention to my surroundings? Would my sense of calm and relaxation be marred by that ever-present possibility of becoming an animal’s next meal? I’m quite certain that the answer would be yes for all of the above. Having spent a significant amount of time searching for fossils in the wilds of sub-Saharan Africa, sometimes in places where big carnivores like lions, leopards, and hyenas still roam, I can attest to the spectrum of emotions experienced when one is a potential link in the food chain. Living in cities devoid of big carnivores, we forget that people throughout almost all of human history have dealt with animal threats.

When our kind first arrived in the northern California area around 13,000 years ago—only 175 human lifetimes—they discovered a landscape more closely akin to the modern Serengeti than to present-day San Francisco. This was the tail end of the Pleistocene, the waning stages of the most recent Ice Age. The region was home to a bewildering array of impressive creatures: mammoths and mastodons, giant ground sloths and camels, broad-horned bison and condors, saber-toothed cats and dire wolves, American lions and short-faced bears. Of this mega-mammal menagerie, Arctodus, the short-faced bear, may have been the greatest terror. Weighing about 2,000 pounds and perhaps 13 feet tall when standing on its hind legs, this massive carnivore would have dwarfed a grizzly. And unlike modern bears, Arctodus was long-legged, built for speed. Imagine rounding the corner on a trail to find yourself face to face with such a creature!

California is not special in this regard. Wherever you live, you can be certain that an abundance of huge animals roamed in the not too distant past—a duration measured in centuries rather than millennia. Rarely do we consider the fact that we inhabit a biological anomaly, an impoverished shadow-realm in which big predators are few, prowling the fringes of our world. For all but a few short geologic intervals during the past 250 million years (following mass extinction events), oversized carnivores have been ever-present in the bulk of Earth’s ecosystems, both on land and in the oceans.

What happened to the wondrous Ice Age beasts in North America and elsewhere? We killed most of them. Yes, debate still ensues over the role of other factors, particularly climate change, but compelling evidence points squarely at us. Humanity originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. In a major exodus that began about 60,000 years ago, we quickly spanned the globe, killing off most of the charismatic megafauna on every newfound landmass, whether island or continent. More recently, armed with boats and increasingly efficient hunting technologies, populations of whales and other sea-going giants have been depleted more than 90%. I don’t mean to imply that humans have never lived in harmony with their native ecosystems. They certainly have. But usually those ecosystems have first been depleted of their big-bodied inhabitants.

Nature in its full glory is messy and dangerous, equally worthy of joy and fear--and sometimes disgust. Parasites, maggots, and coyotes tearing apart week-old fawns are as much a part of the natural world as towering redwoods and soaring eagles. We humans came of age enmeshed in environments at once awe-inspiring and danger-filled. In the sanitized West, we have progressively lost both kinds of experiences, replacing them with a utilitarian substitute that views nature as the ultimate big box store full of commodities.

Today, a growing movement seeks to reinstate that ancient sense of nature as divine, spiritual, or sublime—a sacred ground of being to commune with. But in our earnestness to romanticize nature, we forget the fear factor that is equally a part of our wild heritage. What have we lost by rising to the top of the food chain and vanquishing the bulk of our competitors? What are we missing by living apart from most wild creatures? Given that virtually every ecosystem around the globe has been impacted by human activities, and generally not for the better, what kind of nature is still out there, and where can we find it? What kinds of experiences do we need to form a meaningful bond with nature?

I will explore answers to these questions in future posts. For now, I invite you to head outside and imagine a world in which you share the web of life with a bounty of other large creatures, some of them toothy and meat-loving. These days I regularly engender such thoughts as I wander through the headlands. I find that such machinations are slowly shifting my perspective, helping me see myself as embedded within nature rather than outside and above it.

Equally if not more important are periodic visits to wild places; places where humans are not in control, where nature is raw, untamed, maybe even dangerous. Nighttime walks are especially effective at awakening the senses and opening new windows of awareness. Such experiences will foster not only a sense of awe and wonder, but humility—a sense of something much deeper and more meaningful than our puny human-centered obsessions. Ultimately, the human-nature connection, and perhaps even the path to ecological sustainability, could depend on this periodic wilding of the mind.


Ok, time for another hike . . .

Image Credits (From top to bottom)

Images 1-3 come from the author

Image 4: www.thenaturalpatriot.org

Note: The above post was inspired in part by an excellent essay called “False Idyll,” written by J. B. MacKinnon and published in the May/June issue of Orion Magazine.

The Power of Story

A quick scan of today's online New York Times reveals the usual plethora of stories. Among them: News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch seeks to deflect allegations that he bribed British officials; Pakistan test-fires a nuclear-capable missile; ethnic biases are now shifting in South Los Angeles; and a Dartmouth frat receives a 3-term probation punishment for hazing.


Why do hundreds of millions of people each day follow the news, read fiction, watch television, and line up to sit in darkened movie theaters? In a word, stories. Carefully crafted tales enliven our senses and capture our imaginations. Full of wonder and mystery, they transport us to far-flung places and remote times, allowing us to see through the eyes of another. That featured Other may be human or animal, real or fantasy. At their best, stories are priceless word-jewels with the power to create, sustain, and transform worlds.

In my last post, I argued that nature connection must be founded on “the 3 Es”: ecology, evolution, and experience—that is, a sense of how one’s place works and how that place came to be, informed by abundant, outdoor multisensory experience. Today, I would like to focus on the second E, evolution, which I use in the broadest sense of change over time; in short, the history of everything, from cosmos to culture. And it is the story within history, so to speak, that I’m most concerned with.

My confidence in the 3 Es approach is based in part on studies of hunter-gatherer cultures—for example, the Ache of Paraguay, the Hadza of Tanzania, the Hiwi of Colombia and Venezuela, and the San of southern Africa. Over 95% of humanity’s tenure has occurred in the guise of hunter-gatherers intimately tied to their natal habitats. In addition to being steeped in local communities—cultures, foods, and social relations—people in these foraging societies have possessed detailed knowledge of resident plants and animals. They have understood local rhythms—what month of the year a certain migrating bird arrived or a particular plant could be harvested. Much of this knowledge has borne the mark of scientific investigation, involving careful observation, experimentation, and hypothesis testing. Most importantly for this discussion, these peoples (and those in many other indigenous societies) report a deep sense of connection with the nonhuman world.

In our digital world deluged with shards of information, it’s easily forgotten that, as a species, we were literally raised on rich and vibrant stories. Oral storytelling was the primary means of sharing information for all but the past few thousand years, an eyeblink of humanity’s tenure. For our oral ancestors, stories were lyrical encyclopedias, repositories of practical knowledge and wisdom accumulated over centuries, even millennia. Spoken narratives were the cultural equivalent of genes, containers of information necessary for perpetuating the group. It should come as no surprise, then, that stories still have an almost magical effect on us. And whereas cyberspace is placeless, seemingly everywhere and nowhere, oral culture is inherently local.

The oral stories of indigenous peoples tend to embody all 3 Es, fostering a connection with local nature. They tell us where we come from and what it all means; in other words, evolution. Passed from generation to generation, myths and tales offer instructions on how to live in a given place: when, where, what, and how much to hunt; how to express gratitude for a successful hunt; which plants to seek and which to avoid; where to find water in times of persistent drought; in other words, ecology. And traditional storytellers convey their narratives not just with voice but with their entire bodies, typically outdoors in a multisensory milieu, often around a campfire. In other words, these stories offer meaningful experiences.

For most of human history, s­tories helped us not only to live, but to dwell, both in place and time (1). Through storytellers we learned of our kinship with other creatures and Earth itself. We saw how the ripples of our actions have cascading effects far into the future. For the world’s oral cultures, stories were the primary means of connecting with the land. Local plants and animals become protagonists and antagonists. Virtually every creature and place on the landscape—a chirping bird, gurgling stream, or gentle breeze—became sensate and was given voice. Once a story was learned, chance encounters with animal neighbors, or merely walking by a local landmark, brought to mind the associated narrative and its practical lessons (2). In this way, stories breathed life into people’s surroundings and provided deep meaning.

Most powerful of all stories are cosmologies, cultural narratives that explain the origin and ordering of the world. Throughout human history, virtually all cultures have been rooted to their native places by such narratives—from Raven bringing forth the light in Haida culture to the Genesis story of Christianity. Although the lives of present-day indigenous peoples and most followers of religious traditions are imbued by one cosmology or another, most of us living in Western societies today represent an historical anomaly, existing largely without one. This lack of an origin story contributes to the dearth of greater meaning and purpose experienced by many of us, feeding the dysfunctional human-nature relationship at the heart of the sustainability crisis.

Yet an astonishing and beautiful account of our deep time evolutionary history has recently emerged within science. Evolution, it turns out, is much more than Darwin and natural selection, encompassing no less than the history of the Universe. Variously called the Epic of Evolution, the Great Story, Big History, or (my preference) the Immense Story, this grand narrative has potential to unite humanity and root us in deep time.

But wait. If, as advocated for the 3 Es approach, ecology and evolution must be united to generate a sense of connection, how are we to weave the Immense Story—populated by billions of galaxies, stars, and planets—together with the delicate web of streams, rocks, spiders, and trees in our local places? After all, the former deals with the grandest scales of time and space, whereas the latter is concerned with the intimate nearby. Oddly enough, this question makes sense only to Westerners. For most indigenous peoples the world over, no dividing line exists between the cosmic and the local; all are part of the same community, the same story. Their cosmological sagas feature a variety of local denizens—the trickster raven, the wise mountain, the changeling butterfly. We would do well to emulate this approach.

Fortunately, potential protagonists abound. Look no further than a sunset or a clear night sky to tell of our close bond to the stars. A local mountain, desert, or slab of limestone makes an exceptional entry point into the story of Earth and the solar system. A stately oak or vegetable garden can help convey the saga of bacteria harnessing solar energy, whereas that croaking frog in early evening is a modern day reminder of our water-to-land legacy. A crow or robin serves as a great vehicle for telling the story of dinosaurs to birds. And an arrowhead or basket would make an ideal trigger for sharing the human chapter of the evolutionary epic.

The key is that all major innovations of the cosmic evolutionary epic—stars, planets, bacteria, plants, animals, and human culture—are still present in one form or another in every place. Each telling of the Immense Story, or parts of it, can be tailored not only to local nature, but to the age and knowledge base of the audience. Indeed anyone can construct their own version of the story, choosing local characters and themes most meaningful to them.

The story of everything can be told anywhere.

Carl Sagan had it right. We are star-stuff, made of matter forged within stellar furnaces. But the real story—the Immense Story—goes much deeper. We’re also Earth-stuff, composed of the same matter that comprises our planet’s crust. And we’re Life-stuff too, every one of our human cells the product of ancient bacterial mergers. You and all other animals exist today because of a deep time cascade of ever-more complex mergings, each one dependent on its predecessor: atoms combining to form heavier elements; heavy elements bonding to make chemical compounds; compounds meshing in symphonic harmony to create bacterial cells; cells lacking nuclei coalescing into nucleated cells; and nucleated cells uniting into multicellular life. This repetitive pattern of emergent unfolding is well defined. Sea stars could not have preceded bacteria, nor could there have been water prior to oxygen. 

Although certainly a creation story, the evolutionary epic is not a true cultural cosmology. Instead this science-based saga imparts a framework to be molded into a spectrum of cosmologies, each one informed by specific historical, cultural, spiritual, and ecological contexts. Indeed the Immense Story allows for an endless medley of interpretations and beliefs, with and without God(s). Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme have argued persuasively that this story must become a central element in re-defining the human-nature relationship (3). Yet, decades later, the Immense Story remains all but absent from Western culture, ignored by scientists, philosophers, educators, environmentalists, and spiritual practitioners alike. How can it be that we, who have access to by far the most rigorous and comprehensive story of the cosmos, do not use it to inform the arc of our lives?

The bottom line here is that connecting kids to nature isn’t only about getting them outside. We need to re-nature our minds as well as our environments. Once in awhile, put aside the storybooks and renew the sensuous art of storytelling using your whole body together with your voice. Ground some of these stories in local nature. Where did those fir trees come from, and why are they so tall? Who are the denizens of the local pond, and how long have they been there? Why did coyotes and rabbits survive the last Ice Age while mammoths and saber-toothed cats disappeared? Your local natural history museums or nature center will likely be happy to provide the necessary information.

Learn the basics of the Immense Story, and tell it to the children in your life—preferably around a campfire (“A very long, long, long, long time ago . . .”). Bring the Immense Story alive by rooting it in the natural history of local characters—for example plants, animals, streams, and hills. If the whole story seems too daunting, break it up into shorter narratives (4).

Educators, think about ways to insert the Immense Story into the core of the curriculum, combining it with ecology to scaffold learning. The all-encompassing epic of evolution makes a wonderful context for teaching science, starting with the big idea and hooking on new concepts as they’re encountered. Consider having students spend part of the school year working as a team to explore the geological, biological, and cultural history of the local town or region and then write their own story. Perhaps let them decide to how to convey that narrative, maybe in the form of a play, video, website, or walking guide for the community.

It’s time to restory the places we call home and, in doing so, forge meaningful connections with those places.

References

1.     Sanders, S. R. 1997. Most Human Art. Georgia Review/Utne Reader. September/October, 1997.

2.     Abram, D. 2011. Storytelling and Wonder: On the Rejuvenation of Oral Culture. http://www.wildethics.org/essays/storytelling_and_wonder.html

3.     Berry, T. 1990. The Dream of the Earth. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco; Swimme, B. and T. Berry. 1992. The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to Ecozoic Era. Harper Collins, New York.

4.     A series of books by Jennifer Morgan tell the Immense Story in kid-friendly fashion. The first is: Born with a Bang: The Universe Tells Our Cosmic Story (Dawn Publications, 2002)

Image Credits (from top to bottom)

1, 2, 4. Derived from National Geographic: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

3. Derived from NASA

5. www.noteandpoint.com

The 3 Es of Nature Connection

In just the past couple of weeks, the children-in-nature crisis has been featured in the New York Times, the LA Times, and on the BBC wireservice. Driven by the heroic work of Richard Louv, the Children & Nature Network, and many others, high profile media coverage is getting the word out. Childhood in this country is dysfunctional, even broken—and so too is our society. Rampant obesity, attention deficit disorder, and diabetes; depression, skyrocketing school dropout, and ever-diminishing environmental conditions; these and other interlinked problems threaten both our children and the places they live. At stake, some say, is the persistence of humanity. Drunk on technology with the pedal to the metal, we race toward the precipice with our heads down, texting.

Although connecting children with nature is certainly no panacea for the world’s ills, it may be the closest thing we’ve got. The freefalling biosphere is not, first and foremost, an external crisis of environment, but an internal crisis of mind. Our dominant worldview sees nature as resources to be exploited rather than relatives worthy of respect. Sustainability—humanity living in a mutually enhancing relationship with the rest of nature—demands that we adopt a strong sense of compassion for the nonhuman world. As biologist Stephen J. Gould once claimed, “We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature—for we will not fight to save what we do not love.”(1)

Yet a fundamental question remains. How exactly do people form a meaningful, lifelong connection with nature? Critical subsidiary questions include: What kinds of knowledge and experience are most effective in building this connection? How does the process change as children grow? What is the role of adult mentors, and digital technologies? How can we engage kids, with their ever-shrinking attention spans, in the slow pace of nature? What kinds of nature—from television documentaries to city parks to wilderness trips—are most effective in fostering lasting connections?

Although the science of nature connection is in its infancy, a clear signal is emerging. A bond with the natural world does not explode into one’s consciousness in an “Aha!” moment or a sudden wash of emotion. Nor is it the product of learning a list of facts, like the rules of algebra or grammar. Instead, a meaningful connection with nature arises organically over many years, the result of a spiraling loop of positive feedback that interweaves affective experience with intellectual understanding.

Traditionally, the strong place-bond experienced by hunter-gatherers and many other indigenous peoples has been rooted in an immersion within local nature. So how are we 21^st Century urbanites—separated from local landscapes by concrete, air-conditioning, and packaged foods—supposed to establish a deep sense of attachment with the natural world?

After years of research, consternation, and direct parental experience, I have come to the conclusion that the process of nature connection should be grounded in a trio of key ingredients: experience, ecology, and evolution—the “3 Es.” That is, a meaningful bond with nature requires abundant, multisensory experience outdoors together with a deep understanding of how that place works (ecology) and how it came to be (evolution). I invoke the latter pair of E-words words advisedly, knowing that both are burdened with connotational baggage. So let me explain briefly.

Ecology is used here in its most expansive sense—the study of relationships between organisms and environments. To be ecologically literate, or “ecoliterate”(2), means to understand something of how your place works. Where do your food, water, and energy come from? Where do your garbage and sewage end up? What are some of the plants and animals native to your region, and how do they interact? What are the major weather patterns, and how do they shift throughout the year? What does the local ecosystem need to thrive?

Similarly, evolution, regarded broadly as change over time, encompasses nothing less than the “Immense Story,” the cosmic, biological, and cultural epic stretching from the Big Bang to this very moment. To be evolution literate, or “evoliterate”(3), means to know something of the story of your place and your role within that story. How did the land form? What kinds of plants and animals lived here in past ages, and which are locally represented by fossils? Of the plants living in your area today, which are considered native, as opposed to invasive newcomers? Who were the first indigenous peoples to call this place home, and how did they make a living? When did Europeans arrive, and what kinds of commerce was this place built upon? As Thomas Berry eloquently told us for decades (4), we need a story. (An earlier blog post of this topic can be found here.)

Whereas ecology is concerned with the workings of a place at a given snapshot in time, evolution provides the story of that place through time.

The final E-word, experience, rounds out the trio. A meaningful connection with nature is forged first and foremost on experiences, from abundant unstructured time in the backyard to weekends in the park and occasional visits to wild places. We need intimate contact with the denizens and landscapes of our local places. Yet education too must be experiential, in and out of the classroom. Scientific ideas are far more memorable and meaningful when we perceive and reflect upon them directly with multiple senses. A deep understanding of nature must be absorbed through our eyes, ears, nose, and pores, as well as our minds. Above all, we need to engage children in natural settings. Aided by storytelling and other dynamic communication approaches, experiential learning offers the most effective means of communicating big scientific ideas like those embodied by ecology and evolution.

Education’s traditional emphasis on the “3 Rs” of Reading, (W)riting, and (A)rithmetic has provided students with essential tools useful in a range of situations. Yet if children are isolated from nonhuman nature by four-walled classrooms and homes, they miss the meaning and beauty of changing seasons, of birdsong and rainstorms. They ignore the ugliness of the built environment, and remain blind to deteriorating environments. For most of us, education has little relevance to our day-to-day lives beyond the self-serving hope that we will one day become wealthy, or at least earn enough for “the good life.”

Together with the 3 Rs, then, education should include liberal doses of the 3 Es. Rather than tools, think of ecology, evolution, and experience as a robust scaffold for building knowledge. The horizontal bars in this metaphor are ecological connections, how the place works. The vertical bars are the unified evolutionary story of local nature and culture. And the scaffold’s nodes, the intersections where horizontal and vertical bars meet, can be envisioned as firsthand experiences. Experience is the X-factor, the secret ingredient that synthesizes ecology and evolution, making this knowledge immediate, alive, and engaging. United, the 3 Es provide a grand context for understanding the world, a framework of big ideas upon which additional knowledge can be added for a lifetime. To be connected to nature, then, is to expand one’s awareness and become native to place.

But how are we to bring about this place-based revolution? What can we do as individuals to transform the children-in-nature movement from a grassroots effort to a tsunami of cultural change? Plenty.

Parents and educators can begin the process of taking back the outdoors, making it a commitment to give kids abundant time in nature. The growing numbers of family nature clubs can aid in this transition. Educators can connect kids with local nature by embedding the 3 Es in the core of the curriculum. We desperately need more research from neuroscientists, psychologists and educators on how best to foster nature connection. Those with extra funds can support these efforts, and those with influence can forge productive connections. All of us, from parents to city planners, can work toward augmenting the green spaces in our lives—adding native plants to backyards, schoolyards, and city parks. We can all learn more about the places we live, including the stories that give our homes deeper meaning. Sound like a pipe dream? Maybe, but some dreams come true, and this one has necessity at its back.

References

1. Gould, S. J. 1993. Unenchanted evening. Eight Little Piggies: Reflections in Natural History. Norton, New York. (quotation, p. 40)

2.Stone, M. K. and Z. Barlow (eds.). 2005. Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World. University of California Press, Berkeley.

3. Sampson, S. D. 2006. Evoliteracy. Pp. 216-231 in J. Brockman (ed.), Intelligent Thought: Science Versus the Intelligent Design Movement. Knopf, New York.

4. Berry, T. 1999. The Great Work: Our Way into the Future. Bell Tower, New York.

Image Credits (top to bottom)

Images 1 & 4. Scott Sampson

Image 2. Trailspace.com

Image 3. National Geographic Photography: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

A Bootfull of Pollywogs

Sunshine and springtime were rare bedfellows where I grew up. One day when I was four, my mother took me into the forest a few blocks from home. She had heard that the “Frog Pond," as it was known, was brimming with tadpoles. Cinching the deal that fateful day were scattered, caressing rays of sun.

After the short forest walk, I ran excitedly to the water’s edge and squatted down, staring intently. It took me a few moments to grasp the fact that each of the frenetic black blobs was a distinct life form. Wearing tall, black rubber boots, I stepped tentatively into the pond, captivated by the larval swarm. Bending over, I scooped up several with my hands to get a closer look. Bulging eyes, blob-like bodies, and long, slimy, transparent tails working madly against my fingers.

Captivated, I inched my way out further until, suddenly, the water overtopped one of my boots. I gasped at the chill now engulfing my foot. (Many years later, my mother told me that she started to object but thought better of it.) I hesitated briefly, imagining the tadpoles now darting around inside my boot, and then took another willful step into the muck. The second boot was now flooded.

I was in it now, sharing this pond-universe with thousands of frogs-to-be. Stepping gingerly so as to avoid any inadvertent amphibicide, I eventually found myself at the pond’s center, the water slightly above waist level. The sense of wonder and the smile across my face grew in tandem as I picked up handful after handful of squirming tadpoles. Immersed in that miniature sea of pollywogs, I felt, perhaps for the first time in my life, a deep and ecstatic sense of oneness with the world.

Through the late 1960s and 1970s, I escaped into that forest on the west side of Vancouver, British Columbia whenever possible, usually in the company of my friend Tim (TJ). Our local elementary school backed up against the forest, and the administrators established an “Adventure Playground” amidst a stand of hemlock, cedar, and Douglas fir abutting one of the playing fields. At recess and lunch, we would sprint for this natural wonderland, where a giant overturned cedar stump became cave, castle, and space ship.

As teenagers, the boundaries of our forest excursions expanded exponentially as we discovered the full, 2000-acre extent of the “University Endowment Lands,” more recently dubbed "Pacific Spirit Regional Park." (For us, it was simply “the woods.”) Canine companions joined us for this phase. I had a German shepherd named Rocky and Tim had Raisin, a poodle-Siberian husky mix that resembled a four-legged ball of steel wool. (When asked about the breed, TJ would offer the same straight-faced reply: “Purebred Pooberian.”)

Vision is the least intimate of human senses. In the forest, Tim and I were embraced by the sweet, almost citrusy fragrance of Douglas fir; the thick, moist air of late fall that turned breath visible; the deep qworking of ravens perched high on cedar boughs; and the tangy sumptuousness of fresh-picked huckleberries. This multisensory milieu offered a safe place, a cocoon within the world, for adolescent males to talk out their social angst and ponder the future. Needless to say, the dogs loved it too, relishing the endless array of textures and scents. As we explored more and more trails—with names like Sasamat, Hemlock, and Salish—we had no idea that this place was imprinting on our hearts and minds, that our pores were soaking up every moment.

Often we avoided trails entirely, preferring to bushwhack through the dense coastal foliage, clambering over rotting logs and navigating rock-strewn streams thick with skunk cabbage, nettles, salal, and ferns. On these meandering excursions, the forest took on a wild and unpredictable flavor, with amazing discoveries possible at any moment: teeming ant colonies; deep and murky ponds shaped like Japanese soaking tubs; raucous, foul-smelling bird rookeries; and humongous stumps, old growth ghosts. Hours later, humans and canines alike emerged from the forest filthy, exhausted, and exhilarated.

After a big winter snowfall (also a rare occurrence), the forest was transformed yet again. Blinding whiteness blanketed every branch, twig, and needle. A deep, cathedral-like silence settled over our refuge. With light hearts, we crunched through the heavy snow, stopping occasionally to lounge in the bare zone beneath one of the bigger trees.

In our mid teenage years, testosterone overdoses manifested in the forest as a risky game dubbed “Deelo Wars.” A deelo (etymology uncertain) was any piece of wood that you could heft at someone else. In essence the strategy amounted to abandoning the cover of tree or bush just long enough to fling large sticks at several of your closest friends. Of course, they were busy doing the same—every man for himself. All of us sustained a few direct hits, but I’m happy to report that no serious injuries resulted. (And no, I don’t recommend trying this at home!)

I departed Vancouver in the mid 1980s to attend graduate school in Toronto, eventually earning a Ph.D. and becoming a dinosaur paleontologist. Tim, meanwhile, headed off to become an airline pilot. In the decades since, I’ve been fortunate enough to search for fossils in such far-flung locales as Zimbabwe, Mexico, and Madagascar. Cumulatively, I’ve spent years living in tents in remote places that most people refer to as “badlands.” While hunting ancient dinosaurs, I’ve had face-to-face encounters with an assortment of living creatures, among them bear, elephant, hyena, cobra, moose, and crocodile. But the senses with which I have experienced these places and their inhabitants were attuned in that second growth temperate forest on Vancouver’s west side. Together with family camping trips, those countless treks in the Endowment Lands fostered in me a persistent passion for nature, undoubtedly influencing my career path. In recent years I’ve come to realize that I cannot help but take that Pacific Northwest forest with me wherever I go. It is an indelible part of who I am, more like a lens on the world than a collection of memories.

I become afraid when I think about the present generation of children growing up largely without such experiences. Kids today spend about 90% less time outdoors than their parents did. Absorbed in the virtual reality of glowing screens, youngsters are missing the natural wonders around their homes—yes, even in urban settings. For the health of children, and the health of the places they live, we need to re-engage children with nature and give them abundant, direct, multisensory, hands-on experience.

Many more kids need to feel the sensation of a bootfull of pollywogs.

Images: All images are of Pacific Spirit Regional Park. Image Credits (top to bottom):

1. justlist-it.com

2. panoramio.com

3 & 4. digitallery.blogspot.com

Planting Trees, Saving Salmon

One weekend late in 2011, Jade and I decided to get our hands dirty on behalf of the local salmon. Then we welcomed them back home!

Many readers will have heard of, or even visited, Muir Woods National Monument, a spectacular stand of old growth redwoods a few short miles north of San Francisco. The forest is watered by Redwood Creek, which originates close by at the top of Mount Tamalpais, the dominant landmark of Marin County. The creek nourishes the Monument before completing its short, riffling journey to the Pacific Coast at Muir Beach.

Jade Digging

Redwood Creek is home to (locally endangered) Steelhead Trout and (federally endangered) Central Coast Coho Salmon. Just 25 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge, this Northern California creek also bears the distinction of being the southernmost watershed in North America to host stable runs of these anadromous fishes. Most autumns, toward the end of the dry season, the connection between creek and ocean is severed at Muir Beach by a massive sandy berm. During this period, spawning salmon gather out in the bay, waiting for the first downpours to fill the creek, break through the berm, and re-establish access to their natal creek.

Over the past few decades, fewer and fewer salmon have arrived in the creek each year to spawn. Much of the problem has been mismanagement of the waterway near the ocean. The once extensive system of wetlands, lagoon, and dunes were heavily disturbed by agriculture, construction, and recreation. So the National Parks Service, with help from the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, has undertaken a major multi-year, multi-million-dollar project to reclaim the original character of the creek, re-routing the waterway to make it more salmon friendly, removing nonnative plant species, and planting many thousands of native plants. Much of this work is being done by enthusiastic volunteers.

On this particular Saturday, Jade and I joined in on the fun, planting Elderberry and California Blackberry. Other volunteers that day were also planting California Wax Myrtle and Small-Fruited Bulrush. Each plant had been lovingly grown nearby at a native plant nursery. Literally hundreds of volunteer hours go into collecting the seeds and plants, sowing and transplanting the nascent plants, and then planting them in their new homes. It takes a community.

Jade with Deer Exclosure Completed: A Job Well Done

Jade and I were each given a name tag, gloves, and a digging tool. After a short orientation, we were then handed some seedlings and told where to plant them. Here’s the drill. Dig a hole deep just enough to cover the roots, remove the plant from its plastic protective casing, carefully place it in the hole, and fill the remainder with dirt. Make sure you level off the dirt at the end; a depression at the base of the plant traps too much water; a mound of dirt doesn’t allow enough water to reach the plant. After completing this process with seven or so seedlings in a small area, cover that area with a loose matrix of sticks to prevent deer from grazing away all your hard work (and that of the volunteers before you).

On that day over the span of a few hours, the volunteers planted 310 plants and made 35 deer “exclosures.” Thus far, project volunteers have planted almost 6000 of a total of 9000 plants targeted for volunteer groups, so a lot of work remains to be done. I can vouch from firsthand experience that the work is both fun and rewarding. I felt great getting my hands dirty restoring the watershed and helping to save the salmon. Jade loved it too, and we both look forward to more volunteer planting.

Ane Rovetta, Animated Storyteller

We topped that Saturday off by attending the “Welcome Back Salmon” event at Muir Beach. Festivities included a ceremonial campfire with members of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria (living descendents of the Coast Miwok). There was also storytelling and native craft making under the capable and passionate direction of Ane Rovetta. Jade and I returned home late afternoon exhausted and exhilarated, with a deeper sense of place and an even stronger feeling that we need to help conserve, restore, and protect our place.

As indigenous peoples have shown us for generations, topophilia—a love of place—blossoms only if individuals spend abundant time outdoors, learn something of the workings of their native place, and work to take care of it. Only with this intertwined combination of firsthand knowledge, experience, and service can one nurture emotional attachments to local life and landscapes. And at this pivotal juncture in human history, there’s never been a greater need for a topophilia revolution. So think about your local opportunities to get outside and get connected. Oh, and don’t forget the kids!

Ceremonial Salmon Art

I’ve heard that the salmon did return to Redwood Creek, not in great numbers but they’re still making the upstream journey. I plan to take Jade out soon to try and find them. Traveling thousands of miles and then navigating their way back to their place of birth, these amazing fishes have much to teach us about possessing a true sense of place.

The Gaia Hypothesis

I wrote the following brief essay in response to literary agent John Brockman's annual question. This year's question was, "What is your favorite deep, elegant, or beautiful explanation? Check out answers from other members of the Edge clan here.

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For my money, the deepest, most beautiful scientific explanation is the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that Earth's physical and biological processes are inextricably interwoven to form a self-regulating system. This notion—the 1965 brainchild of chemist James Lovelock, further co-developed with microbiologist Lynn Margulis—proposes that air (atmosphere), water (hydrosphere), earth (geosphere or pedosphere) and life (biosphere) interact to form a single evolving system capable of maintaining environmental conditions consistent with life. Lovelock initially put forth the Gaia hypothesis to explain how life on Earth has persisted for 4 billion years despite a 30% increase in the Sun’s intensity over that same interval.

But how does Gaia work? Lacking a conscious command-and-control system, Lovelock and Margulis demonstrated that Gaia uses feedback loops to track and adjust key environmental parameters. Take oxygen, a highly reactive by-product of life, generated and continually replenished by photosynthetic algae and plants. The present day atmospheric concentration of oxygen is about 21%. A few percentage points lower and air-breathing life forms could not survive. A few percentage points higher and terrestrial ecosystems would become overly combustible, prone to conflagration. According to the Gaia hypothesis, oxygen-producing organisms have used feedback loops to maintain atmospheric oxygen between these narrow limits for hundreds of millions of years.

James Lovelock

Similar arguments, backed by an ever-growing body of research, can be made for other atmospheric constituents, as well as for global surface temperature, oceanic salinity, and other key environmental metrics. Although the Gaia hypothesis highlights cooperation at the scale of the biosphere, researchers have documented multiple examples showing how cooperation at one level could evolve through competition and natural selection at lower levels. Initially criticized by serious scientists as new-age mumbo-jumbo, Lovelock’s radical notion has increasingly been incorporated into scientific orthodoxy, and key elements are now often taught as “Earth Systems Science.” One timely lesson resulting at least in part from Gaian research is that food web complexity, including higher species diversity, tends to enhance ecological and climate stability.

So, while Earth may inhabit a “Goldilocks zone,” neither too close nor too far from the sun, life’s rampant success on this “pale blue dot” cannot be ascribed to luck alone. Life has had a direct hand in ensuring its own persistence.

Science has not yet fully embraced the Gaia hypothesis. And it must be admitted that, as an explanation, this idea remains incomplete. The insights cascading from Gaia are unquestionably deep and beautiful, uniting the whole of the biosphere and Earth’s surface processes into a single, emergent, self-regulating system. Yet this explanation has yet to achieve the third milestone defined in this year’s Edge Annual Question—elegance. The Gaia hypothesis currently lacks the mathematical precision of Einstein’s E=Mc². No unified theory of Earth and Life has been presented to explain why life stabilizes more than it destabilizes.

W. D. Hamilton

Evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton once compared Lovelock’s insights to those of Copernicus, adding that we still await the Newton who will define the laws of this grand, seemingly improbable relationship. Hamilton himself became deeply engrossed in seeking an answer to this question, developing a computer model that seemed to show how stability and productivity could increase in tandem. Were it not for an untimely death, Hamilton might have emerged as that modern-day Newton, becoming, in the words of author Tim Flannery, “the most revered biologist of all time.”

Lynn Margulis

The cultural implications of Gaia also continue to be debated. Arguably the most profound implication of Lovelock’s idea is that Earth, considered as a whole, possesses many qualities of an organism. But is Gaia actually alive, akin to a single life form, or is it more accurate to think of her as a planet-sized ecosystem? Lynn Margulis argued strongly (and convincingly, to my mind) for the latter view. Margulis, whose work revolutionized evolutionary biology at the smallest and grandest of scales, died recently. Always the hard-nosed scientist, she once said,

“Gaia is a tough bitch — a system that has worked for over three billion years without people. This planet's surface and its atmosphere and environment will continue to evolve long after people and prejudice are gone.”

While not disagreeing with this blunt assessment, I find considerably greater inspiration in Gaian thinking. Indeed I would go so far as to suggest that this idea can help shift the human perception of nature. In the modernist perspective, the natural world is little more than a collection of virtually infinite resources available for human exploitation. The Gaian lens encourages us to re-envision Earth-bound nature as an intertwined, finite whole from which we evolved, and in which we remain fully embedded. Here, then, is a deep and beautiful perspective in desperate need of broad dissemination.

Image Credits

James Lovelock: www.guardian.co.uk

W. D. Hamilton: www.psychology.wikia.com

Lynn Margulis: www.blogs.scientificamerican.com

Holiday Nature Connection

While out walking on this day, the shortest of the year, I began thinking about how grown-ups might be connecting kids with nature this time of year. To my mind, finding ways to help children make meaningful connections with (nonhuman) nature is one of the most pressing challenges of the 21st Century, rivaling global warming, habitat loss, and species extinctions. After all, how can we possibly live sustainably in a place we don’t care about? And why would we care unless we have meaningful experiences in that place, and know something of how it works and how it came to be?

Jade out having fun in Nature!

On the one hand, the holiday season would seem to offer great opportunities for making nature connections, since kids have time off school and other activities. On the other, adults are often running around working, shopping, and/or staggering from party to party. Then there are the obstacles of winter, like finding sufficient daylight and warmth. How many kids are going to be passionate about turning off the screens to face the frigid temperatures outdoors? Yet, I know that there are millions of people who will be out there connecting their kids to nature this holiday season. What I—and, my assumption is, many others—want to know is, What are they doing?

Before getting to that question, let me return for a minute to technology. Many people in the children-and-nature movement see technology as the enemy—the evil that now enslaves children for 7-10 hours a day in front at screens. But, let’s be frank. Technology isn’t going away; indeed it’s only going to accelerate, at least for the foreseeable future. So, perhaps ironically, I’m convinced that we need to come up with creative ways to use technology to aid the cause of nature connection. And that, my friends, brings me to Twitter.

I recently joined the Twitterverse, which, for me, felt like a big move. But I have to say, the decision was a great one, and I haven’t looked back. Not only have I shared ideas with many like-minded (and not so like-minded) people. I have learned about cutting edge news and events that I undoubtedly would have missed if I hadn’t been tossing out the occasional tweet.

Jade and friend Tessa camping.

So here’s what occurred to me while out walking (which, by the way, research suggests is the best time to think). Let’s find out how people are connecting kids to nature this holiday season by putting out a call on Twitter. So here goes:

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE WAY TO CONNECT KIDS TO NATURE DURING THE WINTER HOLIDAY SEASON?

It might be something you’ve done before, something you’re doing this year, or something you dream of doing (e.g., surfing off the coast of Maui on Christmas day). Stargazing, beach walking, snowball fights, snowboarding, a visit to the local natural history museum—it’s all fair game.

Tweet your answer to #HolidayNature by Wednesday, January 4^th, 2012, so that others can find out what you’re up to. Please include @DrScottSampson in your tweet so that I can track all the submissions.

I will tally and blog about the results, choosing what I think are the Top 10 best answers. And if, as anticipated, the material warrants, I’ll write up an article and submit it for publication so that many other folks can benefit from your collective creativity and wisdom!

Jade on one of our birding trips

Please get the word out through the Twitterverse asap so that we can get some amazing feedback. I already have my first response, from Michael Barton (@darwinsbulldog), who wrote, “Last year we visited a local state park on Christmas day and I said we should do so every year...”

As for me, well, let me throw my hat into the ring too. Jade, my 9-year-old daughter pictured in the accompanying photos, is passionate about birds (you know, living dinosaurs), so we'll be heading into the local hills, or perhaps down to the lagoon, to do some birding.

So, what are you doing to connect your kids to nature this holiday season? Let the masses know! And please follow me on Twitter (@DrScottSampson). I promise many future tweets on nature connection!