Nature is Never Spent

Happy Earth Day!

I saw a program on public television recently about the idea of "nature deficit disorder" and the cognitive, developmental and psychological benefits of children having exposure to nature. I was particularly interested in the point it made about the value of non-stationary, non-uniform objects in fostering creativity and the ability to process detail. For example, in a playground, everything is bolted to the ground and behaves in predictable ways; in a school, home, mall, or even a well-groomed park, the objects and lines and angles and pathways tend to be geometric and purposeful. They don't allow for as much real exploration as, say, a forest or stream habitat, where there are thousands of distinct shapes and lines and little details, and you don't know what's going to be around the next corner or under the next rock, because it wasn't planned by humans. Children who encounter broken branches, loose stones, hollow logs, can pick those things up or climb around and through them, and then can even build things with them, assisted and limited only by their imagination. When they directly encounter frogs and insects and birds, even if they're a little scared, it's a natural thrill, and they see the behavior and the lives of non-human creatures. They may develop a broader world view and even more compassion. They are seeing things and touching things and being in a different way.

For myself, at this moment, I'm just thinking that if more people could sit for ten minutes a day where I am now, on the porch at the farm, with the wind blowing large through the oak trees, shifting patterns of sun and shadow on the grass, birds singing their hearts out, they might have better mental health. And just maybe they'd be more conscious about preserving it all.