Wonderful post! Thanks for the NYT link. And I second the kind of nature awe that can be found just about anywhere, even the lupines in your yard! :)
Reminds me of William Cronon's seminal essay, The Trouble With Wilderness, and some of his notable reminders -- "The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect, than the tree in an ancient forest...The special power of the tree in the wilderness is to remind us of this fact. It can teach us to recognize the wildness we did not see in our own backyard. By seeing the otherness in that which is most unfamiliar, we can learn to see it too in that which at first seemed merely ordinary."
Wonderful post! Thanks for the NYT link. And I second the kind of nature awe that can be found just about anywhere, even the lupines in your yard! :)
Reminds me of William Cronon's seminal essay, The Trouble With Wilderness, and some of his notable reminders -- "The tree in the garden is in reality no less other, no less worthy of our wonder and respect, than the tree in an ancient forest...The special power of the tree in the wilderness is to remind us of this fact. It can teach us to recognize the wildness we did not see in our own backyard. By seeing the otherness in that which is most unfamiliar, we can learn to see it too in that which at first seemed merely ordinary."