Natural Surroundings

January, 2004
Too often we are bound by the expectations of what we ought to see and feel rather than what we can see and feel at a given moment. What if we were to stop at some point during a hike, close our eyes and try to feel our surroundings? Where are we? What do we perceive through our senses that tells us what surrounds us? What are we getting from being in a natural area? What is the natural world saying to us?

People have a need for wildness, a signal of belonging, of balance, of well being. Many have lost their connection with nature, being more concerned with doing their eight or ten mile walk rather than stopping to look, listen and feel the land they are walking upon. The living earth is our true connection to our path through life. Without the living earth our life is nothing. Yet with the earth a fullness of life, all that there can possibly be if we allow it to happen in a sacred balance… it with us, us with it.

Open space draws us to it, seeking solitude, a sense of well being and a feeling unencumbered by society’s morals and restrictions. Thus when new but recently restricted wilderness areas are opened to the public there is a rush to experience this new wilderness. A rush to be among the first, rightly or wrongly, to flush with the knowledge of being one of the first to tread where few have tread; to enter a land that has had a ban against treading upon it for more than a century except for those who were caretakers of this land. Now the public has the opportunity to experience land we have passed by numerous times and observed through our auto windows but were unable to experience first hand.

But will we experience this land and all that it provides or will we be one of those wanting only to hike the eight miles as efficiently as possible, seeing little and experiencing even less?

John Muir once wrote, “Most people are on the world, not in it – have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them – undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of stone, touching but separate.”

Let me be a part of the world. That while being ‘on’ I am also ‘in’. To have some understanding of the natural world and its processes and to appreciate all that the world has given me would make my existence here on earth worthwhile.

So as I and others lead hikes into the watershed, my hope is to have a chance to stop, look and listen. I want to feel my surroundings and come away with a part of the natural world tucked inside my body. I admire those who are able to get out and do their eight or ten mile hikes. I admire even more those who stop to appreciate their surroundings, who try to communicate with and understand why the natural world is so important to their inner and outer well being.

The above was written several days prior to my first docent adventure into the San Francisco Watershed property as part of a public access program. My fear, obviously, was that the group would be mainly hikers with little interest in the plants, history or geology. We met this morning at the gate to the quarry and at 10:00, after a brief introduction, our group of eight plus three TLVs(trail leader volunteers) began our walk up the maintenance road.

While the beginning of the walk is uphill through primarily non-native cypress planted many years ago, the rest of the walk was leisurely though tiring. Stands of fir and pine shade most of the walk with a scattering of oaks and windfalls creating openings where the sun warmed the earth and the beginnings of spring growth was evident. Hounds tongue, Manroot, hemlock, Zigadenus, Cow Parsnip and Stinging nettle were all showing new growth. Only Forget-me-nots were in bloom and the Ceanothus had fat blossom buds.

We did have small discussions relating to geology of the area and a smattering of ideas relating to the Ohlone Indians who once roamed these hills. I did find several samples of limestone with which I demonstrated the acid test for calcium describing how this is evidence that the land was once part of the ocean floor.

So… my worries regarding this hike were unnecessary. The group was varied and for the most part fun to be with. While the walk itself I found, as I feared, not very interesting it was a good time and a beautiful day.

Posted on February 8, 2011 11:37 PM by bob-dodge