Personal Nature Stories

I was about ten when I had the first deep connection with nature I can remember. We had a small brook flowing through our property in rural Vermont. I’d often spend hours there watching the water skeeters, dragon flies and just the way the water moved. This day I saw a small rainbow trout and, as kids will do, decided to try to catch it with my hands. I jumped from side to side of the stream startling the fish out from under this root then that rock as it darted around its confined pool. It was so fast! Almost a blur and only a puff of sediment stirred up as it escaped. It was so wildly driven to live but with limited oxygen in the warm late summer pool it ultimately exhausted itself. I reached for it next to the root, gazing in its wild eye, gills pulsing. I cupped my hand under it and touched it. Smooth and pumping slightly with each breath. It didn’t move. It had given everything to its struggle, and now had to surrender. And in that moment, I was forever changed. I could not close my fist or lift my hand. I too surrendered my claim of victory or dominion, my story of separation. I was in awe of this creature giving every bit of energy it had to living. Total respect! I felt this fish and I were kin, bonded in a way I’d never felt. A truth took root. Undeniable, irresistible…oneness.

This experience, and others like it, has colored every choice I’ve ever made. My hope is that we normalize a cultural habit of immersing young people in nature, so that we can fundamentally know our small place within it, so that all our choices lead us toward a more beautiful future.