Nature
Moving beyond objectifying nature | Moving towards experiencing humility and awe.
I’m in the river. It’s almost cold, which is welcome after the four hour walk in the heat. If I could, I’d float, but the current is just swift enough and I can’t. And so I tread water. Still, it’s nice to be the weight, to be held, after those hours with a heavy pack on my back. And this ‘heads up’ relaxing has its benefits too: I can engage in pieces of conversation; I can watch the kids jump into the swimming hole or explore the rocks on the other side of the river; I can take in the scenery, which is lovely - layered, dark green hills on the other side of the valley, the whispy-white, deepening blue sky.
We are alone. Virtually no one has been at this campsite - Ōtaki Forks in the Tararua ranges - since the slip came down around 10 months ago and closed the road. What used to be a bustling place this time of year, full of families enjoying a few days of ‘roughing it’, is now silent and overgrown. The grass is hip height in places; the shrubs unloosed, with just enough time elapsed for them to grow the confidence to start playing with the buildings.
We lose track of time swimming at the river. It had been a real slog to get here - three hours up and over the slip, through pine plantation on the upside and native bush on the down; the last hour we’d lugged ourselves along the now cut-off road, sun pounding us - and so this time of relaxation and play flows. We’d met the challenge head-on, done well, and now we could enjoy the spoils of our labour.
There are seventeen of us, families connected by the school: a parent and a kid or two each. My daughter is the youngest at 9, the rest of the kids, including my son, a couple of years older.
I’m gingerly making my way over rocks on the way back to the campsite for dinner when I hear it. A deep, resounding boom, bounding up the valley. And then another, and another. I stop.
“Did you hear that?”, one of the dads says.
“Yeah. What is it do you think?”
We’re not just alone. We’re isolated. No cellphone connection. No means of communication with the outside world. It would be the next afternoon, once we get in cellphone range, when we find out we’d heard the Tongan eruption.
But that night, without that knowledge, we have nothing other than hypothesis that turns to story, and no doubt would have become myth if we’d been there long enough. It flows in and out of our conversations over and after dinner, no one really knowing what but everyone knowing that nothing good makes that kind of sound.
The kids splinter off into the overgrown, rewilding campsite after dinner, playing games like spotlight and go-home-stay-home, or just gathering to talk. But in the dark, with nothing but the sound of eternity all around and the immensity of the place all too apparent, they regularly come back to the light and tables where us adults sit, talking. Things ‘move’ when they are hiding, we are told. Strange crunches make them hesitant to go too far. And it’s dark, so dark, they say.
Nature isn’t an object here. It’s an actor, immense, immersive, and alive. It’s all there is, aside from us, and we are small and few. At all times we need to be alert, alive, attentive. All we have is each other.
Many people point to the decline in nature play as a negative, and I am with them 100%. We know that walking and playing among trees, or at a beach, stimulates our senses and emotions in ways that are multifaceted and more invigorating than being inside. These experiences help tune us in to being alive, help us test ourselves and get to know what we are capable of.
We all know of kids who are transformed on EOTC experiences, becoming leaders, showing consideration for others, building their confidence through taking risks (can we call them transformed given these qualities must have been within them all along? — that’s an issue for another day). You know, all those things we talk of as being beneficial and central to the experience of a school trip or camp.
But I don’t think that’s enough. Not now. Seeing the benefit of nature in this way is ego-centric. It objectifies nature, positioning it as a canvas for us to paint upon it our vision of ourselves, and denies its existence as a life force. We need to move beyond using nature as an object there for our benefit and indulgence. We need to get kids out into nature so that they can get close to eternity and feel how they relate to it - a humbling, awe-filled, connecting experience.
We’ve forgotten about how we need each other and the world around us; how perhaps it’s not the world that’s around us but us that’s within it. We have forgotten about interdependencies. We have forgotten about the necessity of humility and contemplation and awe. These are all things that we need to experience and learn from if our life is to be a fulfilling one.
We are too impressed, too awed, by our own power, too comfortable in assuming its eternity, too certain that the only things worth knowing are the things that make us clever.
My mind is drawn to Yeats and his poem ‘The Second Coming’
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
For so long we have believed ourselves to be at the centre, in control. It’s been a lovely innocence.
About a month ago I was watching some Year 1s playing outside. A large tree was in the centre of the play space, and I watched as some kids picked up saws and hammers and started at the tree. They were builders, a natural extension of the world they had created. Luckily the saws were blunt and the bark of the tree rugged and thick. I didn’t like it; I stopped them, repeatedly. But, and this is the point, these kids did not really see the tree as anything other than a tree. It was nothing other than an object to be used for their amusement, an object for the expression of their desires, their agency.
It’s easy to make a point here about the kids not appreciating nature. But is how they viewed the tree any surprise given the world they live in? Huizinga argued that play and culture are inextricably linked, one influencing the other in a symbiotic way. And so, what do these kids see as they absorb the culture that surrounds them? Well, for one, the suburb they live in is being extended in all directions. Trees are impermanent things in this place, there one day and gone the next, felled with ease by powerful, passionate and intense men with chainsaws and diggers and trucks.
I’m not sure what to make of all this. It’s just not feasible to ignore our needs - for shelter, to act, to test ourselves. But, just as equally, our relationship with nature is unbalanced and we have ‘loosed’ forces we have no control over. Any pretence of innocence we may have held about our impact on the world must surely be gone.
I’m left thinking about awe. There is much to learn when we experience this. Perhaps on your next school trip or camp, you might think about not just being impressed by how the kids build confidence and show leadership (important), but also how crucial it is that everyone gets to feel humbled and awed by the eternal immensity of nature.
I’m reading
Islands of Abandonment, by Cal Flyn
This is stunning, mind-blowing, lyrical. If you’re after some non-fiction that will shift how you view the world around you, check it out.
This caught my eye
A profile of Professor Hal Abelson, who has worked with Seymour Papert and other seminal figures in the field of technology in education.
“Kids are people too!”
“Computational action is not just computational thinking, but really realizing that someone can use computational tools to do something that has an impact on their life and their family’s life.”
Current favourite poem
‘Milky Way Bar’ by Bill Manhire.
I’m wondering about
Why nothing really changes in education, except the words we use.
Great piece of writing! And I bet the adults all had smiles on their faces watching the youngsters, remembering the same reactions..
I keep thinking of the line of Rainer Rilke, used at the end of the film, JoJo Rabbit when I read your piece.
'The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.'
Looking forward to your next edition!
Wonder-full words, Bevan. You have reminded me of my childhood experiences in nature....often the best times were out on my own or with a sibling or friend, mucking about in boats and making forts...or staying down the Abel Tasman before it became a destination. And I love that you are giving yourself more time to be the writer and researcher. You have given me much to contemplate on my morning walk. Thank you.