Everyday nature

As post-Romantic subjects, we have become used to defining our identities apart from the everyday, through various forms of leisure and imaginative escape.

Our idea of nature, like art, has helped to enable such forms of self-definition. To embrace an everyday nature means shifting also how we define our selves, no longer through forms of imaginative escape of transcendence but though our ordinary lives, work, actions and relationships.   - Scott Hess “Imagining an Everyday Nature” from ISLE Winter 2010.


During my morning run, flowers exploded from all nooks and around corners.  Birdsong chased me as mockingbirds, crows, house sparrows, seagulls, and cormorants enchanted the breeze.

I watched others pass in cars and on foot and wondered how many could name the trees, flowers, or bushes in their neighborhood?  They take them for granted  along with the birds and insects as they drive out of driveways, talking on cell phones. 

When they return home, the television and computer screen push them further away from a natural environmental influence.  At dinner, they interact with vegetables and fruits and animals. After dinner back to the screens.

It's time to slow down and redirect attention to our place in the web of nature around us beyond technology that defines our lives.

Take a stroll and marvel!  Springs explodes and puts on a show for the benefit of everyone.  Use your eyes, nose and fingers to explore the magic of seeds into blossoms. Listen and identify the birds in your garden.  Be grateful for ways nature balances and shows you how.

Creative write:  How do you identify with everyday nature?