Nature is Sacred

But religions are not necessarily so.

I was listening to a BBC commentator on World BBC News today who was obviously someone who had never been to anywhere very wild (unless you consider London to be wild and full of nature). And for someone like myself who mostly grew up in the State of Washington from birth and then California mostly since I was 4 I sort of could not believe what I was hearing. As he interviewed the veteran Nature photographer famous for incredible nature documentaries the last 60 years or so, maybe what I was hearing was a commentator trying to play the "Devil's Advocate" as reporters often do to make their guests who are being interviewed really open up. But, I realized after listening to what he had to say that I needed to blog about this from a life long nature lover's point of view.

First, he was saying that 50% of the people on earth now live in cities and many have never left these cities and don't know how to fully appreciate nature and I found myself being sort of horrified by this statement even when I realized it was really true. When I was a child (I'm 64) there were only 1 to 2 billion people on earth after World War II when I was born and at least 100 million people had died (mostly civilians) in that war worldwide. So, the first real nature video that I saw as a child was "Bambi" which Stephen King (the horror writer) said was the single scariest thing he ever saw as  child (because Bambi's mother is shot and dies during this movie). By the way "Bambi" actually created laws throughout the U.S. that you could only shoot bucks and not female deer. Because you only need a few bucks to propagate a herd of female deer. So, partly because of Bambi we still have a lot of deer of all sorts all across the U.S. still 60 years later.

So, my grandfather had 40 hound dogs at one time for hunting bears and likely shot one of the last Grizzly Bears in the state of Washington during the 1920s. (Though I'm not proud of this it also shows how much he loved to be out in nature too). In fact, at one point he went out into the Sawtooth wilderness area in Idaho between 1910 and 1920 and stayed by himself in the wilds during the winter and set up a trap line because he wanted to be alone in nature for several months. So, my grandfather even though he was a very successful Electrical Contractor loved nature this much. So, this was also instilled in my father and me. So, by the time I was 8 I could shoot accurately and had my own .22 rifle and could hit almost anything accurately up to about 100 yards away with my rifle.

But, nature was still sacred to me always and I always saw nature as God's church. In fact, I do not associate churches with God at all. If I want to see God I go watch a sunset on the ocean or go to Mt. Shasta, the Tetons, or Yosemite or Yellowstone National park because I associate cities mainly with mental illness which tends to prevail in most cities among large groups of people crammed too close together all the time.

Though, the other place I have found the most crazy people also is among people who live 20 miles from the nearest person. (And yes, that is still possible in parts of the U.S.) Even where I live on the Northern Calfornia Coast I can within one mile of where I live be one or more miles from the nearest person whenever I want to be. I don't have to see a car, a house or even a power line or anything other than a trail and trees and ferns and oaks, pines and redwood trees and birds if that is my wish. I might hear or see a plane but that is all of civilization that I see even one mile from my home. And this is why I choose to live where I do.

I used to live in Mt. Shasta at 4000 feet on the side of a 14,161 foot Mountain in an A-Frame I built for my family. But, I found that making a living in the country to support your family is difficult year after year. So, I came back to the coast and started to buy businesses here instead. But still, I visit (My spiritual home in Mt. Shasta whenever I can (about every 3 months or so especially when the snow skiing is good or it's warm and I can swim or kayak on Castle Lake at 6000 feet in elevation.

So, without enough nature you will start to see worldwide a whole lot more people like the one that just shot 70 or more people in Colorado recently. If you read studies on rats when there are just too many of them in a small space they rape, kill, torture and become cannibals. Nature will limit human population even if individual people don't one way or the other.

So, let's hear it for National Parks so people all don't become mass murderers by becoming insane without enough nature! This is something for all of us to think about! Without enough trees, oceans, lakes, nature, and nature's creatures none of us will be sane. We don't need anti-depressants. We need nature and trees to take our pain. If we are symbiotic with trees and nature we can be relatively happy all the time. Have you ever noticed that people take the most drugs both legal and illegal in the cities?

Without enough exposure to and appreciation of nature everyone goes nuts. It's just the way we were designed in the first place. Think about it.