Natural Inspiration in Temescal Canyon
- agill110
- Feb 25, 2022
- 4 min read
It’s difficult to pin down one particular way in which we are inspired by nature. The question itself is somewhat interesting when we consider ourselves to be a part of nature, of the ultimate dimension and earth following Thich N’hat Khan’s thinking in “Realize You are the Earth.” He asserts that we are able to touch this dimension deeply through leaves, landscapes or even our own bodies, and that that is the way to enlightenment and peace. The presence of nature in ourselves and our surroundings constantly and inescapably shapes our lives. Personally it feels as though the majority of my choices are informed by nature outside of myself and the need to protect it, but put simply, I think that nature inspires me to see, to remember, and to reflect.
The ability to look around and notice the details in our surroundings is, at least from my perspective, wildly underappreciated. Sigurd F. Olson speaks on our use of sight and wonder in “Reflection from the North Country,” stating that beauty “comes from knowledge and awareness, with time enough to look and enjoy.” We have this ability to see and be awed intrinsically as children, Olson dwells on it and in “Trace,” Lauret Savoy gives us the example of Point Sublime in her own childhood. At seven she says ”I felt no “troubled sense of immensity” but wonder—at the dance of light on rock, at ravens and white-throated swifts untethered from Earth, at a serenity
unbroken…” in response to viewing the Grand Canyon for the first time. As a child she did not feel the fear that many adults do at its dimensionality, rather she connected with its peacefulness. It’s funny how quickly we learn indifference as we grow. I, too, have taken several trips to the canyon, though never by way of the more treacherous path Savoy’s family favored. I remember very little about the class trip we took when I was around nine or ten other than feeling completely disconnected from the experience. I didn’t know how to access my own sense of wonder and had already put distance between myself and the world around me.
What gives me hope now is the knowledge that we can relearn that viewpoint and appreciation, and one way I have done that is through photographs. Olson mentions a friend who similarly finds beauty through the lens of a camera describing who “In his eyes were wonder and delight and though he had spent his life portraying the beauty of many places, this for him was a perfect moment.” It can, of course, be argued that placing technology between us and our experiences is instead a separation, but for me it has often been the key to unlocking my ability to observe. Like Olson’s friend I may take
thousands of pictures, many of them so similar as to seem repetitive, but at this point it’s essentially an excuse to just stare at something beautiful and to have that piece of the experience to hold
onto. Practicing this presence in a moment is how I get closer to the mindfulness Thich N’hat Khan emphasizes. It helps that as an art student I have been taught to see beauty, and that now as a lifeguard my job is quite literally to look around and notice things, but it is in the knowledge that I can keep memories of what I have seen as a photo that I first found wonder again.
That other aspect of photography which is so appealing to my terrible sense of memory is the ability to revisit moments. On our hike through Temescal Canyon, as on most hikes and trips out into less urbanized portions of nature, I spent most of my time falling behind and catching up. I regularly get distracted by butterflies and birds and each view no matter how similar it is to the one we saw twenty feet back, and with each of these pauses I feel a need to snap a photo. Half the pictures
will end up looking identical and another quarter is blurry from my inability to keep still or steady, but I can never quite regret dragging behind when I get to see smaller details around me. Only a week after taking that hike, I can’t recall most of the experience unless prompted by images. Through photographing the subject, then going through each image several times upon returning home, what I’ve seen sticks in my mind far more effectively. Because of this process, I do actually remember the duskywing moth that I saw clinging to a stick just off the path. I remember the sweet peas, the bush sunflowers, the ferns and the greenbark ceanothus. Each of these things I saw and passed by so quickly, but now my awareness of them is no longer just as fleeting. While there is a type of joy and freedom to living an experience to forget it so soon afterwards, recording and recollection are my more prominent reactions to nature.
What comes from the wonder and awareness we have and foster is also a sense of the humility that Bell Hooks talks about in “The Colors of Nature.” As she says “Ultimately nature rules. That is the great, democratic gift the earth offers us— that sweet death to which we all inevitably go.” We are all equal to nature as we are to time. Both can and will eventually move on without us and as difficult as that can be to accept, it’s what keeps us anchored to ourselves as parts of nature. Savoy describes this awareness of time with her family photo at Point Sublime, saying “It’s impossible to step into that bright summer morning again… Point Sublime remains. I still try to negotiate its terrain.” We know that we can never go back, that as many times as you return to the same geographic location, it will never be the same. Nature is ever-changing and as part of that whole, so are we. Understanding the ephemerality of the moments in which we live is anxiety inducing, but it also prompts us to practice mindfulness in order to fully appreciate that our experiences are short and to care for that ultimate dimension of nature.
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