Experience

Before we start walking, I invite you to close your eyes or pick a point around you to focus on visually and bring your attention to your breath. Inhale (four counts), hold (four counts), and exhale (four counts). As you continue to breathe, think about this exchange you’re having with nature. When you breathe in, you’re taking in the byproduct of a billions of years old process—something that plants have been creating long before any semblance of human life. As you hold your breath, imagine the flow of oxygen traveling from your lungs and into your blood, fuelling your body and sustaining you with this essential piece of nature. And when you exhale, you’re releasing your own creation back into the ecosystem, providing fuel for the plants just as they did for you. Even an act as simple as breathing is like an intimate conversation with nature. Take another inhale, hold, and exhale. Now I invite you to gently open your eyes and bring your focus back to your surroundings as we begin to take our walk.

As we walk through North Woods, I want you to look around and try to connect with your surroundings. Nature can sometimes feel distant. And the further we feel from nature, the less we care if it’s threatened or even if it starts to disappear. So pay attention to all the incredible living things that surround you now. Even as the leaves are falling from the trees and some of the plants are turning brown, there is still so much beauty that can be found. Beauty that can’t exist if the very ecosystems that hold it are in danger. So just for this moment, I want you to try and focus on what you see, hear, feel, maybe even smell right now. Try to leave anything that isn’t serving that purpose behind at the entrance to the trail, and if you want you are more than welcome to pick it back up on our way out. But for the time being, let’s see if we can work to bridge the gap between humanity and nature.

While we walk, I want to point out some of the plants you might find along the way. The first one is a tree called the shagbark hickory. You might notice its rough, shaggy bark or its leaves that have turned a brilliant yellowy orange in the fall. Like many of the plants I’ll point out on this walk, the Shagbark Hickory is native to this area. These trees have an average lifespan of 200 years. Think for a moment about how much change this tree might have seen already in its lifetime. And how much change it will see as it continues to grow. How might we change the world that this tree sees to better serve its needs rather than our own? The shagbark hickory can sometimes be a home for bats to roost; a simple act of giving to another species without even trying. How might we give back to nature in the same selfless, automatic way? Like other native trees you can see on the trail such as the American Beech with its smooth, grey bark or Sugar Maple with its many spiny leaves, it makes great firewood. So, the next time you sit around a campfire or heat up a fireplace in winter, think about the wood that’s keeping you warm. The least we can do is acknowledge all the wonderful things our environment does to help us. And maybe by understanding it, we can help in return.

As we enter this clearing, let’s take a pause here. I invite you to walk around this area for a moment and see what different species you can find. Find a flower, tree, or fungus that you find particularly beautiful and take it in. Maybe it’s a fern like the intermediate woodfern with its long, pointy leaflets and spiky pinnules. Or maybe it’s a mushroom like the blushing bracket with its cap marbled in creams and browns. In so many other environments, that plant might not have been able to survive, but here it’s thriving. So many things had to align for you to be able to see this plant today. As you think about this, I want you to also focus on what you can hear. You might hear the crunch beneath your feet as you’re walking over this tremendous forest blanket of leaves. Or you might hear the wind blowing through the trees, rustling the branches that create cover above you. Maybe you hear the people next to you as we all take in this space together. Let all of these sounds blur together as you take in these plants around you to create a cohesive image of your surroundings. Now I’ll invite you to come back together, keeping these sights and sounds in your mind as we continue our walk down the trail.

And as we’re walking, focus on what you can feel. Beneath your feet as you’re stepping, there is a complex root system that connects all the trees that make up North Woods. Enmeshed with the rocks and the dirt, passing signals to each other in their own special language unknown to us. Everything is working together to create a vibrant and beautiful ecosystem. And without even one of these elements, the whole system is completely changed. Without the trees, the birds and bats and small animals have nowhere to live. Without the fungi, the leaves and twigs and even whole trees on the forest floor aren’t broken down into nutrients for the other plants. Without the moss, the soil becomes less fertile and water levels are harder to regulate. Even the invasive species in this environment serve a purpose. How are you a part of this ecosystem? Try to imagine planting roots yourself and sending your own signals to these plants around you. Reaching out to everything and everyone nearby. Communicating with the nature that lives within reach. And aiding in the survival of this ecosystem in the ways that you are uniquely able to.

As we reach the end of our walk, I invite you to turn back for a moment and look at where we’ve come from. Think about all the things we’ve experienced thus far in our exploration of these woods. We’ve thought about what we can hear, what we can feel, what we can see. Now let’s think for a moment about what we can do. The world we live in, the one that holds both us and places like North Woods, is rapidly changing. Some things for the better, but other things for the worse. While it may not seem like where we’re standing is being affected by climate change, there is no part of nature, ourselves included, that isn’t touched by it. And if we continue down the path that we’re on, we risk losing all the inherent beauty we’ve encountered today. As we distance ourselves from nature, it becomes harder to fight to keep that beauty alive. The future we want to experience—one of verdant, lush forests abundant with different plants and species right where we stand—is in our capacity to create. Even doing something as simple as going into nature, breathing with the trees, observing the plants you find is a step in the right direction. So next time that your dream of the future is clouded by despair and fear and you lose sight of what can be, maybe you’ll consider pausing for a moment, going out into nature, and bearing witness to the world around you that exists right here and right now.

 

And with that, we begin our play.