Nature and Love
Aldo Leopold describes a mentality, to “think like a mountain,” and just exactly what that means can be puzzling, or at least was to me. He seem to time and time again stress the necessity for personal connection with nature, for understanding and valuing life beyond a commodity and instead as a community. “[Nature] is [unfortunately] something to be tamed, rather than something to be understood, loved, and lived with. Resources are still regarded as separate entities, indeed, as commodities, rather than our cohabitants in the land-community” (Course Packet 212). I can see how a mountain could view all life as cohabitants in a land-community, but that seems to me to be because the mountain requires no services of, draws no value from, and can hardly interact with wildlife other than being the rock beneath their feet. It is a unique perspective devoid of needs, but full of aesthetic value. At first I did not see how a human could have such a perspective, needing food and shelter on a regular basis, until I looked out upon my backyard.
I am a regular suburban boy, I’ve never needed to hunt for my own food or create my own shelter in the wilderness. In my backyard I can look out and value everything I see through the lens of aesthetics. At home, I am the mountain, and although my entire family values nature, only I am the mountain. My mother has a couple gardens, some perennial and annual flowers that she cares for extensively during the summer months. She habitually runs out to scare off squirrels, rabbits or birds that threaten her precious plants, and fails to recognize the thriving community of life around her. She only sees her commodified beauty. I do not say this to fault my mother, she is a wonderful caring person, I merely seek to illustrate the cultural perspective that dominates how she view the world of our backyard. It is her labor versus the critters that would seek to destroy it.
I have often told myself that when I have my own yard I too will have gardens, but not of flowers. Well, perhaps a few that require little work, are native to the area/climate, and bloom fruit, seeds, or nuts. Mostly however I would plant vegetables that were easy to grow and favorites of rabbits and squirrels. I would have bird feeders around, posted under fruit trees that I did not harvest. I would post bat-boxes high in the trees. I would put forth all this labor, and reap none of its bounty. Well, not exactly, because I would have a porch that overlooked the world I had created and view it as the mountain. To me, seeing a few squirrels chasing each other in play, or a rabbit darting to and fro, is far prettier a sight than a row of perfect flowers that will wilt and die come the end of the season. There are two ducks that every year after winter return to a small pond that always happens to spring up, for a few weeks at a time, then fly off not to be seen until next year. The sight of them is far more appealing than any floral bloom. There are also two cardinals that live in my yard, the tree right out side my window as a matter of fact. I will never forget when I saw the male fly up to a branch, land, and have his female companion join him about three inches away on the same branch. Within moments the female hoped over and snuggled next to her man. It was the absolute cutest thing I had ever seen, and all winter long I feared for them having to brave the elements (luckily over Easter break I saw them and knew they were fine.) It was then that I knew other life felt love, and deserved it as much as any human.
Tangents aside, I know there was a time in human history when we had to labor against nature, brave the elements ourselves, and fight for ever day of our lives. Yet now we have supermarkets; I’ve never had nor ever hope to have a need to kill an animal myself directly. We have a reached an age where our human achievements allow us the luxury of no longer competing against nature. We are afforded the luxury of standing and looking out as the mountain does, needing or wanting nothing more than to bask in the beauty of life around us. We can be that mountain, we can sustain that life, we can blossom that beauty. And in truth I am not sure this is exactly what Leopold meant, but I sure hope it was.