Weather chit chat

There's more to Nature than sunshine

“I don’t want it to rain while I’m here,” said a summer resident earlier this year when he arrived at his mountain cabin. 

“We haven’t had rain in weeks. We really need it,” I responded.

“It can wait 10 days,” he said flatly.

Granted, my seasonal neighbor is from Florida, where it rains almost daily. He wants a reprieve. 

The problem with picture-perfect vacations

Beyond that superficial validation, my neighbor’s selfish attitude reveals more than his common desire for a vacation filled with sunshine. 

Hidden in weather talk are clues to what people believe they can demand – and expect – from Nature. In a few words he told me he’s mired in the lowest and most common relationship with Nature: A one-sided, selfish transaction centered only on human needs, desires and expectations. 

• We expect natural resources – including sunshine –to be there when we want them

• We take as much as we want without regard to the consequences to anyone else or Nature

• We believe there’s always more where that came from

Who should we point the finger at?

It’s easy to blame the polluting industries that extract natural resources and see the profitable, one-sided transactional relationship. We feel righteous indignation but blameless as individuals. 

The thing is, we’re just as, if not more guilty.

The one-way exchange that elevates human need as the center of any Nature experience has soaked into every part of our culture, from land use to travel to sports to religion.

Irreplaceable old growth forests are being leveled. Picturesque hotspots worldwide have been damaged by social media selfie-addicts using Nature as a sacrificial backdrop. Outdoor sports and recreation enthusiasts often don’t spend much time in Nature otherwise. Some blame Christian dominion theory for the unfettered exploitation of Nature.

So now we’re suffering from generations of denial that Nature isn’t getting much out of the relationship.

There’s more life beyond your door than you realize

My seasonal neighbor doesn’t care that the rain he doesn’t want maintains the health of the forest ecosystems in the long-range “million dollar view” he boasts about. In fact, he immediately cut down all the trees in his way.

He’s blind to the mesmerizing beauty in the different types of weather visible from his deck. 

Anything that is not sunshine-pretty generates apprehension. The mist and fog that settles in the gorges during a moist night trigger irrational fears of driving or complaints about the obstructed view. He’s oblivious to the innumerable cycles of life intertwined in the mountain landscape beyond his cabin walls, unless it’s caught by his video doorbell. 

Other than sunshine and his beautiful view, his relationship with Nature doesn’t extend beyond his door. Nature is “out there.”

Nature is beyond therapy

Sure, he recognizes that being out of the city feels good. He’s amazed at the quiet.

On a dim level he senses the healing effect of Nature even if he can’t name this second-level therapeutic relationship with Nature. But a therapeutic relationship with Nature is also one-sided and human-focused even while we’re appreciating the deeper qualities of Nature. It’s still all about what makes us feel better. 

But at least a therapeutic relationship can help us start to lift the cultural blinders and see we’re not the center of the universe. It can trigger our innate curiosity. 

Curiosity is the door to the awe and wonder that transforms our relationship with Nature and ourselves. In a split second, we can experience the transformational power of Nature when we realize although we’re a tiny part, we still belong to this unimaginably vast living world. 

And Nature is a part of us. No more one-way, human-first relationship. 

Fortunately, Nature is far more powerful, persistent and persuasive than I am. I’m trying to trust that with enough time Nature will win over my sunshine-demanding neighbor, even though it always rains on his vacation.