What is Nature?

Pattiann Rogers says, "Nothing that is goes against nature, because nature is the way things are."  What exactly is Nature?  Throughout her rant, Rogers smacks the reader in the nose with the juxtaposition of several provocative images and names.  "Pedophiles and saints equally are nature."  Dazed and teary-eyed from the initial impact of that left hook I came up with an idea of how I viewed Nature.  When I think of Nature I see everything beyond the hustle of everyday life, beyond the realm of chaos.  Outside of the bumper to bumper, pollution infested atmosphere there exists a tranquility - Nature.  After taking into account Rogers' views, I was forced to rethink my Mickey Mouse-crafted definition.  Rogers' goes on to say:

We cannot legitimately use the word "natural" as synonymous with the words "unsullied," "pure," or "righteous."

Nature is not just beautiful landscapes and exotic inhabitants; it is sometimes cruel and viscous.  From destructive hurricanes to uncontrollable floods and rabid animals to disease spreading insects, Nature embodies the "cruel and benevolent."  Maybe I was being naive but, in my opinion, when asked what nature is most people will give the Disney version.  The truth is that Nature holds as much horror and disgust as everyday life, which backs Rogers' essay.  I believe she sums up her entire piece with one quote:  Nature encompasses all contradictions.


Thoreau begins "Walking" by saying, "What I have been preparing to say is, that in Wildness is the preservation of the World."  At some point in time, whether stemming from an ice age or an atomic bomb, civilizations have been forced to survive in the wild.  Literally, the wild can be a person's savage or barbaric nature.  Somewhere inside everyone lives a primitiveness that may or may not come out.  To say a person is wild can mean they are crazy, where as a wild animal is something that is of the wilderness and cannot or should not be tamed.  But I'm not sure if Thoreau sees Wildness and Wilderness as the same thing.  I believe the Wildness is something beyond the status quo.  If the world fell to a nuclear holocaust, everything would become chaos and wildness.  The Wilderness is beyond the boundaries of modern civilization.


Thoreau, who speaks highly of himself as a man of the Wild, looks down on modern civilization.  The odor of musquash on the trapper's coat is a much sweeter scent to him than that of the merchant's or the scholar's garments.  He finds wonderment and beauty in everything these civilized people would see as below them or a means of exploitation.  "I seek the darkest wood," Thoreau says.  His sanctuary lies in the deepest corners of Earth where the fearful refuse to explore.  


Speaking of Nature, Thoreau states that "her chronicles inform us when her wild animals, but not when the wild man in her, became extinct."  Although I am probably not the epitome of the wild man in nature, they do exist.  I would not say the wild man is extinct, maybe just dying off.  I believe that as long as man exists the possibility of the wild man can not be disregarded.  Society today continues to push towards less freedoms and less wildness.  Thoreau is correct in saying that "all good things are wild and free."  The more we are restricted and confined, the less use we have just as the tanned skins of tigers used for shoes "is not the best use to which they can be put."


A challenge for my writing is this course.  I have not done any type of nature writing.  Nature and the environment have always caught my attention whether it be walking through the woods, building a tree house as a kid, or spending hours watching Planet Earth on the Discovery channel.  Through this course I want to shed the clothes of the spectator; I want to become or at least find the wild man inside me.