Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
Diane AckermanRead
Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.
Interpretation
Nature often remains beyond our control, despite our advancements in technology.
Diane Ackerman's quote reflects on the unpredictability of nature, particularly during hurricane season. It serves as a reminder that no matter how advanced our technology becomes, we still cannot fully control or predict natural events, emphasizing the power and mystery inherent in the natural world.
In practice
A speaker at an environmental conference discussing the impacts of climate change.
Don't just live the length of your life - live the width of it as well.
We try to exile ourselves more and more from nature - not always consciously: We build houses; we dismiss nature; nature has to be outside, because we're inside. God forbid something like a cockroach comes inside, or some dust.
We ogle plants and animals up close on television, the Internet and in the movies. We may not worship the animals we see, but we still regard them as necessary physical and spiritual companions. Technological nature can't completely satisfy that yearning.
Because IQ tests favor memory skills and logic, overlooking artistic creativity, insight, resiliency, emotional reserves, sensory gifts, and life experience, they can't really predict success, let alone satisfaction.
American writer_x000D_ _x000D_ 1803-1882_x000D_ _x000D_ Play is our brain's favorite way of learning.
In rare moments of deep play, we can lay aside our sense of self, shed time's continuum, ignore pain, and sit quietly in the absolute present, watching the world's ordinary miracles. No mind or heart hobbles. No analyzing or explaining. No questing for logic. No promises. No goals. No relationships. No worry. One is completely open to whatever drama may unfold.
The tree that is beside the running water is fresher and gives more fruit.
As our cities and suburbs relentlessly expand, those priceless open spaces needed for recreation areas accessible to their people are swallowed up-often forever. Unless we preserve these spaces while they are still available, we will have none to preserve.
Nature is a book, a letter, a fairy tale (in the philosophical sense) or whatever you want to call it.
I have often noticed how primate groups in their entirety enter a similar mood. All of a sudden, all of them are playful, hopping around. Or all of them are grumpy. Or all of them are sleepy and settle down. In such cases, the mood contagion serves the function of synchronizing activities.
Many a night I saw the Pleiads,_x000D_ _x000D_ Rising thro' the mellow shade,_x000D_ _x000D_ Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies,_x000D_ _x000D_ Tangled in a silver braid.
Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.
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