It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.
Interpretation
This quote celebrates the beauty and essence of nature found in winter.
John Burroughs poetically captures the intricate and delicate elements of winter and nature. He emphasizes how every aspect of the winter season, from the beauty of frost to the purity of sunlight, is infused with a vibrant life force that invigorates the environment and inspires awe in observers.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of appreciating nature.
The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his life, large-brained, large-lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with buoyancy and his heart with song.
Naturalists, like poets, are born and then made only by years of painstaking observation.
Every walk to the woods is a religious rite, every bath in the stream is a saving ordinance. Communion service is at all hours, and the bread and wine are from the heart and marrow of Mother Earth.
Next to the laborer in the fields, the walker holds the closest relation to the soil; and he holds a closer and more vital relation to nature because he is freer and his mind more at leisure.
Some of the animals outsee man, outsmell him, outhear him, outrun him, outswim him, because their lives depend more upon these special powers than his does; but he can outwit them all because he has the resourcefulness of reason and is at home in many different fields.
Unadulterated, unsweetened observations are what the real nature-lover craves. No man can invent incidents and traits as interesting as the reality.
As long as man was small in numbers and limited in technology, he could realistically regard the earth as an infinite reservoir, an infinite source of inputs and an infinite cesspool for outputs. Today we can no longer make this assumption. Earth has become a space ship, not only in our imagination but also in the hard realities of the social, biological, and physical system in which man is enmeshed.
O Winter, ruler of the inverted year!
Every time I go to Africa, I feel like I hit true north. There is a depth of feeling that I have for the continent, in the richness of the people, the suffering , but also the transcendent joy that is there - it's like nowhere else on the planet.
What I love most about nature is how indifferent it is to us humans and human suffering. While we are here with our little or big tragedies - the wind is blowing, the leaves are rustling in the trees, the flowers bloom, and die - there's a great comfort in that indifference.
A fish is more valuable swimming in the sea maintaining the integrity of oceanic eco-systems than it is on anyone's plate.
Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature - The rustling of leaves in the wind, Raindrops falling, The humming of an insect, The first birdsong at dawn.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.