I Rejoice In The Natural World.

As a Natural Man I rejoice in the natural world.  All about me is beauty. 

I think of this each morning before the dawn when I bundle in my thick coat and leave the house to sit in Nature.  I take my seat the deck just off the sun room, looking out over the meadow, the rock garden, and the pine woods.  Here I watch the sky lighten, the clouds take up a lining of red, the stars fade into the brightening sky, and the birds begin to gather at the feeders.

Rejoice in Nature!  Exult and be glad in the natural world!  This is at the heart of living as the Natural Man.

How long have I reveled in Nature? 

I began in childhood.  In the wedge formed by Union Street and High Street were Fletcher Dole’s pastures.  Mr. Dole – as a small boy growing up in the 50s I would never have thought or dared of addressing him any other way – managed a dairy herd of registered Guernseys.  These grazed in one of several pastures, all bound by stone walls and a wire fence.  (Occasionally a heifer succeeded in breeching the fence, and Mom would find it calmly foraging on the lawn beside our house when she came home for lunch.)

I devoted a lot of time to being there alone in the pastures roaming and exploring.  On reflection, the moments spent there were special.  As a child I couldn’t put into words why this was so, any more than I can now.  But I felt at home.  I made a connection with something larger than myself.  It was as if Nature was reaching out to me without words, befriending me, embracing me.  I felt “at home” and connected with the divine in ways that Christianity never offered.

I have felt this connection and wholeness in other places as well: Hunt Road woods as a teenager, on the Grand Monadnock, in the red desert country, in Elk Meadow, and in the woods and meadows of my present home.  No religion of The Book can provide this sense of serenity.

I could expound my experience in any one of these places and more.  So can you.  What is your story?

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In the past month I have seen two buddies pass on from this natural life. 

Anson, the giant orange tabby tomcat that nobody wanted passed over just before Thanksgiving.  “Mister A” was my companion for nearly nine years.  A stray who eluded a local animal control officer for two years, he was brought to a shelter from which we adopted each other.  He helped through some difficult times. 

Leo, the little orange lion, died four weeks to the day that Anson passed on.  Leo was Boo Boo to Anson’s Yogi, his constant companion.  While kidney failure is the official cause of death, I suspect that he also had a broken heart and missed Anson terribly. 

Well, they are together now hopefully happily cuddled up somewhere.  Rest in peace, dear friends.  You are deeply missed.