I’m glad this was a topic I could choose from because its a topic I’ve been pondering for a few months now. It involves my fascination with the natural world and mother nature herself, starting when I broke my phone.

We all know that feeling. Normal day. Normal worries. Nothing out of the norm, when you drop your phone and it comes up cracked. Stressed me out. I wouldn’t have access to a phone for a few days and it makes you realize how much we rely on them for almost everything. I found myself constantly checking my pocket as if I was gonna grab my phone, look at it, and cure my boredom.

Then it hit me. Why am I bored? Theres absolutely no reason to be bored. Theres so much going on around me, so much beauty in my life, and so many amazing things happening to the world im set in. Most of this beauty and awesomeness stemming from nature itself and the gifts it has for me and the rest of my peers. Whether it was the colors on the leaves in front of my forehead, the delicious fruits I ate for my lunch, or the warm sun breathing against my back. It was these things that I’d lost touch with. The very things that gave me life, growth, and prosperity to become the human I am today. It wasn’t the text message from Emily on my phone, or the new follower I had on instagram, or the email about new job opportunities in my local area. It was nature. The very thing I was erected from. The atoms, the tissue, the matter that composed my physical body, bred from the mother that is nature. In that moment of realization, I understand how insignificant some of the things were in my life that held so much significance and meaning and power over me. It was oppressing me and I had no clue. It was as if a burden had been lifted off my chest and the fog in my mind cleared. I was in awe.

I wish I had come to this realization on purpose rather than by accident, but maybe it was better this way. It hit me like a truck because I wasn’t expecting it, and that made the epiphany all the more powerful. Ever since then, I’ve noticed things I would normally have shrugged off and thought of as meaningless, obsolete, or unimportant to myself.

Over spring break I visited family in the Bay Area, outside of San Francisco. I visited many of the local reserve parks. The one that really solidified my realization about nature, and set in stone a voice of omnipresent spirituality about mother earth was the Henry Cowell Red Wood park. Home to the tallest trees in the world. Such a beautiful organism growing from the earth, and only 5% of the original population that once thrived in that area, all destroyed by urbanization. It made we wonder just how powerful nature was, to be able to create such a massive plant that probably harbored thousands of other lifeforms on its mast. And I realized, nature is a very powerful, resilient, and fruitful thing that should be cherished, respected, and symbiotically utilized.