Nature is the nurturer, the provider, and the mother of creation. All these names we associate with nature, and we also realize that she constantly works to ensure everything is part of a life cycle. that cycle of life is disrupted by human interference, negligence, destruction, and a stripping of her precious resources. We take and we take never giving back, we never show the gratitude we should for her generosity. We think if resources are here today, they will remain for years to come. This false way of thinking obstructs our ability to perceive how severely we disrupt nature in not allowing her to take her course.
Throughout Windleberry's article, "Conservation and Local Economy" he stresses the fact that we take nature for granted and that we need to learn to coexist with nature and let her take her course. He best demonstrates this need through this quote,
"For one thing, though we have caused the earth to be seriously diseased, it is not yet without health. The earth we have before us now is still abounding and beautiful. We must learn again to see that present world for what it is. The health of nature is the primary ground of hope-if we can find the humility and wisdom to accept nature as our teacher."
He strongly believes that if we can not learn to let go and stop ravishing the planet before nature has time to correct our mistakes, there will be nothing for us in the future. The vital resources that still exist must last for generations to come.
Vivid pictures in the movie Walkabout, based on the book by James Vance Marshall, depict nature doing her duty and taking care of our world. Frequent references to insects eating dead animals create a powerful image of how nature links even death into the circle of life. The movie displays how humans can obstruct nature's duty. The scene where Mary wipes away the flies from the bush boy shows how she tried to prevent the inevitable. The movie also demonstrates how nature fixes man's mistakes, when the flies eat all the dead carcasses of the animals the hunters shot. Also, Mary and her brother take advantage of what they already have, and don't fill their water bottle. But, when they went to fill the bottle later, the water had disappeared. Our vision that everything lasts forever must change in order for us to take measures to prevent our barren future. No matter what we do, nature will find a way to correct our wrongs, but this overwhelming task needs help from us.
Another example of how we interfere and prevent nature's path is in the article from the New York Times called "The Quick and the Dead", by Galway Kinnell. In this article Galway describes how a dead animal in the wild provides food and new life for so many creatures. It is the end of one cycle of life, but the start of so many others. Then she describes what happens when we die-that we pack ourselves in airtight insulators and prevent nature continuing the life cycle with our dead bodies. After time, we become dust, and dust we remain. We do not help and bring forth new life, but remain useless entities of dust particles.
In order to prevent our fate of being useless mounds of dust, we must learn how we can manage our interactions with nature so that we don't have to make nature take a detour in her cycle of life. We must appreciate and give back the many blessings she bestowed on us. How could we live without her careful planning? We would die without the life-giving air she provides; the water she gives us; and, we would ultimately become useless mounds of dust. So, to overcome this fate, we must re-enter the cycle of life.
