Appreciate Nature
For countless years humans have been destroying and taking nature for granted; maybe it
is time for nature to teach humanity a lesson. Through the great works of Jane Goodall’s
scientific essay “American Burying Beetle,” Walt Whitman's poem “When I Heard the Learn’d
Astronomer,” Barbara Kingsolver's essay “Called Out,” and in the short story “My Life as a Bat”
by Margaret Atwood, we learn how to appreciate nature for its beauty. These works of writing
delve into unique aspects of the world around us and the lessons we can learn. The authors teach
us to appreciate the miracle of nature, celebrate the differences and similarities, and the
intelligence of nature.
Nature seems to be some sort of miracle in the eyes of people who love it. When flowers
miraculous started blooming in a desert of southern Arizona, many locals exclaimed that “God
had planted them!” (Kingsolver 42). Humans need to see the “miracle” of nature to start
appreciating it more. In “My Life as a Bat,” the narrator explained that the “Creator of bats” had
made the bats and gifted them with “all things” (Atwood 115, 116). The bats praised the
“Creator” and enjoyed all of the wonderful gifts of nature provided to them. Moreover, in “When
I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” the narrator steps into “the mystical moist night-air” to free
himself from all of the conformity and “charts and diagrams” that the world has come to know.
Instead, he encompasses himself in the beauty of the world outside. If humans took the time to
step away and appreciate the wonders and awe of nature, maybe the human race would not be so
quick to destroy it.
Between humans and nature, there are many connections, as well as diversity.
Kingsolver’s essay “Called Out” expresses how plant species “vary seed size” and have varying
“latency periods” exactly how humans come in...
